Key points
- Find your busy hours from what you see, hourly sales notes, and advice from Kazeer AI.
- Decide how many people each period and each station needs: cashier, kitchen or bar, and floor.
- Change shifts after the rush, not in the middle of it, and let shifts overlap for the handover.
- Working hours, breaks, and days off must follow the labor rules that apply and your employment agreements.
Picture noon. The line reaches the door, one cashier is serving alone, and the kitchen is three orders behind. At 15:00 the cafe is quiet, and four staff members are standing around waiting for customers. You have enough staff. They're just working at the wrong hours.
A schedule that fits starts from your own outlet's busy hours, not from the habit of splitting the day into morning and afternoon.
Find your busy and slow hours
Collect notes for two weeks, weekends included, because weekdays and weekends can look very different. There are three sources.
First, what you and your shift leads see: when the line starts to grow, and when the kitchen starts to fall behind.
Second, your sales records. In Kazeer, today's sales report updates itself throughout the day. Write down the sales figure every hour, then subtract each note from the next one. The difference is what you sold in that hour. You can also ask Kazeer AI "How much have I sold today?" and write down the answer with the time. Kazeer also shows totals per cashier shift. Those are enough to compare the morning and late shifts, but the rush only shows up in hourly notes.
| Noted at | Today's sales so far | Sales in the past hour |
|---|
| 09:00 | Rp300,000 | Rp300,000 |
| 10:00 | Rp550,000 | Rp250,000 |
| 11:00 | Rp850,000 | Rp300,000 |
| 12:00 | Rp1,600,000 | Rp750,000 |
| 13:00 | Rp2,300,000 | Rp700,000 |
| 14:00 | Rp2,500,000 | Rp200,000 |
| 15:00 | Rp2,650,000 | Rp150,000 |
The numbers in this table are an example. In it, each hour between 11:00 and 13:00 brings in Rp700,000 or more, over twice as much as any other hour. That's the rush.
Third, business advice from Kazeer AI, which you can ask for in the chat. A sample: "Your busy hours are 11:00 to 13:00. Get your stock ready and promote your signature items." (Kazeer AI gives its advice in Indonesian; this example is translated.) Use it as a check on your own notes.
Sales in rupiah don't always match how busy you are. Ten single coffees keep a cashier busier than one large order of the same value. If you're unsure, also tally the number of orders per hour on paper for a few days.
Note your slow hours too. That's when staff take breaks in turn and do prep work. You can also fill slow hours with a promotion, and the article on slow-hour promotions shows how.
Decide how many people each period needs
Split the working day into periods, then decide how many people each station needs: cashier, kitchen or bar, and floor, meaning serving orders and clearing tables.
An example for a cafe open from 08:00 to 21:00, with a weekday rush from 11:00 to 13:00:
| Period | Cashier | Kitchen/bar | Floor | Total |
|---|
| 07:00 to 10:00 (prep and morning) | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| 10:00 to 14:00 (prep, the rush, and just after) | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| 14:00 to 17:00 (afternoon) | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| 17:00 to 21:30 (evening and closing) | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
On weekends, say your notes show the busy stretch running longer, into the afternoon. Add one person from midday until closing.
For each period, ask three questions. Which station can never be empty? Who can cover two jobs in slow hours, such as a cashier who also makes simple drinks? What has to get done, like cleaning and counting the cash at closing? Consider having two people at closing, so nobody does that work alone.
In Kazeer, staff access is set per task and per outlet, and each staff member has their own role, such as Cashier or Kitchen staff. Make sure whoever you schedule on the POS has Cashier access, and whoever is in the kitchen has Kitchen staff access.
Overlap shifts around the rush
The worst time to change shifts is in the middle of the rush. The people leaving are in a hurry, the people arriving aren't ready, and orders fall through the gap.
- Change shifts after the rush, as the cafe starts to quiet down.
- Let shifts overlap: the next shift arrives before the previous one leaves, so there's time for a handover.
- If your rush is short, consider one short shift just for the rush, for example for part-time staff.
