We are thrilled to have the team at Mercatto in the Schedulefly Family. We recently asked their GM, Melanie, exactly why she choose to use our online restaurant staff scheduling software at their restaurant – and what they did before Schedulefly. Here is what she sent back. It is awesome and really helps shed some light on the areas that we are helping restaurants.

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Hi Wil – Glad to be on board! I’m actually a repeat Schedulefly customer, so there is really no before Schedulefly for me in my current position. I started using Schedulefly at the Drake Hotel (as the Director of Food and Beverage) in January of last year. By the second week of using Schedulefly, the paper schedule and employee bulletin board were history. When I assumed the General Manager position at Mercatto College, signing up for Schedulefly was one of my first initiatives, I could not imagine scheduling or communicating with the staff any other way after my Drake experience. It had reduced time spent making the schedule by 75% and virtually eliminated all time spent managing the schedule (shift trades, staff calling in sick, staff calling in for their schedule, time off requests, cutting staff, adding staff, changing start times, schedule costing, forecasting). At the Drake, with a FOH team of 100+, between creating a weekly schedule of 300+ shifts and managing the schedule day to day, the total manager hours spents was easily 35+ hours a week, so having Schedulefly on board was almost like having an additional manager on board. Add the time saved not having to repeat key information day in day out to a staff that is 40% part-time and work a range of shifts over a 24 hour operating period and you have a much less frazzled management team.

At Mercatto, the staff is much smaller (20 FOH staff and 80 shifts), but the communication and training benefits make it an invaluable resource. Communication is the key to success in any restaurant and, leading to better customer service from a well informed staff, clarity of expectations and an increased sense of inclusiveness and teamwork. We use schedule fly to broadcast the notes from daily briefings so everyone knows what to expect coming in for their shift, to broadcast new specials, provide important training information, update contest results, share guest reviews, highlight important personal achievements outside work and to let staff promote their outside interest to other staff. Using the Flynotes is an effective way to manage the never ending to dos for managers and provides great management insight into the business as well as providing an instant read on labour costs versus forecasted business levels to keep labor optimized for bottom line performance. In addition, the employee notes are a great way to keep track of performance issues and highlights, all maintained in one convenient, accessible location.

There were a number of other on-line scheduling options available before deciding on Schedulefly with more or less bells and whistles, but ultimately the decision came down to the most important user: the staff. Schedulefly provides an intuitive, fun and user friendly interface that encourages interactivity. At both the Drake and Mercatto, I’ve found that at least 50% of the staff logs in once a day or more another 25% logs in at least once every two days. Bells and whistles are meaningless if the staff doesn’t actively use the product.

Mercatto College Street is the newest of the three Mercatto restaurants in downtown Toronto, owned by brothers Jack and Domenic Scarangella. Mercatto serves simple and fresh Italian cuisine paired with a Wine Spectator Award winning all Italian wine list. A fourth store is opening soon in the Eaton Centre this fall!

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