HotSchedules is a phenomenal tool for the food/beverage industry
Updated May 04, 2017

HotSchedules is a phenomenal tool for the food/beverage industry

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with HotSchedules

HotSchedules is implemented across our company, a multi-unit corporation, as it allows for a stream lined approach to immediate communication, scheduling, and labor management with our entire team. HotSchedules allows for immediate access to all of our locations no matter where I am located. The ease of communication with specific staff members or our entire employee roster with one simple click and a few minutes of typing compared to the hours it would typically take without such a platform is a great time saver.
  • Streamlines communication and scheduling staff. Once you truly understand the capabilities of the HotSchedule platform and train your staff on the ease of using it, management saves hours of work each and every week. Management can then have more time to truly manage.
  • Employees will be able to arrange schedule swaps, change availability, and communicate with one another all in one location. Obviously management must approve said changes, however it is no longer managements responsibility to make these changes, remember requests, availability changes, that is all done, saved, and implemented for them.
  • The customer care team at HotSchedules has always been helpful and a pleasure to work with. This is not a company that is willing to take your money, but provide no service to its customers.
  • The messaging system should be able to send attachments such as pdf's to make distribution of company materials easier. Whenever we do a menu change, it would be very helpful to have the ability to drop a pdf version of the menu into a company wide message.
  • The scheduler should be available through their mobile application platform. The application is great, however it would be more convenient to be able to create schedules from said platform rather than needing to log in from a standard web browser
  • The scheduler is not compatible with apple/OsX commands or the scroll up/down in a web browser. Windows platform is works seamlessly, however the use of Apple products can be less than easy when utilizing the scheduler to its fullest capacity.
ProsCons
Quick Resolution
Good followup
Knowledgeable team
Problems get solved
Kept well informed
No escalation required
Immediate help available
Support understands my problem
Support cares about my success
Quick Initial Response
None
In the food/beverage/hospitality industry, HotSchedules is a phenomenal tool. It saves time and makes managing a more seamless experience for both manager and employee. It works especially well for FOH applications, as many of the service staff are very tech savvy and pick up the features and abilities of this tool very quickly. It is still very useful for the BOH application, however the typical staff member requires more instruction and training on the function and capacity of the program.

Using HotSchedules

150 - HotSchedules is used by nearly every single employee within the company. Whether that be owners, management, as well as FOH & BOH staff members. This assists in connecting every employee with one another, enabling communication and organization to flow up and down the chain of command in a very short period of time.
3 - We have a dedicated IT position that communicates directly with HotSchedules if we have a request for further instructions or training staff members to use the interface. We also have our HR representatives at each restaurant location that continuously maintain current records of employees for management to properly schedule employees without the concern of first entering or removing an employee from the system. All of this could be combined into one specific job, or, have the responsibilities delegated to members of the management teams at each location. We have found our system to work most effective for our current business model.
  • Daily responsibility of organizing/scheduling of staff members
  • Streamline communication between all staff members, no matter what position one may hold.
  • Budget forecasting of labor
  • Staff members have utilized the messaging feature in the interface for work purposes, it has also provided a safe platform for staff to communicate with one another without the need to exchange personal contact information.
  • Distribute study materials to every staff member instantly
  • Certification expiration not only allows for notification when expired, but also daily reminders of the upcoming expiration to all management staff.
  • Would like to be able to signify when a staff member is on paid vacation. As of this point, the fact that ah hourly employee can be on paid leave however the paid time does not reflect in the forecasting of labor costs. Would like to have this as a feature for the fact I would be able to track paid vacation days digitally and be able to produce evidence or lack there of to support which days were considered PTO and Uncompensated Leave of Absence.
  • Scheduler would be much quicker if a mobile interface could utilized to write it.
  • Employee documentation would be helpful and create an environment of less

HotSchedules Support

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.
HotSchedules has been very helpful in every issue that has arisen, however the most help received was with the installation and original training of staff members. Now that we have used this system for years, we are fairly well versed in its operation, but if there is an issue that arises, they are always very quick to find a resolution.