Case Study Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=so7EH9yEaMM

Video Case Study: Scheduling at Hard Rock Cafe with Supplementary Text Attached

Whether it's scheduling nurses at Mayo Clinic, pilots at Southwest Airlines, classrooms at UCLA, or servers at a Hard Rock Cafe, it's clear that good scheduling is important. Proper schedules use an organization's assets (1) more effectively, by serving customers promptly, and (2) more efficiently, by lowering costs. Hard Rock Cafe at Universal Studios, Orlando, is the world's largest restaurant, with 1,100 seats on two main levels. With typical turnover of employees in the restaurant industry at 80% to 100% per year, Hard Rock General Manager Ken Hoffman takes scheduling very seriously. Hoffman wants his 160 servers to be effective, but he also wants to treat them fairly. He has done so with scheduling software and flexibility that has increased productivity while contributing to turnover that is half the industry average. His goal is to find the fine balance that gives employees financially productive daily work shifts while setting the schedule tight enough so as to not overstaff between lunch and dinner.The weekly schedule begins with a sales forecast. "First, we examine last year's sales at the cafe for the same day of the week," says Hofnan. *Then we adjust our forecast for this year based on a variety of closely watched factors. For example. we call the Orlando Convention Bureau every week to see what major groups will he in town. Then we send two researchers out to check on the occupancy of nearby hotels. We watch closely to see what concerts are scheduled at Hard Rock Livethe inll-seat concert stage next door. From the forecast, we calculate how many people we need to have on duty each day for the kitchen, the bar. as hosts, and for table service.\" Once Hard Rock determines the number of staff needed. servers submit request forms. which are fed into the software's linear prograrrmdng mathematical model. Individuals are given priority rankings from 1 to 9. based on their seniority and how important they are to ll each day's schedule+ Schedules are then posted by day and by workstation. Trades are handled between employees, who understand the value of each specic shift and station. Hard Rock employees like the system, as does the general manager, since sales per laborhour are rising and turnover is dropping