Independent, Full-Service Restaurants

A large independent resort and casino located in Las Vegas was enjoying the benefits gained from a successful workforce management program that Carpedia Hospitality had implemented alongside the resort’s management team. With a 10% uplift in labor productivity in the in-scope departments, the hotel operator was eager to witness the same benefit in four of the third-party vendor restaurants with which it partners within the resort.

THE CHALLENGE:

Carpedia Hospitality was engaged to implement a similar workforce management program in addition to identifying opportunities for service delivery enhancement through labor optimization. All four restaurants were independent operations, and each had different time and attendance systems and limited labor management reporting. This, along with several different management procedures, practices and styles added to the challenge.

Observations were conducted throughout the front and back of house of each restaurant to identify opportunities followed by in-depth data analyses. The work uncovered that the restaurants’ forecasts lacked accuracy and this was having a negative impact on the ability to manage labor proactively. Additionally, given the high volume that took place at the restaurants, the operations lacked tools to measure if labor was scheduled sufficiently for the day which frequently resulted in inconsistent guest experiences.

THE SOLUTIONS:

In order to address the challenges, Carpedia Hospitality implemented management tools that tied into each of the existing systems which allowed for more accurate forecasting by meal period which lead to more accurate labor projections. The forecasting model was designed to appreciate the unique pick-up patterns for each restaurant and integrated city-wide business and property-specific volume patterns. In addition, standardized reporting that compared the scheduled and actualized labor hours against empirically devised labor standards was implemented and allowed for the reporting to dovetail into the resort’s recently installed labor management methodology. Additionally, these tools allowed for management to deepen its understanding of how to routinely evaluate all variable costs at varying revenue levels in order to maintain profit models.

THE RESULTS:

The results of the program included an 8% – 12% improvement in wages and benefits for each of the restaurants. Management became much more knowledgeable at controlling its labor which resulted in improvements in both the restaurants’ financial performance and in the guest experience. Beyond the P&L, there were strong spin-off benefits. Despite the different systems that were being used in each of the restaurants, the work that Carpedia Hospitality conducted resulted in a uniform output so that all stakeholders could analyze data in a more methodical and organized way which ultimately enhanced the visibility into the operations of the partner restaurants. This enabled a more transparent, strategic and broad approach for managing the restaurants and the decision-making for all stakeholders, effectively eliminating guess work. The business objectives between each of the partner restaurants and the management of the resort became more aligned through proactive visibility and data-driven variance control which led to enhanced communication between the different restaurants. The project was not only a success for the resort’s and the restaurants’ bottom-lines but could also be used as a framework for the restaurant brands’ other locations.