Getting ready for rush hours

A rush is rarely a surprise. Thursday night, Friday after the midday prayer, the start of the month, Ramadan before iftar and after the evening prayers, the Eid holidays, the sales season, the big match. What usually catches you out isn’t the rush itself; it’s that you never wrote it down anywhere.

When the rush starts and you’re a pair of hands short, every fix comes too late: you call someone who isn’t free, or you push your own team past what they can do. This guide is about planning the extra hands well before the rush, not while it’s happening.

1 Know when your rush comes

For two weeks, mark each working hour on a sheet with one word: quiet, normal, busy. Don’t rely on how it felt at the end of the day; that feeling only remembers the last rush.

You already have sources that help:

• Receipts. If your till prints the time on every receipt, count the receipts in each hour.
• Your team. Ask them: “When do you get swamped?”. The people on the bar or the till know the answer better than anyone.
• The calendar. Mark the days that make a difference for you: the start of the month, school terms and exams, the holidays, occasions and matches.

In the end you’ll have the shape of your week in front of you: where the steady rush that repeats is, and where the rush that comes with an occasion is.

2 Count the hands you’re short

For each rush, ask two questions: how many people do you need for the work to run without anything falling behind, and how many do you have? The difference is the gap.

The signs of a gap are plain if you look for them: the queue gets longer, orders run late, tables stay uncleared, shelves empty and no one is free to fill them.

3 Cover the rush, not the whole day

The extra hands don’t have to come in early. Book them for the busy stretch, plus half an hour before it to get to know the place.

Think about the role, not just the number. Sometimes the most useful move is to bring someone in for the supporting work: washing up, clearing tables, shelving stock. That way your own people, who know the place and the customers, stay focused on the work no one else can do.

4 Post the shift early

The earlier you post the shift, the more people see it and plan around it. A rush that repeats every week? Post it a week ahead. An occasion whose date you know? Two weeks ahead if you can.

Write it clearly, too: the role, the exact time, the pay, and the place. A vaguely written shift posted a week before the rush will keep sending you questions right up to the day.

How to write it in a few lines: How to write a clear shift

5 A five-minute briefing before the rush

The right time to explain is before the rush, not during it. In the half hour before, cover four things:

1. The place. Where the stockroom, the toilet, and the spare bags or cups are, and where to leave their belongings.
2. Their exact job. One clear thing, not “help with whatever”.
3. Who to go to. One person’s name, not “anyone on the team”.
4. The rule that never breaks. Like: no order goes out without a ticket, or nothing comes out of the display case without asking.

6 After the rush

Once things calm down, take five minutes and write on the same sheet: was the number right, short, or too many? Did the rush start on time or earlier? Who worked well and would you ask for again?

After two months, that sheet is more accurate than any forecast. And thank whoever came, and your own team too: the rush hit them as well.