by Abby Henson | Apr 11, 2018 | Blogs
S4Labour is leading workforce management software for the hospitality industry.
Since 2011, its innovative visual analysis of hourly sales data, taken direct from EPoS integrations, has allowed operators to optimise staff deployment, resulting in lower costs and increased sales. The feature-rich package also significantly reduces administrative time for its users. The fully-integrated HR module, covering everything from digital contracts to employee appraisals, allows managers to spend less time in the office and more leading their teams in delivering great experiences to customers.
Increasingly, hospitality firms are realising the huge value S4Labour brings to their businesses. This has seen the milestone of 1,000 active sites recently reached, driven by impressive 60% sales growth in 2017.
Already in 2018, several first-rate operators with superb reputations have rolled out with S4Labour, joining the ranks of award-winning firms using the software. These include Revolution Bars, who manage a nationwide estate of 73 premium late-night venues, and Oakman Inns, a growing collection of 25 high-end pub-restaurants across the South East and South Midlands. Completing a trio of auspicious new clients is Butcombe Brewery, who have implemented S4Labour into their 24-strong West Country managed pub estate, which they plan to double in size in coming years.
We are delighted to welcome these new operators to S4Labour, and eagerly anticipate sharing in their future successes.
Want to join these fantastic companies in controlling labour spend and driving increased sales? Contact us to book an S4Labour demonstration today.
by Abby Henson | Mar 23, 2018 | Blogs
On May 25th, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into effect. The new laws oblige businesses to amend the way they interact with data in a world with an increasingly technological outlook.
GDPR impacts on the way we interact with employee data
As such, we have reviewed, audited, and documented our processes, and have made appropriate changes. How the GDPR affects S4Labour and its users.
How the GDPR affects S4Labour and its users
Under the GDPR, S4Labour is considered to be a data processor, as we give our clients access to our software, and hold their employees’ data on our servers. Our customers are considered to be data controllers.
What we’re doing…
Personal Data
We have documented all personal data that we hold, its source, and who can access it. We never share any personal data with any third party organisations unless advised to do so by clients.
Access Rights on S4Labour
We have reviewed the different user access levels in S4Labour, and the data users can access, ensuring it is appropriate and relevant to their role. This also applies internally; we have revised what our own staff can access and amend.
Exchanging Data
We require a secure transfer of data from clients. As data controllers, it is the responsibility of clients to be compliant in this.
Logging into S4Labour
We have evaluated our current log-in process and will be making appropriate changes. We will differentiate the password process security process based on system access rights, with greater authentication required for higher level users.
Online data is securely protected
Our Contracts
We are currently reviewing our contracts with customers and amending terminology where required to ensure compliance. We will be contacting clients ahead of May 25th with revised contracts where necessary.
Data Protection & Security Policy
Our policy has been reviewed and updated in line with GDPR.
Privacy Policy
We are updating the privacy policies on our websites for increased transparency and full compliance.
Communication & Marketing
We are reviewing how we communicate with our customers and will implement a policy of communicating system information to users in a way that is fully compliant with GDPR and maximises visibility of important messages.
And now for the technical part…
Our data is stored on EC2 General Purpose SSD encrypted volumes using an AES-256 algorithm, so all stored data is encoded at rest. We take a snapshot every day, which is also encoded, which can be used for disaster recovery. In the worst-case scenario, we can lose up to one day’s worth of files. Hourly backups are made to Dropbox, and transferred using SSL/TSL 256-bit AES keys. Dropbox is encoded using 128-bit AES keys. S4Labour itself uses SSL/TLS SHA 256 encoding to protect data in motion, and is certified using a 2048 RSA certificate authenticated by Go Daddy Secure Certificate Authority.
We take GDPR compliance and the protection of our customers’ data very seriously. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
by Abby Henson | Mar 14, 2018 | Blogs
The champagne corks were popping for two S4Labour customers, who claimed category wins as the prestigious Publican Awards last night.
Seafood Pub Company claim their trophy
Seafood Pub Company, who manage twelve sites in the North West of England, saw off stiff competition to secure the coveted Best Food Offer prize. They pride themselves on an ethos of sourcing quality local produce to serve classic British dishes and fresh seafood specials, and have quickly built a superb reputation, having previously won the same award in 2015. They began using S4Labour’s innovative labour management software in May 2016 and have thrived since, adding two new sites to their estate.
Meanwhile, Anglian Country Inns, themselves twice previous winners of the Best Food Offer Award, received vindication for their recent investment in their overnight offer, taking home the coveted Best Accommodation Operator title. Their estate covers eight destination pubs with rooms spread across Norfolk and Hertfordshire, and have won a host of awards and plaudits for their stunning refurbishments of historic English inns. They became S4Labour customers in early 2015 and their directors have often spoken warmly of the relationship between the two companies at industry events since.
