POS Systems Will Benefit Your Employees

Restaurant owners considering a point-of-sale (POS) system are intrigued by the possibilities. A POS system can simplify the ordering process, ease inventory concerns, and speed up the payment process dramatically. However, one overlooked element is the impact on your staff — employee POS benefits can be substantial. You’ll find your team less bogged down in busywork and more focused on the important things when they have an efficient system in place. Here’s how you’ll have better employees when you get a POS system:

• Restaurant work shouldn’t feel like office work. The server profession is full of creative types working on other careers, as well as people who don’t want to work in an office. You didn’t hire administrative assistants to wait on customers, and a POS system makes the accounting process far easier, as servers merely print out a report to see the numbers match at the end of a shift. You keep your waitstaff focused on their presentation to diners when you take the tedious element out of the job.
• Efficient ordering and bookkeeping gets waitstaff back on the floor. Do your waiters have to reprint their order tickets before the chef can read them? That’s common when handwritten dupes are used, as is wasting time to walk an order to the kitchen and explain modifications to the chef. Instead of performing these unnecessary functions, your staff should be on the floor, selling more drinks and moving diners through courses. Having a POS system makes them better at selling because they have more time to do it.
• Better equipment boosts employee morale and translates to better service. If you’re wondering why employee POS benefits should matter, think of how the customer’s experience is affected by the server’s attitude. You could lose customers for good — or gain them for life — when a server projects a certain mood. By putting quality tools at your staff’s disposal, you’re keeping morale high and their mood positive. That leads to better service, and more returning customers.
• Complicated payment procedures frustrate even the most patient servers. Because splitting checks is so common in restaurants today, the old system of manually processing credit cards creates a serious time drain. Even very patient servers are apt to lose a good mood in these cases. A POS system can automatically divide checks and process credit cards quickly. Customers don’t want to wait for a long payment process, and those waiting to sit down might decide to leave while these transactions unfold. Everyone will be much happier when there’s a POS system to help get the job done.

While you didn’t open a restaurant to serve employees, there’s no denying that happy servers equates to happier customers. A POS system will make your staff’s job easier and let them contribute to a better restaurant.