How can you adapt your inter-company restaurant to teleworking?

Gone are the days when your inter-company restaurant welcomed a predictable stream of employees every day. With teleworking, attendance is now a rollercoaster ride: too low some days, uncontrollable others. So how can you adapt to this new rhythm without wasting food or frustrating your staff?

What if the solution could be summed up in one word : anticipation? By introducing a system for reserving slots and scheduling staff, you can better manage attendance, optimise your resources and improve the experience of your employees.

In this article, find out how intelligent time slot management can turn your business-to-business restaurant into a model of efficiency and satisfaction.

The impact of teleworking on your inter-company restaurant.

Teleworking has reshuffled the lunch break deck. Some days, the trays sit on the shelves; other days, your teams struggle to keep up.

What’s more, with more flexible working days, mealtimes are becoming longer, and expectations are changing: fewer hearty meals, more quick & balanced options. Faced with these new dynamics, it’s essential to rethink the organisation to continue to meet the needs of each of your employees, without leaving room for improvisation.

At the same time, this constant fluctuation not only complicates stock management, but also undermines your restaurant’s economic equilibrium. How can you adjust your orders and staffing levels without sacrificing service quality or generating unnecessary losses? Without a clear vision of the number of staff expected, it’s difficult to anticipate needs and ensure a smooth, pleasant experience.

What’s more, the role of your inter-company restaurant goes beyond the simple function of catering: it remains a place for conviviality, exchange and relaxation within the company. However, if your employees perceive a chaotic organisation, long waiting times or a lack of availability of dishes, they risk gradually turning away from this service in favour of outside alternatives.

So the question is: how can you reinvent the way you work to ensure efficient flow management & an offer that’s adapted to new consumer habits? Our advice in the following paragraphs.

Reserving slots : can you better anticipate the needs of your inter-company restaurant?

1. Better flow management for a fluid service.

Irregular attendance is one of the major challenges facing your inter-company restaurant with the rise in teleworking.

There’s no doubt about it : when your staff arrive en masse at the same time, the quality of service suffers: long waiting times, tension in the kitchen, difficulty finding a seat… This situation not only damages the experience of your staff, but also complicates the work of your teams. By setting up a slot reservation system, you can smooth out arrivals and ensure that the flow of staff is evenly distributed throughout your service.

At the same time, you get a clear view of the number of meals to be served in each slot. This allows you to adjust your work in the kitchen and dining room. Your teams are better prepared, your chefs can anticipate preparations based on reservations, and service runs more smoothly. This reduces stress for your teams, minimises errors and ensures a more efficient, higher quality service.

Finally, by allowing your employees to choose their meal times in advance, you offer them greater comfort and peace of mind. There’s no need to rush to avoid crowds, and no need to revise their schedules at the last minute: everyone can organise their break with complete peace of mind.

In short, reserving slots transforms your inter-company restaurant into a better organised space, where the employee experience is optimised and your teams work in better conditions.

2. A significant reduction in food waste thanks to reservations.

Without a clear idea of the number of meals to be served, you often have to rely on rough estimates, at the risk of generating surpluses and shortages.

By setting up a reservation system (like the Sharvy application), you can accurately anticipate the volumes needed & adjust your production accordingly. In this way, you can limit food surpluses, while guaranteeing that every employee has an available meal.

What’s more, this advance planning means you can give priority to fresh, better-quality ingredients, by working with local producers, for example. Less waste also means more flexibility to offer varied & balanced meals, tailored to the expectations of your guests.

3. Optimising resources for an efficient organisation.

It’s true that irregular visitor numbers mean that your teams are sometimes overworked, sometimes underworked. Overcrowding creates delays, generates stress & hampers the fluidity of your service. Conversely, low occupancy rates mean wasted resources and lower productivity.

So, by adjusting the presence of your staff to bookings, you can distribute workloads more evenly and avoid periods of under- and overstaffing.

So, to assign your staff’s tasks more precisely, ask yourself :

- - Should the kitchen team be reinforced at certain times?
  - Mobilise more staff at the checkout or in the dining room depending on the expected number of visitors?
  - Distribute time slots differently to avoid bottlenecks?

By structuring schedules on the basis of concrete data, you can limit improvisation and guarantee greater responsiveness to variations in visitor numbers.

