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The Beautiful Pubs Collective

by | Apr 15, 2024 | Customer Stories, Multi Site

Case Study

The Beautiful Pubs Collective 

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Beautiful Pubs Overview

The Beautiful Pubs Collective partnered with S4labour towards the end of 2023. The Leicester-based business operates three sites: Knight & Garter, The Forge Inn and Rutland & Derby, all offering great food, drink and service.  

With over 90 team members and three very busy sites, Beautiful Pubs wanted a solution that could help them schedule their teams the most effectively to help save time and grow sales, without overspending on their labour budget.  

Company Name: The Beautiful Pubs Collective
Business Type: Multi Site
Date: April 2024

Beautiful Pubs

“With effective deployment, we are able to match sales demand hour-by-hour, which means we do not overspend.”

Rosalie Hagger

People and Experience Manager, The Beautiful Pubs Collective

Challenge

Before S4labour, the team at Beautiful Pubs were not using a workforce management system for their rotas, H.R. and payroll.  

When it came to scheduling their teams, this meant that they were not always aware of their live spend, which sometimes led to unexpected labour costs.  

Their employees were signing in and out on paper documents, meaning their recorded hours were not always accurate. In turn, this impacted labour costs and payroll at the end of every month.  

Managers were being approached by staff members about absences, time off requests and holiday accrual in person, which was time-consuming and led to more admin.  

What were they looking for in a solution?

When moving to S4labour, Beautiful Pubs were looking for a solution that could help them to streamline all their operational processes.  

They wanted to be able to manage their labour in line with sales demand, to achieve excellent service and maximise sales across the business.

Results

Now using S4labour, everything they need to manage their teams to be their best, is in one easily accessible place.  

With effective deployment, the team at Beautiful Pubs are able to match sales demand hour-by-hour so they aren’t overspending on their labour.  

With S4 Manage, their manages have real-time in-hand control over the day-to-day running of each site. They can view and analyse site performance, and amend staff rotas as operational needs evolve, as well as record any absences with ease.  

Using S4 Insights has given them collective visibility of forecasts, budgets and sales across all three sites.  

Using the employee app, S4 Connect, has given their teams complete access to their rotas, including shift briefs, slack tasks and incentives for every day. Teams are able to see booked and accrued holiday, as well request future holidays and ‘not available’ shifts. Staff members also have access to all their personal information and documents, including contracts and RTW, all in one place.  

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Gardner garages

by | Mar 22, 2024 | Convenience Stores, Customer Stories, Multi Site

Case Study

How Gardner Garages manage labour cost using S4labour

Company Name: Gardner Garages
Business Type: Forecourt and convenience
Date: March 2024

About Gardner Garages

“The Gardner family have been fuelling the Gloucestershire motorist for over 50 years.”

Gardner Garages joined S4labour almost a year ago. The forecourt business own and operate 6 petrol stations (Texaco and BP fuel) and one town centre convenience store, all with Londis and Budgens fascia.

Emma the Managing Director of Gardner Garages Limited has ran the business for over 25 years. Emma oversees the operations of the company, ensuring that the businesses run efficiently and cost effectively while ensuring they get the most sales and profit from their sites as they can.

 

 

 

“We wanted something that made running the business proactive rather than reactive and can address any concerns with labour costs with Managers before they become an issue. Since we have started using S4labour we have far more day-to-day control over labour costs as we can see all seven sites on one dashboard and act accordingly.”

Emma Gardner

Managing Director , Gardner Garages

Escaping Spreadsheet Limitations

One of the major problems managers faced prior to using S4labour was that everything was done manually- rotas were produced on excel worksheets, printed out and displayed on the staff noticeboards. Payroll was manually processed using Sage, and was then imported into excel, which was then emailed across on payroll processing day. This made the process time consuming and often resulted in input errors.

Gardner Garages found communicating shifts confusing as they are subject to change, making it difficult to communicate over texts messages. Doing things manually and on spread sheets made it difficult to get real visibility over how much they were spending on labour. Since using S4labour the business can see fully costed rotas which includes holiday pay, NI etc and the system is the one version of the truth everyone can trust.

Empowering Engagement and Efficiency

With the introduction of S4labour, the team are more engaged with work as they can see their shifts on their phones at any time, there are no grey areas about start and finish times because time & attendance are automated. Employees can manage and requests on their phones when it is convenient, rather than during a shift. This makes tracking their actual hours worked a lot easier.

The holiday requests and management on the App has also been an extremely efficient and useful tool. This feature has helped with scheduling holidays and ensuring that the whole team can see holidays, which has resulted in a smoother operation of the business.

Most importantly this has helped the business avoid unexpected costs and ensures accurate payroll. Before S4labour Gardner Garages had never considered a system for payroll. An in-depth demonstration of the system helped them understand how it can the positive impact the overall working of the business.

