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“goRoster just gives you control over what you’re trying to do as a business.” Sara Stockley-Smith, General Manager, The Pedal Pusher.
Christchurch’s silver lining
A funky gastro pub in the regenerating inner-city Christchurch suburb of Addington, The Pedal Pusher is one of the silver linings of the city’s devastating earthquakes. It is amongst a raft of fresh new venues for Cantabrians hungry for good dining and drinking experiences.
The local Press newspaper called The Pedal Pusher, “Unpretentious yet upmarket. (It) promotes pushing pedals as the perfect way to escape the rat race, as is whiling away an evening at this Addington establishment.”
Like any new venue, The Pedal Pusher had their honeymoon period says general manager Sara Stockley-Smith, but soon had to ensure they were focussing on the fundamentals of being an efficient, well run operation.
Rostering pain
Sara says they were using a mix of Excel spreadsheets and paper-based processes to organise their staff roster, with all the normal challenges of building and keeping them updated. Communication was direct with each staff member, requiring huge amounts of time and effort from Sara.
The other challenge was the need to focus clearly on wage costs. Gathering data for financial reports on things like wage costs per day, or wage costs as percentage of turnover was stressful. “It wasn’t about being tight on money, but just knowing where we were standing each day.”
Immediate sense of control
The pedal Pusher’s roster communication has been transformed with goRoster’s automated text-based system, says Sara. “They have their cell phones basically glued to their hands so you just send that message out and it goes to everyone, when they turn up to work they know exactly what is going to happen. Staff think it is a really good and easy way to communicate. In fact those who had used it before saw us having goRoster as a benefit of coming to work here.”
goRoster has given The Pedal Pusher immediate benefits, “It’s such a simple piece of software but it does such a lot … it’s been really good at helping us figure out our wage costs and the percentage of our wage costs vs. what we turnover per day and per week, or over months.
“goRoster gives you such a good sense of control, it gives you an immediate number, so you’ve got that for the beginning of the week, and can then decide if we need a couple of specials or to send staff home earlier. It just gives you control over what you’re trying to do as a business,” says Sara.