HotSchedules is a cloud-based scheduling, labor and communication management software solution serving the restaurant and hospitality industry. According to the vendor, key benefits include: Build & Communicate Schedules The scheduling and labor management software reduces the time it takes managers to create and communicate schedules. All scheduling and employee information is stored in one central location, so managers have access to time-off requests,…
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Zoho People
Score 8.9 out of 10
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Zoho People is an efficient Human Resources Management System that automates daily tasks. It also offers Performance Management and Learning Management resources.
For small to medium-sized companies HotSchedules works great when business is very static. If you are simply using HotSchedules for a schedule writing tool, it is phenomenal. However, it does miss the mark as a labor control software. Needs more controls to keep managers aware of spending versus historical sales data.
Zoho People is well suitable in both Remote & work location setups, It will reduce the time for senior management to track their attendance and other activities. It helps a lot in getting the info of their colleagues. Able to request for leave and get approval at the same place and the interesting thing is no need to note it down as it will automatically fall to the respective employee's attendance tracker. It is well useful in remote settings. This is the problem we faced and Zoho People is the solution for us.
Communication is so simple on HotSchedules. Whether it is communicating a new schedule release, or a quick note about tonight's shift we as managers are able to easily communicate and know that it will reach our team through text notifications, or email notifications.
The Meal Break planning tool is very useful in being able to help our floor leaders clearly understand and plan for what breaks are needed throughout the shift. This allows them to come up with a strategic game plan quickly and spend more time with our guests.
Shift Swaps and Releases are so seamless. This is our favorite tool as it makes helping our team cover shifts extremely easy and painless. On the flip side it also makes staff who want more hours be able to find what is available in real time.
Clocking In and out can be a little slow. It takes longer to clock in then our previous method. Before we just had a card you swiped and it would clock you in. Took 2 seconds. Now with the Hotschdules method we use it take 30 seconds or so. Not a huge issue but it can add up if you have one computer and a line of employees waiting to clock in.
Time Cards. It does not allow you to view someones current time until the "punch" has ended. If the manager would like to check what time the employee clocked in/out from lunch they have to wait until the employee has clocked out for the day before the record is generated. As a shift lead you may send and employee to lunch but forget to note what time you sent them. Awhile passes and you feel like they should be back by now, so you want to go in and see what time they left for lunch but it does not show you that punch record because the employee is still "clocked in" they are just on their "Meal Break"
The ability to customize the restrictions for Clocking in and out. You can set it up so that employees can only clock in from a specific location, however if you have a manager who is allowed to work from home they would not be able to clock in without being at the same location as set in the software. It would be nice to see it able to be customized per user.
Customer Support- Occasionally support response to questions can take a bit to get to the root issue, which can be frustrating from the technical side of running the system. However, the 24/7 availability is great.
Onboarding Features- Could use some improvements. Not as expansive as other Zoho People features.
6 Years of Experience provides me the insight on the upgrades and changes that HotSchedules has done to improve the experience of its users. There are so many features that we still have not started or used to the fullest, but we believe that we are currently getting a strong value out of the money that is paid for this product.
On rare occasions a phone call has been required to find the solution to a problem, the HotSchedules response staff have been helpful, courteous, and genuinely seem to care for their clients and take pride in what they do. The consistent development and fine tuning of the platform, interface, and mobile environment shows that this is not a program full of people who rest on their laurels.
I have not used any other Scheduling software for employees. As a campground manager in the summer season, we are using campground master for reservations. it is very similar in process to employee scheduling. the ability to the user of that program to set up their own parameters for time and reservations is something that would benefit the employee scheduling software.
We only use Zoho People because it is part of our Zoho One suite. We originally used Zenefits, which was great for hiring/onboarding, and we currently use Employee Navigator to manage benefits and PTO, which is much easier to use than Zoho People. As of now, Zoho People is very buggy when it comes to managing PTO and there is currently no real benefits management or onboarding process that's easy to use.
Saving time on scheduling means our managers can focus more on guest experience, managing the floor and other areas that contribute to the success of our business.
For us, the time/attendance tracking function of Zoho People has done a lot to increase accountability for scheduling and attendance. Since we are a volunteer staff, scheduling can be difficult, and this has made it so much easier to quantify and track everyone's weekly time commitments.