We work with a large number of fantastic operators from all sectors of hospitality and are delighted to share in their successes. We wish the hard-working and high-achieving teams at Seafood Pub Company and Anglian Country Inns our warmest congratulations.
by Abby Henson | Mar 14, 2018 | Blogs, Sales Figures
Life & Soul is a multi-site hospitality operator based in Cheshire. Its directors previously ran the DV8 cocktail bars brand and following the sale of two sites last year established Life & Soul as a new entity. The company has flourished since, with its Rumba Macclesfield venue claiming the Best Turnaround prize at the prestigious Great British Pub Awards 2017.
We caught up with Managing Director Martin Holmes – who has been using S4Labour in his sites since early 2016 – to discuss his business, its development, and how S4Labour helps drive its sustained success.
A typical night at Rumba
Can we have a quick introduction to your business?
We currently run three venues in Cheshire. At the core of the business is the Rumba brand, two wet-led sites offering cocktails to a lively crowd. We also operate The Castle Inn, a destination country pub with an emphasis on fresh, local, quality food. We’re growing fast and are in the process of opening a third Rumba, the biggest yet with a more developed food offer, as well as a fine dining restaurant, Cloud View, also in Cheshire.
How was the company founded and developed to its current form?
Chris Carsons, our CEO opened the first DV8 Bar in 2008. I have known Chris for around 12 years, but our paths crossed again in 2015 through my audit work. Together, we quickly saw the potential of the business, adding sites and developing the Rumba concept. Last year we took the decision to sell the DV8 sites to focus on Rumba. We’re still eager to operate quality venues outside of Rumba when the right opportunities arise, so took on the lease to the Castle Inn just outside Congleton. It’s a traditional country pub on the fringes of the Staffordshire Moorlands, and is equally popular with tourists and the local crowd. It’s been a great success so far, with like for like sales up 40% since we took over.
How is the business structured today?
We try to keep a flat structure, with lots of communication between the sites and senior management, and management taking an active interest in operations at site level. We’ve been investing in our infrastructure to allow for future growth, so have recently appointed two accounts administrators to bring our payroll in house, but wherever possible we promote internally. Since we started out, 90% of the appointments to management positions in our sites have been internal promotions, and we’re very proud of that.
The stunning Castle Inn, Congleton
What makes Life & Soul unique and successful?
We’ve always worked with a passion for delivering exceptional food, drink, and service, and it’s a mantra we embrace at all time, whether it’s 1AM on a Friday night in Rumba, or the middle of Sunday lunch service in the Castle Inn. We recognise that people are at the heart of this, so always aim to build great relationships with everyone from our bar staff, to our suppliers, to our landlords at Punch Taverns. We know how hard our teams work, so reward staff with trips to trade shows and the football, and give our managers a fund to spend on visiting other hospitality venues for inspiration. This means that we have very low employee turnover, especially in management positions – we’ve had one manager leave in three years – and as a result have a highly skilled and motivated workforce, dedicated to bringing special experiences to our customers. This was recognised in our category victory at the Great British Pub Awards last year, which was a fantastic reward for the hard work of everyone in our business.
What led you to decide that an advanced labour management solution would be of benefit to Life & Soul?
When we started out everything was very basic, with our labour managed using pen and paper and Excel spreadsheets. While that may have worked in the old days, it became clear that to build a business capable of expanding and thriving in the 21st century we needed to engage intelligent, modern systems across our operations.
What led you to decide that S4Labour was the best option?
After researching the market, I decided to implement Bleep EPoS across our sites. The people at Bleep recommended S4Labour as a great system for reducing costs, saving time, and giving insight into operations across multiple sites. From the first demonstration I could see that it would be a critical tool in our future.
S4Labour takes hourly sales data directly from Life & Soul’s EPoS
What other tools do you use in your business, and how have these been able to operate alongside, or been enhanced by, S4Labour?
The integration between S4Labour and our Bleep till systems has been a real asset, as it removes the task of manually entering sales into reports for our managers, and gives us detailed insight into sales by hour across all areas of our sites. We also manage our time and attendance through the integrated system, with staff clocking in and out on the EPoS terminals and S4Labour highlighting discrepancies from their scheduled shifts. It’s a massive improvement on our previous timesheet process.
The payroll exports we take from S4Labour conveniently feed our payroll process, making sure everyone gets paid correctly. Also, the reports we get from our reservation software reinforce what S4Labour shows us about busy and quiet times in our sites, allowing us to best deploy staff.
How have processes changed as a result of using S4Labour?
We have a group of very bright, young, enthusiastic managers who have really taken to S4Labour. Administrative time has been massively reduced with the removal of manual processes, and the engagement of hourly-paid staff with their roles has been improved by giving employees access to their rotas and holiday management tools online. From a head office perspective, we have been given such clarity of insight into our operations that we are able to make top level decisions with real confidence.
How has your experience been with S4Labour’s HR Module?
The HR Module has been a relatively recent introduction for us, and we’re in the process of transitioning to use the full functionality, but it’s evident that it’s a really useful tool. Bringing all HR documentation into one online space is a huge benefit, and the digital contracts are a particularly valuable feature. Disciplinary issues and grievances are very rare in our business, but the tools for managing them online will be very welcome when they do arise.