Emma also commented “We talked to fellow retailers that had already implemented S4labour and who shared their positive experiences with us. The S4labour team were a great ambassador for the system and were excellent in supporting us in the early implementation stages”.

Results

Since making S4labour a part of their business, Gardner Garages has more time to prioritise customer satisfaction, as they have more time to focus on activities that generate profit rather than doing administrative work. 

Emma further commented on how investing in S4labour has led to increased staff retention: “We have invested in our employees this year with the implementation of S4labour. The system has had a positive impact on our relationship with our employees as it has demonstrated greater engagement and efficiency for us all”.

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Denver Bars

by | Dec 12, 2023 | Customer Stories, Multi Site

Case Study

How Denver Bars use S4labour & ICR Touch

Denver Bars Overview

Denver Bars are popular boozers on Brixton Hill where we pride ourselves on friendly service and a great atmosphere.

With DJs from Friday to Sunday and a 3am licence at the weekend.

Delicious homemade food is served fresh, seven days a week, and at sensible prices and our courtyard out front and NEW ONE out back are perfect for summer months.

“Having everything in one

user-friendly interface is really

helpful. Quick access to wage

percentage goes a long way to

saving us money long term“

Matt Ward

Owner, Denver Bars

A popular bar and restaurant, the White Horse in Brixton, is renowned for its delicious homemade food, great atmosphere and friendly service.

The White Horse is one of a number of hospitality venues owned and operated by Denver Bars, which all utilise ICR Touch software alongside S4labour integrations.

Owner, Matt Ward, has been championing the ICR Touch ecosystem since 2007 and has worked with Authorised Silver Partner, Gardiff EPoS, to integrate S4labour’s workforce management solution into multiple venues.

Seeking to streamline various HR responsibilities, Matt and the management teams needed an integrated system that would help them work smarter, not harder.

The brief – effortless staff management 

Prior to the integration, Matt had been fulfilling administrative duties manually, meaning he not only had hugely labour-intensive processes, but also had a significant lack of visibility over staff costs, budget, and regular engagement with his team. As well as being incredibly time-consuming, this manual process allowed far too much room for mistakes.

Therefore, the requirement from ICRTouch and S4labour was for a collaborative solution that could help Matt streamline operations and speed up tasks such as workforce planning, shift scheduling, employee data, payroll and time/attendance.

The solution – intelligent back office integration

Already familiar with ICR Touch products such as TouchPoint tills, PocketTouch hand-held ordering and ByTable order-to-table solutions, the White Horse, and other Denver Bars venues, upgraded their TouchOffice Web account to TouchOffice Web+ to enable S4labour integration. The intuitive human resource management system provides a clear overview of staff operations and a range of tools to help facilitate easy workforce management. The integration with ICRTouch software, TouchOffice Web+, facilitates the sharing of sales data to S4labour, meaning data-driven forecasting and resource allocation can be done easily.

The result – streamline HR and operations

The introduction of S4labour has significantly increased the efficiency of Denver Bars’ workforce management, resulting in more engagement and clearer communication with all of the teams.

Owner, Matt, now has access to a robust management tool which, thanks to the seamless integration of S4labour and TouchOffice Web+, means no more manual administrative duties on spreadsheets and other outdated systems. Clearly displayed rotas, easy holiday management, simple exportable payroll information and end-of-week reports are combined within the S4labour dashboard.

The solutions intuitively communicate with one another and update all information in real-time. The snapshot and labour percentage views in S4labour allow for quick oversight with the integration in place.

Having access to both systems ultimately streamlines the organisation of employees by providing a clear bird’s eye view of behind the scenes administrative tasks.

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The Chestnut Group

by | Sep 25, 2023 | Customer Stories, Multi Site, Stay / Sleep

Case Study

How The Chestnut Group streamlined their people management 

Company Name: The Chestnut Group  

Chestnut Overview

Winners of this year’s Pub and Bar Award, Chestnut boast a collection of beautiful East Anglian pubs. Founded by Philip Turner, the 16-strong group are known for their focus on guest experience, delivered by their championed frontline workers.  

People Director, Charley O’Toole, spoke about how the group have streamlined their people management across over 500 team members, from their 15 general managers to Ops managers and sous chefs, to get the best from them.  

“I publish a rota, and everyone gets a notification on their phone. It was so quick and simple to do. In every hospitality business I’ve ever worked in, the team are always keen to receive their rotas as far in advance as possible. It helps people to plan their lives outside of work and they are always really appreciative.” 

Charley O'Toole

People Director , The Chestnut Group

Workforce management

Chestnut have worked with workforce management provider S4labour for around 3 years. With such a complex and growing business, using paper and spreadsheets to manage their shift patterns and pay wasn’t a viable option, and the business also had a focus on streamlining communications and HR onboarding.  

