How to create a labor standard#
For: Admin You’ll need: A driver with some recorded history — see How to create a demand driver.
A driver says how much business you expect. A labor standard says how much work that business is, for one position. Without one, a forecast is just a number; with one, it becomes required hours.
You need one standard per position that scales with the driver. Positions that don’t scale — a duty manager who is there regardless — either get a standard with no driver and a fixed minimum, or none at all.
Create it#
Go to Planning → Demand → Labor standards.
Click ‘Create’.
Pick the ‘Position’ the standard staffs.
Optionally narrow it: leave ‘Location’ empty to apply everywhere; set ‘Area’ to narrow it to one area of a location.
Pick the ‘Driver’. Leave it empty for a standard that does not vary with volume.
Fill in ‘Minutes per unit’ — how many minutes of this position one unit of the driver takes.
Optionally add ‘Fixed minutes per interval’ — the setup, prep, or presence cost that exists regardless of volume.
Set ‘Minimum headcount’ and ‘Maximum headcount’. The minimum is the smallest crew the role ever runs with; the maximum caps a demand spike.
Tick the weekdays it applies on.
Click ‘Save’.
Enter it as units per hour instead#
If you naturally think “one person handles 30 covers an hour” rather than “a cover takes two minutes”, use the ‘Units per labor hour’ field. Type 30 and Shiftavo converts it to minutes per unit when you save. The two are the same statement inverted.
Narrow it in time#
‘Window start’ and ‘Window end’ limit the standard to part of the day, in local time. Leave both empty to cover the whole day.
‘Valid from’ and ‘Valid to’ limit it to a date range — for a seasonal crew, or to retire a standard on a known date without deleting it. ‘Valid to’ is inclusive.
Split a location’s demand across areas#
If you record a driver per location but staff by area, set ‘Share of location demand (%)’ on each area’s standard — for example 60 for the kitchen, 40 for the terrace. Each area’s standard then works from that share of the location’s forecast. The field only works on a standard narrowed to an ‘Area’ and with a ‘Driver’, and the area shares for one position and driver at a location can’t add up to more than 100%.
Without a share, an area’s standard only uses values recorded for that area — if there are none, it adds no demand-driven hours.
Verify it worked#
Open How to read the demand plan and check the ‘Required hours’ and ‘Peak heads’ columns — they should now be above zero for the days your driver has a forecast for. The coverage grid also starts showing forecast-derived required figures for that position.
Note
If required hours stay at 0, the usual cause is that no standard resolves for that position, location, weekday, and time window. Standards are matched most-specific first; a standard with no location acts as the fallback.