Hospitality KPIs: Weekly Metrics Managers Should Track

Here’s the truth: you’re probably not even tracking KPIs. You may not even know what KPIs are. Many in the restaurant, bar, and hotel business simply track sales and think that’s the end-all, be-all of success or failure.

And sure, you need to sell to succeed, and if you don’t sell, you probably fail.

But there’s so much more to your success than just sales.

Most of it actually lies in your Key Performance Indicators.

When you track those, you’ll be able to see where your business is going off the rails long before it does, and turn the ship around.

Without KPIs, you’ll miss the real reasons service breaks down.

Here, we’ll help you create a weekly KPI dashboard that helps you control labor, coverage, and guest experience.

So you’ll never be in the dark again.

Key Takeaways

1. Tracking weekly KPIs will reveal problems before they impact your guests.
2. Sales alone won’t tell you what’s wrong, but KPIs like call-outs, overtime, and staffing hours will.
3. Tracking and addressing weekly KPIs will help you move from reactive to controlled mode in your business.

Why weekly KPIs matter in hospitality

It’s important to track your KPIs weekly because this time frame gives you plenty of time to react to a troubling trend before it becomes an emergency.

Essentially, what you’re doing here is pattern recognition.

And recognizing patterns in hospitality will help you reduce call-outs, cut overtime way back, and run smoother shifts, even on your busiest nights.

The core weekly KPI categories

So, what are you tracking?

• Staffing and coverage: Tracking your staff and ensuring full coverage on each shift lets you know how you’re running the floor.
• Labor efficiency: Are you spending a ton of money on overtime? This could be burning out your team, leading to more call-outs and overtime, and the cycle repeats.
• Service execution: Tracking your guest reviews, comments, and survey responses each week will tell you whether service is slipping or improving over time.
• Retention risk: Keeping an eye on your retention can wake you up to losses that are occurring right under your nose. If you’re on a downward trend, you may be about to lose even more people.

Create this dashboard, enter your data, and consider how it affects your business's overall performance. This will give you insight into how your business is performing. It will also help you take definitive action to prevent trouble before it affects your business.

Here’s a close look at how to measure those KPI categories.

Staffing and coverage KPIs

• Call-outs per week (by role and shift): If you have a ton of call-outs, it’s time to look at employee burnout or just a bad fit for a particular role.
• Last-minute coverage rate (percent of gaps filled): This one will likely correlate with call-outs. You’re looking here at how often you were able to cover call-outs of no-shows.
• Time to fill open shifts (how fast you can staff up): If you were able to cover a call-out, how long did it take to get someone in? This will help you figure out if you need better backup, like a last-minute shift app like shiftNOW.
• No-show rate (employees and temporary staff): If you have a bunch of no-shows, it’s time to start figuring out who your core people are, who your leaders are, and let go of employees who don’t take their roles seriously.
• Shift completion rate (filled, worked, and closed as planned): When you understand how many loyal, hardworking employees you have, you can start designating leaders, building shifts around leaders and supportive staff, and call for backup when you need it.

Labor efficiency KPIs

• Labor cost percentage (weekly and by daypart): Track the percentage of your company’s sales spent on all employee-related expenses. This will give you a sense of where you are on your budget.
• Overtime hours and overtime cost: Now, carve out those employee-related expenses to find out how much you’re spending just in overtime.
• Prime cost (labor + COGS) trend: Next, you’ll add the cost of goods sold to your labor cost to get a sense of your true profitability. Ideally, most of what is left is how much your business is actually making.
• Scheduled hours vs worked hours variance: This metric will give you insight into how much you’re understaffed and likely burning out remaining employees.
• Productivity proxy by role (sales per labor hour, covers per labor hour): Measuring proxies gives you specific elements within each role to track, so you know what to focus on. For example, when you measure sales per labor hour, you can look at who was on shift, how many customers you had during that hour, and where you might need to make adjustments within those parameters.

Guest experience KPIs tied to staffing

• Wait time and ticket time trends (by peak windows): This gives you a clear look at how fast your staff is able to help your customers, especially during busy times. This may indicate that you need more or fewer staff on hand at specific times.
• Table turn time and average check size: Similar to wait times, these metrics show how quickly your customers are waiting for drinks, meals, desserts, and their checks.
• Comped items and voids (especially during short-staffed shifts): If you’re comping a bunch of food, something’s happening with guest service.
• Reviews and complaints mentioning speed, service, or cleanliness: If they are directly related to your staff, you can address them quickly and directly.

Retention and burnout risk KPIs

• Consecutive long shifts per person: Asking your people to put in long hours is a recipe for disaster. They’re already running stressful shifts. They don’t need to also exhaust themselves for hours on end.
• Missed breaks and late outs: Here’s another symptom that leads to burnout. If your employees aren’t taking their breaks or they’re clocking out late, they’re overworking themselves. They’re likely to look for another job soon.
• Weekend and closing shift load distribution: Pay close attention to whether you’re asking the same people to close every night and work every weekend. Even if it seems to be working in the beginning, it can quickly lead to resentment.
• 30-day retention for new hires: Tracking how many new hires leave within the first 30 days of onboarding will help you see if you’ve got a training or onboarding issue to deal with.
• Role-level turnover risk list (top 3 positions under pressure): Which are your three roles with the highest turnover? Do they line up with the three positions that are under the most pressure? There’s a good chance they do. Understanding this can help you figure out how to get more staff in place, better training lined up, and more support for those roles.

