Today's service industries--restaurants, hotels, retail and the like-- account for vast numbers of employees. Often industries with low margins and high regulation, they are also plagued with high turnover -- averaging between 75-125%, with ranges sometimes much higher.  With hiring costs escalating to $3500 according to the recent Bersin & Associates Talent Acquisition Factbook (of course, cost per hire varies by type of position, with higher-level and more highly skilled jobs costing more to fill than others. But these overall metrics can be useful for benchmarking an organization’s average hiring costs.) When high turnover is married to high cost of acquisition, everything that aids hiring right and retaining that hire is paramount

One thing these industries all have in common is the concept of shifts. In restaurants, for example, a host of personnel with very different skills need to be in their places at all times of the day. Chefs, wait staff, busing staff, managers and many more need to fill the roles seamlessly to ensure customer satisfaction. And coordinating the schedules for all these moving parts is a managerial nightmare.

In the past, staff had to check into the location to view their assignments weekly, making notes from posted schedules (often fraught with errors in the transcription), and making changes only with difficulty. 

Technology has improved that situation. Enter mobile devices and solutions such as that announced by PeopleMatter -- the ability to view and manage shift schedules by smart phones. Employees can easily view their shifts, request changes in assignment, volunteer to swap shifts -- all the while alerting management as to the employee's likelihood to move into overtime.  And for employees that lack smart devices, IVR capabilities allow any kind of telephone access to schedules and the means to change shift assignments.

PeopleMatter's CEO Nate DaPore and team briefed industry influencers in Charleston on the mobile products, which, integrated with the company's solutions for hiring, learning and scheduling management, go a long way to alleviating the difficulties faced daily in service-providing companies.