Small cafe, four part-timers plus me. Two called in sick within an hour of each other on our busiest Saturday. I opened alone, could not keep up, served maybe a third of what we normally would and had a queue walk out twice. Took about 400 instead of 1200. I have no bench and no agency to call. What do people actually do about this rather than just hoping it does not happen again?
Build a reduced-service plan and write it down before you need it, because you will never design one well at 7am with a queue forming.
Mine is a laminated sheet: on a solo day the menu drops to four items that can be made in under three minutes, the table service stops and everything becomes counter and collect, and a sign goes on the door saying limited menu today. Turnover on a solo day is about 60% of normal instead of 30%, and crucially nobody walks out angry because expectations were set at the door.
Second thing is a paid on-call arrangement. I pay one person 20 to be reachable on Saturday mornings whether or not I call. That has cost me maybe 400 a year and saved two days like yours.
Paid on-call is worth more than it costs for a second reason: it makes the expectation explicit rather than you begging someone by text on their day off.
The laminated reduced menu is going up this week. I spent that whole Saturday trying to run the normal operation with one person, which was the actual mistake.
Cross-train someone outside the rota. My partner can run the till and clear tables badly but adequately, and one Saturday a year that is worth a great deal. A neighbouring shop owner is another option — a reciprocal arrangement where you cover each other's emergencies costs nothing until it is needed.
Also have a sickness policy that says how much notice you expect and what happens on repeat short-notice absence, and make sure everyone has read it. Not to be punitive — just because most people are reasonable when the expectation is written down and vague when it is not.
@chainline_chris · 3mo ago · 3 replies
Two on the same morning is worth quietly investigating rather than filing under bad luck. In my experience it is occasionally genuinely coincidence, and it is occasionally two people who both did not want to work that shift and coordinated. Look at whether it was the same pairing, whether either had asked for that day off, and whether Saturday is under-rewarded compared with your quieter shifts.
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@lowell_frame · 3mo ago
There is your answer, and it is a scheduling problem rather than a sickness problem. Cheaper to fix too.
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@till_and_tally · 3mo ago
They had both asked for that Saturday off six weeks ago and I said no to both. I did not connect those things until now.
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