How to interpret KPIs (so it actually changes decisions)

So, what do these KPIs tell us?

High call-outs plus overtime: If you’re seeing this trend, it means burnout is already happening in your business. You’re working your loyal employees too hard, so they’re calling out more frequently. This could lead to quiet quitting, or just quitting and moving on to another employer. You can lose your best people by overworking them.

Slower ticket times plus higher comps: When you notice that you’re comping way more meals than normal, and this correlates with slower ticket times, something is likely happening in the kitchen or at the bar. Check in with your BOH staff to see what’s going on.

One of the quickest ways to burn out your employees, even those who are most loyal, is through unpredictable schedules. We’re not talking about an hour or two difference in start time. Rather, when employees can’t count on a relatively similar schedule each week, with similar hours, they’ll likely get exhausted and frustrated. You’ll start seeing more call-outs if you don’t get the schedule under control.

Finally, if you notice that it’s taking you hours or days to get coverage for call-outs or short shifts, you need a stronger bench. A hospitality coverage app like shiftNOW can help ensure you have pre-vetted, role-specific, skilled workers ready to come to your aid quickly when you need them.

What to do when a KPI is off

Once you notice there’s a problem with one of your KPIs, it’s time to make adjustments in real time to solve that problem. Taking immediate action will get your course corrected and help keep your core crew loyal and your backup bench strong.

A rise in call-outs: Run through your list of staff members to make sure you have good fits in all the roles and for your schedule. You want your employees to look forward to coming to work, to be happy with their schedules, and to feel prepared, well-trained, and supported for their roles. Then, make sure you have plenty of coverage for each shift, especially the hardest/busiest ones. Continue to review patterns to keep things on track.

Labor costs spike: It’s time to rebalance your staffing mix. You may need to add an extra person or two to a busy shift, rotate roles, or hire new people. This will help you reduce your reliance on overtime, which can kill your budget.

Service metrics dip: Typically, if your customers aren’t happy, it means your employees aren’t happy. They’re your front line. So fix your stations to make sure you have a leader on every shift in each station. Don’t overwhelm your staff with too much work. You want to keep it challenging but not exhausting. Improve your onboarding process so that each employee feels trained and prepared. And create a system between shifts so oncoming staff gets information from the outgoing staff.

Turnover risk is rising: If all signs point to your employees leaving, it’s time to have check-ins. First, hold a staff meeting to clarify expectations and commit to predictable schedules, better coverage, and proper training. Then, be sure to recognize exemplary employees. Finally, meet with your staff one-on-one as the days move forward to see how they’re feeling and ensure their needs are being met.

Using on-demand staffing to improve KPI outcomes

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by all this information, don’t worry. You’re not alone. You don’t have to review a million applications, go through dozens of interviews, and create a whole new approach.

An on-demand staffing platform can help you manage your KPI outcomes. Once you create an account, you can:

• Fill open shifts fast to protect the guest experience. While you’re reallocating shifts and checking in with staff, you can bring in pre-vetted, skilled workers to maintain high customer service levels.
• Use a vetted on-demand pool to reduce no-shows and wrong-fit coverage. When you do have call-outs, you can get reliable help fast, for the correct roles, with experienced workers.
• Rebook reliable workers to build a bench and shorten your time-to-fill. Once you start working with people from the platform, you can start building relationships with them, so you’ll know who you want to come back to when times are tough in the future. People who love working with you will respond more quickly.
• Use flexible coverage during peak weeks to lower overtime hours. The platform can also help you scale up your coverage when you know you’ll be busy without having to hire permanent employees you won’t need once things slow down again.

Weekly KPI meeting agenda (15 minutes)

Don’t stress yourself out over spending hours reviewing KPIs. This quick review can take less than 15 minutes. Here’s a quick breakdown of what it can look like:

• 3 minutes: coverage and call-outs
• 4 minutes: labor cost and overtime
• 4 minutes: service execution signals
• 3 minutes: retention and burnout risks
• 1 minute: actions, owners, and next check-in

Simple KPI dashboard template

To prepare your dashboard, create a template that looks something like the one below, and then you can simply repeat the process every week.

Closing

In the end, tracking KPIs in hospitality helps you move from a reactive position to a proactive, controlled one.

When you follow the right metrics, you can take big actions fast and shrink your big problems almost entirely.

Ready to get started with a last-minute coverage app that can help you meet your goals?

Book a demo with shiftNOW today and start building your bench.

FAQs

What are the most important hospitality KPIs to track weekly?

If you only track two or three metrics, you need to be watching overtime, call-outs, and short shifts. These help you pick up on patterns that can leave you with burnt-out, disgruntled employees who leave you high and dry.

What is a good labor cost percentage for restaurants and hotels?

The general rule is that your labor cost percentage should fall between 20% and 35% of your total revenue.

How do I measure staffing coverage without overcomplicating it?

At its simplest, you can divide scheduled hours by required hours to see if you’re either overstaffed or understaffed.

Which KPIs signal burnout and turnover risk early?

The biggest signal that you’re dealing with burnout is call-outs. As call-outs rise, your staff is telling you they don’t want to be there.

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