Charley commented: “I publish a rota, and everyone gets a notification on their phone. It was so quick and simple to do. In every hospitality business I’ve ever worked in, the team are always keen to receive their rotas as far in advance as possible. It helps people to plan their lives outside of work and they are always really appreciative.” 

S4labour onboards new employees onto the system and the HR tools allows all important employee information and documentation to be completed accurately and efficiently.  

By systemising deployment and rotas, labour demand and budgets are looked after and sales increase is driven by having the right people at work at the right time, without any of the stress or extra admin. “When you’re looking at your rota model and you’re able to see your flex, it helps you to determine if you have the right level of team required – it makes our lives really simple”, Charley commented.  

Once the rotas are in, they can be viewed via the app. Holiday management is made easy with visibility of accruals, the ability to request time off and holiday pay automatically calculated in the rota. 

Charley added: “anything that makes lives simpler for our teams is a big win for us.” 

Cost versus benefit

Cost versus benefit is high on every operator’s agenda. When it comes to investing in S4labour, Charley said: “Cost of living has risen, the hangover of COVID, Brexit, you name it, everything is much more expensive, so you have to be really mindful about labour costing and I think S4labour is commercial in that respect.” 

Benefit

One thing really stands out for Chestnut, and that is the customer service they receive with S4labour.  

In terms of first-line support and account management, Charley said “everyone is so incredibly approachable; nothing is beneath anyone. It makes us feel like it’s a partnership, rather than S4labour just being a product that is supplied to us.” 

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Oowee Vegan

by | Mar 24, 2023 | Customer Stories, Multi Site

Case Study

S4labour helps fast-food restaurant Oowee Vegan

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Compay Name: Oowee Vegan
Business Type: Multi Site
Date: December 2022

Plant-based Fast Food | Oowee Vegan

Oowee Overview

Oowee has been a customer at S4labour for over a year. Their business is split into two concepts: Oowee Diner and Oowee Vegan, which operate in 8 locations across Brighton, London and Bristol.

They have a strong and successful brand and team, serving vegan and non-vegan fast-food at affordable prices, without compromising on quality.

Watch our case study video at Oowee Vegan, Brighton.

“There’s ongoing support from Veno who is fantastic […] any feedback I’ve had has been listened to.”

Lina Blythe

Operations Director, OOWEE Vegan

Challenge

One of the most important challenges for operators is creating a strong and well-organised team. Before S4labour, Oowee were relying on excel sheets and a mix of different systems to manage all the different areas of their labour. This made visibility and reporting difficult, as there was no one point of truth to work from. 

Oowee were looking for a system that could bring all of their labour costs, sales data and operational trends together on one screen and improve rota visibility and engagement for their team. 

Solution & Benefits

The solution to their problems arrived in the form of S4labour. After an in-depth system demonstration, S4labour was rolled out into their stores.

The launch of S4labour allowed their Operations Director, Lina Blythe, to get to know the system and how it would work for Oowee. Open communication with the S4labour implementation team allowed us to roll out a bespoke system package that would take care of all of their business’s needs.

Results

Since their decision to make S4labour a part of their business, Oowee have been able to reduce the amount of time spent on labour significantly. Their general managers are able to spend more time training and engaging their employees, which makes everything from a head office perspective, more efficient. 

For their teams, the features for writing the schedules and swapping shifts gave them visibility and flexibility to ensure a good work-life balance exists. 

Onboarding of new employees is now done through the app, where essential details are captured, making the whole process seamless. 

Oowee received ongoing support through monthly, and now bi-monthy, calls with their Account Manager, Veno.

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Boardman Community Pubs

by | Mar 22, 2023 | Customer Stories, Multi Site

Case Study

Boardman Community Pubs

Company Name: Boardman Community Pubs
Business Type: Multi Site

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Boardman Community Pubs joined S4labour in 2022. Operating 7 pubs under Greene King and Thwaites, the Boardman Community Pubs include: The Bird i’th Hand, The Oak Tree, The Cock and Bottle, The Ship Inn, The Derby Arms, The Sportsman Arms and The Peacock.

Find out how S4labour can support a business like yours: 

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S4labour and Boardman Community Pubs 

Understanding the link between service quality and sales, the team at Boardman Community Pubs knew they needed an efficient way of getting their people in the right place at the right time. Before S4labour, each pub was using timesheets to rota staff, leading to inaccurate recording of hours worked, as well as overspending on labour. 

Partnering with S4labour gave Boardman Community Pubs the visibility to see exactly where, when and how they needed to be deploying their teams. With better scheduling, the pubs were able to save money on labour, whilst running service at peak productivity levels to ensure sales growth. 

“In the first month alone we saved 27 hours a week.”

Peter Boardman

CEO, Boardman Community Pubs

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