Scheduling – Hourly – BOH SOP

Procedure#:HB SOP 105

Function:Team Member Policies

Implementation Date:022124

Policy:
This policy covers scheduling for the following back of house roles:
● Service Leaders (SVL)
● Cooks (FT) & Part-Time (PT)
● Utility Cook (PT)
Proper scheduling is essential to provide:
● The desired guest experience at Hillman Beer (HB).
● The benefits of a FT role.
● To ensure the highest quality of food to our guests at all times.
Procedure:
Scheduling Factors:
Managers with scheduling responsibilities need to take many factors into account when
assigning shifts and building schedules.
These factors include but are not limited to: team member availability, peak business hours, and the overall staffing levels required to meet operational demands. Additionally, adhering to scheduling best practices for foh ensures that all front of house and back of house staff are effectively coordinated, promoting a seamless flow of service. This careful approach contributes to maintaining a stable and productive work environment, ultimately enhancing guest satisfaction.

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● Enough staff to ensure the best guest experience by keeping ticket times short
and food quality high.
● The right balance and skill level of staff.
● Current training requirements.
● That FT positions receive the benefits associated with that role.
● Ensuring the highest quality food.
● The strengths and weaknesses of your team.
● That staff shift preferences are met when able.
● That scheduling priority is followed.
● That current approved schedule templates are followed.
Scheduling Priority:
There is a hierarchy to follow when choosing who gets what shift and how many shifts
and hours someone is scheduled. This priority ensures our Full-Time positions are
available to HB when needed, that applicable laws governing FT employment are met
and that the benefits that come with FT positions are received. This hierarchy rewards
staff with OPEN availability with additional hours if desired and gives a scheduling
manager tremendous flexibility when building a schedule. If PT restricted availability
staff members desire more hours encourage them to open or modify their availability. It
is usually not understood that even a one day or one shift restriction can severely limit a
scheduling manager’s ability to give someone additional hours.
Shift and hour priority follows this path;
● FT Service leaders are scheduled first.
● FT Cooks are scheduled second.
● PT Cooks with OPEN availability are scheduled third.
● Finally, PT Cooks with restricted availability are scheduled last.
● PT Utility Cooks can be scheduled as needed to help fill the gaps and provide
additional support during peak season (in accordance with the schedule
template)
Schedule Balance:
Aces in places! Most of us have heard that phrase before. It means put your top
people in the right places to get the most out of your team. It makes perfect sense, and
it works. But what happens when you run out of aces, because not everyone is an ace
or even could be an ace. Even a new hire with ace abilities will take proper training,
time and experience to get there. As a result the scheduling manager will have to
balance their schedule by putting their aces in the most strategic and beneficial places.
Every schedule should be a balance of the individual strengths and weaknesses of your
team and take into consideration what is best for Hillman Beer customers, the training
needs of the team and of course the aces themselves. If you overwork your aces they
will soon be someone else’s aces! A balanced schedule takes many aspects of what
we do into account. Having your aces paired up with a new recruit at the appropriate
time helps that new recruit become an ace. Pair them up at the wrong time and you
lose that benefit and may even lose the new recruit because they don’t feel supported
or lose your ace because you didn’t give them sufficient help during a busy period.

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Below are some things to keep in mind to ensure a great mix and balance between staff
members themselves and between our staff and our customers.
● Busy periods should be dominated by top performers to meet business and
customers needs but also have 1 or 2 new people who are far enough along to
not only handle the stress of a busy period but benefit from it as well as
contribute to it.
● We hope that everyone we hire for back of house staff are all trained chefs with
years of experience but that will not always be the case. Ensure a good mix of
skill levels and technical knowledge on each shift.
● Shifts and days should be shared. Yes we already said that, but it’s important.
Don’t always schedule the same people to close or the same people to open.
Mix it up, keeping all of the above in mind.
● Everyone needs to be fully adept at every station required of them, expo, garm,
grill, prep, dish, etc. Make sure everyone gets scheduled for every role when it’s
appropriate. Practice and repetition drive proficiency. We can’t NOT schedule
someone for the grill station just because they don’t like doing it. Everyone has
to be able to pull their own weight in any role.
● During periods of short staffing OPEN shifts may result. Open shifts must be
avoided at all costs. Coverage for that shift is needed or it wouldn’t have been
put on the schedule template in the first place. EVERY effort must be made to
cover an open shift before it is published on a schedule. As a last resort if no
hourly staff member can be found to work a required shift then the GM, Sous
Chef and AGM must work together to provide a salaried staff member for that
shift. This is a Trace & Correct situation that will bring the conversation to our
hiring and staffing practices. Open shifts are normally only an issue when proper
hiring, training and SOP management are deficient.

Schedule Templates:
Current, approved schedule templates are provided and must be followed at all times.
Schedule templates indicate required shift coverage. All variances from the template
require initial GM approval with final approval from the Operations Manager prior to
schedule publishing. Variance requests will be denied if satisfactory supporting data is
not provided or does not comply with applicable SOPs. Only the following variances will
be considered:
● Addition of a new previously unscheduled shift
● Modification of an existing shift start or stop time
Satisfactory supporting data for a variance request includes the following:
● Weather considerations
● Previous period sales data from (SDLY) same day last year, hour by hour
● Budgeted sales data
● Labor as a percentage of food sales

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Schedule Timing:
Schedules are published 7 days in advance. At the moment that new schedule is
published there are 14 days of schedule published. This is what drives the requirement
for time off requests to be submitted at least 14 days in advance.
Scheduling managers must have the new schedule ready for review no later than 6PM
every Sunday.
The operations manager will review and suggest edits if needed or approve the
schedule no later than 6PM every Monday.
If additional review is required on Tuesday those schedules shall be ready for that
review no later than 12PM on that Tuesday and the operations manager will complete
that review no later than 6PM.
Schedules shall be published anytime after 12:01 AM on Wednesday of each week but
never later than 11AM on Wednesday of each week.

Availability Requirements:
New staff members are hired with an agreed upon availability. Scheduling managers
must abide by this availability unless permission to schedule otherwise is granted by the
staff member for each week of variance.
New staff members MUST be available for all availability agreed to at the time of hire
and understand that any changes to availability must be approved and that requests to
change availability will not be accepted before 180 days of employment and in all cases
approval of any changes is dependent on business and staffing needs.
Availability requests MUST be submitted in writing to the scheduling manager on Form
AVR1001. The scheduling manager must respond to the request in accordance with
the guidelines on Form AVR1001.
OPEN availability is defined as available for any shift at any time of day on any day of
the week.
Each role has unique availability requirements and limitations as follows:
Full-Time Service Leaders:
● MUST have OPEN availability – NO schedule restrictions are permitted.
● MUST be scheduled for all available SVL shifts BEFORE being scheduled for a
Non-SVL shift.
● MUST be scheduled and work a minimum 5 days per week totalling no less than
30 hours per week.
Full-Time Cooks:
● MUST have OPEN availability – NO schedule restrictions are permitted.

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● MUST be scheduled and work a minimum of 5 days per week totalling no less
than 30 hours per week.
Part-Time Cooks with OPEN availability:
● MUST be scheduled and work a minimum of 2 days per week.
Part-Time Cooks with RESTRICTED availability:
● MUST be scheduled and work a minimum of 2 days per week.
Part-Time Utility Cooks with ANY availability:
● MUST be scheduled and work a minimum of 2 days per week.

Manager Name: ___________________________
Manager Signature: ________________________
Date: ___________________________