How do you set up an effective booking system?

The idea sounds simple: everyone books their own slot, and your inter-company restaurant runs like clockwork. But in reality, how can you ensure that the system is adopted by everyone? And what do you do about the indecisive, the latecomers and the eternal adepts of improvisation? Here’s our advice!

1. Choose the right tool : an essential, not a headache!

Do you need a mobile application, integrated software or just a revamped Excel spreadsheet?

The tool you choose must be accessible to everyone, intuitive and quick to use. If booking a slot takes longer than choosing a dish from the menu, the initiative is doomed to failure!

With Sharvy, booking a slot takes just a few seconds : a fluid interface, access from a smartphone or computer, and no complex configuration. Your employees don’t need a 50-page instruction manual or a dedicated hotline to use it. One connection, a few clicks, and their place is reserved.

Thanks to the application, you can predict peak demand, adjust orders and allocate resources according to real needs. Sharvy lets you monitor bookings in real time, anticipate peaks in occupancy and avoid wasted meals.

What’s more, if one of your staff members indicates a last-minute change on the application, Sharvy makes it possible to modify & cancel a booking in a matter of moments, without disrupting the entire organisation. You retain the flexibility to absorb last-minute adjustments without sacrificing the fluidity of the service.

Finally, it’s worth noting that Sharvy is based on clear ergonomics & an experience designed with the user in mind. There are no superfluous features: just what you need to book quickly, check how busy you are and get organised accordingly.

To find out more, don’t hesitate to contact us!

2. Encourage adoption : persuasion or obligation?

How can you convince your employees to book their « meal slots » in advance without them seeing it as a bureaucratic constraint? Clear communication is essential: explain the benefits for them (less waiting, guaranteed meals) and for the restaurant (better organisation, less waste, etc).

Incentives can also work in your favour : priority in certain slots, dedicated menus, even gamification of the system.

3. Anticipate the unexpected : flexibility & adjustments.

Has an employee forgotten to book? Something unexpected come up at the last minute? Should an unlucky latecomer be refused a meal? A good system should not be rigid, otherwise it will generate frustration and discontent.

Plan flexible slots, simple cancellation management and, why not, a quota of emergency meals to deal with unforeseen events. Because, let’s be honest, no-one wants to be the one to explain to a hungry colleague that they should have planned their day better.

In the end, setting up an effective reservation system means finding the right balance between rigour and flexibility, discipline and common sense. Once the system is up and running, your inter-company restaurant will become a model of organisation… and your teams will thank you for it!

In conclusion

There’s no doubt about it: teleworking has changed habits, making the number of people using your inter-company restaurant more unpredictable than ever. In the face of these new challenges, reserving slots is an effective response: it allows you to optimise flow management, limit food wastage & adapt your resources to real needs.

By setting up a simple reservation system like Sharvy, you can make day-to-day organisation easier, improve the experience of your staff & ensure that your restaurant runs more smoothly.

Anticipating rather than undergoing change is the key to transforming these changes into opportunities & guaranteeing an ever more efficient service in the face of the new realities of the world of work.

Got a question? Check out these FAQs !

And if my colleagues all book at the last minute, what's the point?

Ah, the eternal followers of « I’ll see you later »! To avoid this, a well thought-out reservation system can include automatic reminders, limited time slots and incentives (a free dessert for the most punctual, for example?). Let’s be honest: nobody likes to be faced with a reduced menu because they forgot to make a reservation!

What if my plans change at the last minute? Will I be banned from the restaurant?

Rest assured, no-one will be left out in the cold for a last-minute cancellation. But to prevent the system turning into a jungle « I’ll book, but I won’t come », it might be a good idea to introduce a cancellation deadline, like a quota of unfulfilled bookings, before a reminder. You can get an overview of these missed bookings via the Sharvy application.

Will I be penalised if I don't turn up despite booking?

This depends on the company’s policy. Some companies choose to introduce a system of warnings to avoid unjustified absences, in order to ensure better organisation & not to disrupt meal management. However, the aim is not to penalise employees, but rather to encourage more predictable operations.

If your plans change, most reservation systems make it easy to free up your slot, or to change your reservation, allowing others to take advantage of the available slot. In this way, you can adjust your choices without fear of unfortunate consequences, as long as you respect the deadlines & conditions set by the company.