Labor forecasting software for the hospitality industry

Never suffer the consequences of under or overstaffed shifts.

Act on intelligent predictive insights, not manager gut checks influenced by variability and subjectivity.

Confidently plan for the future and take control of your labor budget by replacing manual manager analyses with demand forecasting from Fourth.

Improve labor forecasting accuracy by 20-75%

Schedule with confidence

Equipped with an accurate labor forecast, managers can make effective staffing decisions with speed and ease.

Improve in-store experiences

Perfectly staffed shifts make employees happy. And happy employees deliver exceptional guest experiences.

Uncover profitability

Stick to your labor budget and eliminate systematic inefficiencies like overstaffing and overtime across all locations.

Labor forecasting to fit your needs 

Whether you’re a new business owner, a beloved mom-and-pop shop, or a national chain executive, labor forecasting is critical to growing people, performance, and profits. That’s why we offer two labor forecasting models to meet various challenges facing the hospitality industry.  

Standard Forecasting

POS forecasting moves managers away from Excel sheets and equips them with the necessary tools, data, and technology to create demand forecasts in minutes.

  • Forecast averages manager-selected weeks of historical sales data and external factors like holidays and weather to improve forecasting accuracy by 75% when compared to manual analyses
  • Forecasts are generated on-demand and in minutes, saving managers hours of work while improving labor deployment

AI Labor Forecasting

Our AI Forecasting never clocks out, automatically generating and delivering the industry’s most advanced forecasts.

  • Maintain peak efficiency across all locations with an algorithm analyzing economic trends, consumer behavior, and millions of internal and external data points including 7+ years of historical data, foot traffic, promotions, holidays, and more.
  • AI forecasting continuously learns and improves its calculation with every new data point, making small, daily adjustments that add up to monumental improvements
  • Managers are served up an accurate forecast irrespective of tenure or experience and free from human biases

Learn more about AI Forecasting

Improve forecasting accuracy

Always be ready to conquer the day

After years of fluctuating demand, it’s nearly impossible for managers to understand where foot traffic may fall on any given day. But AI Labor Forecasting has the power to analyze sales going back 7+ years, the intelligence to remove event outliers from equations, and the ability to continuously learn and improve its formula day over day.

It’s the industry’s most accurate forecast. And it’s available for all your locations.

Optimize labor deployment

Reduce labor costs & increase sales

Overstaffed shifts mean wasted labor dollars. Understaffed shifts mean missed sales opportunities and hefty overtime fees.

When using AI Forecasting and Fourth’s full suite of workforce management solutions, our customers see a 5% savings in labor budgets, a 2% uptick in sales, and a 4-point improvement in overall customer satisfaction scores.

Meet growth goals

Manage and improve across units

While the benefits of AI Forecasting are almost immediate, its best attribute is the ability to continuously learn and improve its formula.

With every new data point, our AI algorithms make small but daily adjustments that add up to monumental improvements. And with every location running its own AI Forecast, it’s a highly personalized solution executed at scale.

Build brand loyalty

Delight your customers

Accurate labor forecasting is essential to reducing labor budgets. But we can’t forget the one thing more important than cutting costs— attracting repeat customers.

The biggest benefit to properly staffing shifts is happy customers. And happy customers are a direct result of engaged employees who have time for task management and aren’t feeling the burn from understaffing or boredom from overstaffing.

America’s favorite ice cream and dairy store drives sweet sales with Fourth.

“Without Fourth, we would have remained stagnant. Our managers and district managers would not have been armed with an innovative technology that not only supports day-to-day operations, but also looks ahead to ensure we are maximizing our efforts in the right places to increase sales year over year.”

— Amber Ghotbi, Braum’s District Manager

View Case Study
  • How do you measure the success of AI Forecasting?
    • There are two common metrics used to calculate forecasting accuracy, MAPE and WAPE. We use WAPE to measure forecasting accuracy, or the weighted absolute percentage error. This formula takes into account the difference between the forecasted value and the actual value, as well as the importance of each forecast.
      While a bit more difficult to calculate, WAPE is a better measurement for 2 main reasons.
      1. MAPE, or the mean absolute percentage error, can be skewed by extreme values. WAPE, however, takes the actual value into account.
      2. WAPE accounts for forecast importance ultimately reflecting negative impacts on revenue more accurately
  • Why should I trust AI over managers or in-house formulas?
    • Hospitality managers don’t take on the role because they love creating complicated forecasting models. Yet it’s a critical and daunting task for them every time they create a schedule. Our labor forecasting, however, completely automates forecast creation, ensuring your managers have the necessary insights they need to be good at their job and the necessary support to want to stay at their job. Managers are amazing at creating exemplary guest experiences. Our AI forecasting is amazing at predicting future demand so you always staff shifts to perfection.
  • Can I create employee schedules without labor forecasting?
    • You can, but you’ll likely end up managing a plethora of under or overstaffed shifts leading to team burnout, decreased sales, and poor guest experiences. Our labor forecasting uses science-backed algorithms to analyze data points, predicting future demand with significantly better accuracy than humans. Best of all, it continues to learn and improve the algorithm every day, ensuring your business continues to get better and better with no additional resources.

Our team would love to hear from you

Give us a call today +1 (877) 539-5156, or click the button below.

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Conquer the Day

Save time, reduce costs, and increase profitability with Fourth’s intelligent solutions.

  • Reduce labor costs with accurate demand forecasting that eliminates over and understaffing.
  • Eliminate your HR burden with HR and payroll services that manage it for you.
  • Lower your COGS and drive increased profitability with inventory management solutions.

Trusted by Customers Worldwide

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