At DOSA—an Indian eatery with multiple locations in the San Francisco Bay Area—stable scheduling is seen as a key mechanism for employee retention. DOSA’s HR director Julie Howe shares that the top reason for employee turnover is scheduling conflicts, especially because many hourly employees have more than one job. Prioritizing scheduling as a retention tool, DOSA starts early, discussing scheduling in the hiring process so that if staff members cannot work certain days, that’s agreed upon before they’re hired. Furthermore, DOSA provides employees with schedules two weeks in advance and tries to consistently provide employees with back-to-back days off. Howe says that this approach to scheduling has helped to reduce DOSA’s number of sick calls and has made for more productive employees.
To learn more about DOSA and other restaurants’ approaches to stable scheduling, check out the video from Instawork and Yelp’s “Get a Handle on Hiring” panel.