- Stagger breaks outside the rush. Don't let everyone go on break at once.
At handover, pass on what the next shift needs to know: ingredients running low, orders not yet done, and anything unusual that day.
Get everything ready before the rush
The rush is no time to chop ingredients or hunt for cups. Write a list of the prep that has to be done before the rush, and who does it:
- Enough ingredients for your best sellers to get through the rush. How to check is in the guide to daily ingredient stock checks.
- Ingredients cut, measured, or brewed to the day's expected sales.
- Cups, lids, straws, and takeaway packaging stocked near the bar.
- Enough change in the cash drawer.
- Enough receipt paper, if your outlet uses a receipt printer.
- POS tablets or phones charged.
Kazeer AI's advice above points the same way: get your stock and your signature-item promotion ready before the rush.
A sample weekly schedule for a small cafe
This example is made up. The cafe is open from 08:00 to 21:00, with six full-time staff and two part-time staff. Cashiers: Nia, Putri, and Eko. Kitchen and bar: Agus, Dewi, and Fajar. Part-time, for the floor and helping at the bar: Bayu and Wulan.
There are three shifts:
- Morning: 07:00 to 14:30
- Rush: 10:00 to 14:00
- Late: 14:00 to 21:30
| Day | Morning | Rush | Late |
|---|
| Monday | Eko, Dewi | Bayu | Putri, Fajar |
| Tuesday | Eko, Dewi | Bayu | Putri, Fajar |
| Wednesday | Nia, Agus | Bayu | Eko, Dewi |
| Thursday | Nia, Agus | Bayu | Eko, Dewi |
| Friday | Nia, Agus | Bayu | Putri, Fajar |
| Saturday | Nia, Agus | Wulan | Putri, Eko, Fajar |
| Sunday | Nia, Dewi | Wulan | Putri, Fajar, Agus |
Days off: Nia and Agus on Monday and Tuesday, Putri and Fajar on Wednesday and Thursday, Eko on Friday and Sunday, Dewi on Friday and Saturday.
How to read this schedule:
- Every morning and late shift has at least one cashier and one person in the kitchen or at the bar.
- On weekdays, there are two people from 07:00, three from 10:00 to 14:00, four during the handover until 14:30, then two until closing. On weekends, the late shift has three.
- Morning staff take their breaks in turn after Bayu or Wulan arrives at 10:00, before the rush starts.
- The late shift arrives at 14:00, after the rush. The handover takes half an hour as the cafe quiets down, and the morning shift leaves at 14:30.
- Nobody leaves at 21:30 and then works the morning shift the next day.
Note: The shift lengths, breaks, days off, and overtime in this example are only an illustration. Working hours in your business must follow the labor rules that apply and your employment agreements with your staff.
Publish the schedule and handle swaps
A good schedule still falls apart if it's announced at the last minute.
- Publish next week's schedule on the same day every week, for example Thursday. Send it to your staff WhatsApp group and post it on the kitchen wall.
- Write down your rules for swaps: who to ask, how far ahead, and swaps only between people who can do the same job, cashier with cashier.
- Every time a swap is approved, update the schedule on the wall and in the group.
If the person covering works a different station or at another outlet, make sure their Kazeer access is set for that task and outlet before the shift starts. If their role requires a location check, the clock-in location is matched to the outlet where they work, so without that, their clock-in at another outlet will fail.
In Kazeer, staff clock in and clock out from their phone with a selfie that's matched to the face they registered. For roles that require a location check, their location is also matched to the outlet where they work. In the app, only the owner sees the attendance records, so you compare them with the schedule yourself. Do it once a week, so swaps nobody recorded show up quickly. How to do that is in the article on attendance with a selfie.
Start next week
- For two weeks, write down sales every hour and watch when the line starts to grow.
- Mark your busy and slow hours, separately for weekdays and weekends.
- Decide how many people each period and each station needs.
- Build shifts that overlap around the rush, with shift changes after the rush is over.
- Write a prep list for before the rush, with the name of whoever does each task.
- Publish the schedule on the same day every week, and review how you split the shifts once a month.