Mellow Mushroom: Stay Grounded or Schedulefly?

Abstract

One night in 2014, Mike, the head manager of Mellow Mushroom Tampa, paused from his exhausting evening to stare at the paper schedule posted on the wall. The schedule was covered in a mess of writing from employees drawing arrows to swap shifts, or asking others to pick up shifts. He had always tried to accommodate people’s schedules, but the task was becoming stressful and exasperating. That night one of the employees scheduled to work had neglected to show up, and none of the other employees Mike called could cover the shift. This meant that Mike would spend the remainder of the evening filling in at the bar as well as covering a few tables. Meanwhile, he would still be dealing with customer questions and complaints. Mike wished this was a rare occasion, but at least once a month he would have no-shows, either due to a conflict with an employee’s schedule, or because they did not even know they had been scheduled to work. Mike knew there had to be a way to fix the scheduling issues.