How has your relationship been with individuals within S4Labour?
Having a support desk service at S4Labour seven days a week is a real benefit, and the support staff have always been very helpful and timely in their responses. We’ve been working closely with our account manager Tobias recently, and I can’t fault his knowledge or effort. I know he comes from an operational background with some very good companies, so we always feel his guidance comes from a wealth of relevant experience.
Tobias Collison oversees Life & Soul’s S4Labour account
What’s next for Life & Soul?
Expansion is very much in our sights. We’re making good progress on the new Rumba and Cloud View sites and have our eyes open for more opportunities. With the help of S4Labour, our core infrastructure is in such good shape that we believe we’re in a position to add three or four further sites in the next few years. We don’t want to grow so fast we prejudice the high standards we pride ourselves on setting, but we’re confident that we’ve done the groundwork that will allow us to react quickly when the right opportunities do arise.
How do you plan to use S4Labour in the future to further improve processes and drive ongoing success?
We will continue the work we have started to streamline our HR processes through S4Labour, and as we add more sites will doubtless benefit from the easy visibility of trading conditions across the estate it brings, as well as the functionalities, like employee transfers, specifically designed for multi-site operators. The cost-saving aspect of S4Labour will continue to promote our profitability through the next few years and hopefully beyond.
What challenges do you face?
We’re generally pretty confident that we have our business in condition to deal with whatever tomorrow brings, but like most, we’re currently feeling the uncertainty surrounding Brexit. We may well see a labour shortage in the big cities, which would have a knock-on affect for the wider industry, so we’ll have to continue to ensure that working for us is an attractive prospect for the most talented individuals. Rents, business rates, and commodity costs are all on the rise, so keeping our labour spend down without compromising service, which S4Labour allows us to do, is a real benefit to us.
What advice would you give another operator that was looking to engage S4Labour?
I would certainly recommend it. There’s no way we could be doing what we are today without S4Labour. I would advise them to take a detailed and honest look at their current processes and identify the areas S4Labour could save them time and money. With the value of the savings across single and multiple sites and the quality of insight the reports give, the decision should be a simple one.
Are you able to give any tangible figures for savings you’ve achieved by using S4Labour?
I can say that we have comfortably saved 5% on our labour bill. It’s hard to put a cash figure on that as our number of sites has been fluid over the last couple of years, but it’s safe to say that the financial and time savings have been a significant factor in our success.
by Abby Henson | Mar 9, 2018 | Blogs
S4Labour CEO Alastair Scott was featured in the latest edition of the always excellent “Friday Opinion” series of articles published by Propel Info, one of UK hospitality’s most respected institutions.
S4Labour CEO Alastair Scott
In response to a previous piece written by the Thai Leisure Group’s James Hacon, Alastair discussed the challenges and opportunities that define the burgeoning relationship between hospitality brands and technology providers.
The article can be read in full below.
James Hacon’s article recently was, as a technology provider and an operator, very interesting and thought provoking reading in Friday Opinion. His core argument is the big technology players are reluctant to integrate with the smaller players, and even more so when they have a competing product. This is hampering innovation and just as importantly leading to a less efficient and/or effective sector.
My first point is this is understandable. The small players have most to gain from openness and the large ones the most to lose. Just watch how Apple has changed from arguing against the Microsoft machine to in effect adopting the Microsoft position now it is big enough to want to close out the competition. As a supplier that is transitioning from a small supplier to a larger one, I really do understand both arguments. So we should all understand in any commercial world that is how people will rationally behave. Therefore, the real question is what can operators do to ensure they have the freedom to choose the best systems and select a group of products that works for them?
My advice is to only work with people you trust and can have a relationship with. The cost of adopting most technology platforms is not in the cost of the product but in the substantial effort and energy it takes the organisation to change the working practices to make the most of the technology. As an operator we have had three different restaurant booking systems in four years and we wish we had made the right decision first time around. In my view it is more important to pick a partner that has a similar philosophy than the partner with the best product right now. For me that philosophy would critically include how they want to take the product forward, and also their attitude towards integration.
We have struggled with determining the right position regarding integrations. However, now we offer free access to the data we hold on behalf of our customers. Our commercial argument for this is other suppliers will be keener to work with us and thus will recommend us more positively and more frequently than our competitors. This integration decision is, of course, harder when your competition may have a competing product, but if you believe your product is the best product on the market it makes that decision much easier, which we of course do.
I believe we are only at the start of a major software revolution in the hospitality sector. Historically, because we run small individual units, the software costs have been prohibitive. With the software as a service model reducing the large upfront costs of purchasing software for a site, lots of sites can use the same platform giving a small site great massive economies of scale they haven’t been able to access before.
And so I think once we really apply our brains there will be lots more solutions, and they will come thick and fast. My advice to all operators is to understand your providers’ approach to your data and make sure that it works for you. But then I would say that wouldn’t I – we still think like a small player.
