AUSTIN, Texas–(BUSINESS WIRE)– HotSchedules today announced its participation in two of the restaurant industry’s most prominent technology events, FS/TEC and MURTEC. HotSchedules will exhibit at FS/TEC (booth #225), February 21-24 in Long Beach, California in addition to MURTEC, March 10-12 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Ray Gallagher, Sr. Director of Operations Services with Carino’s Italian (a HotSchedules customer), will be part of an educational panel session at FS/TEC on February 22 moderated by Nation’s Restaurant Newstechnology editor, Alan Liddle. The session, which will be held in room 202 at the Long Beach Convention and Entertainment Center, will focus on Technology for Workforce Management. The panel, which also includes one of the nation’s top quick-service chains, will focus on Carino’s experience using HotSchedules for both sales forecasting and labor scheduling.

At both FS/TEC and MURTEC, HotSchedules will showcase its labor management and online employee scheduling solutions created for restaurateurs, by restaurateurs. Now in its 10th year in business, HotSchedules was the pioneer in online staff scheduling, and has since grown to serve over 4,000 chain and independent restaurants throughout the nation with both online employee scheduling and comprehensive labor management solutions. HotSchedules is delivered in the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model, offering the highest level of convenience, flexibility and accessibility for restaurant employees and managers – and a fast, easy roll-out without disrupting the business.

HotSchedules allows operators to build labor plans through a template generator or with more advanced activity-based forecasting, significantly reducing the time it takes managers to develop staff schedules and manage the constant influx of shift changes and requests. For employees that are accustomed to calling in or driving to the restaurant to view their schedule or make a request, it’s now as easy as logging in to HotSchedules from any web-enabled computer or mobile device, or dialing a 24-hour bilingual toll-free support line. Employees can also opt in to have alerts sent to them via email or text message when a manager approves or denies a shift change or other request.

With advanced sales forecasting, HotSchedules removes the guess work from workforce management by helping restaurants easily and more accurately project their targeted labor budget to align with projected sales. With more appropriate staffing levels for each shift, restaurants improve their bottom line while better serving their guests. At FS/TEC and MURTEC, HotSchedules will feature its new Sales Trending feature, which allows restaurants to forecast labor based on actual recent sales in addition to projections based on last year’s sales. Without the details of hourly sales trending, restaurant managers cannot schedule accurately to the continually changing business flow.

“In an economy that’s still inconsistent and somewhat turbulent, the volatility of sales can make it very difficult to accurately forecast labor plans, and this is the single most important step in managing labor cost control,” said David Cantu, vice president of business development, HotSchedules. “We are excited to demonstrate the Sales Trending capability, as sales forecasting is a critical element of labor management. We’re expecting FS/TEC and MURTEC to be packed with valuable education sessions and networking opportunities, and we hope everyone will stop by and talk with HotSchedules at both events to learn more about our offerings.”