Shiftmate
How to control overtime in cafes and restaurants?
Practical suggestions for planning shifts and seeing the risk of overtime early, without exceeding the 45-hour weekly threshold.
Overtime in cafes and restaurants often becomes a surprise not because of busy days, but because small changes do not show up in the weekly total.
See your weekly total as you plan
An employee appears to work 8 hours on Monday and 8 hours on Tuesday; but when a weekend closing shift is added, the total rises rapidly.
Having the manager see the weekly total each time they add a shift captures overtime risk before publication.
Rotate opening and closing load
Writing closings to the same person over and over creates the risk of both fatigue and overtime. It would be more sustainable to rotate opening, intermediate and closing shifts within the team.
Record last minute changes
If the plan does not change when one employee replaces another, timesheet and actual work are separated. The change request and administrator approval must remain in the same record.
Summary
Overtime control is best done before the weekly shift is published, rather than at the end of the month.