All you need to know about the Hospitality People Suite (+ 12 powerful features you’re yet to uncover) 

There's a lot the Hospitality People Suite can do, and some of the most useful capabilities are ones that don't always get the spotlight. So we created this blog to do just that, here are some of the powerful features you might not know about: 

Most of the information you need day-to-day already exists somewhere in your system; it's just not always easy to get to. Copilot Assistant changes that by letting you ask questions in plain language and get answers straight back, without having to dig through reports or call someone to find out. 
 
Examples of the questions you can ask: 

Copilot pulls from the data already in your system and surfaces what you need in the moment you need it. 

But it’s not just an AI chat bot. Copilot enables you to really dig into the detail and interrogate your data at a granular level  

For example, it can dig into your AI demand forecasting suggestions and help you understand the reason why your labour predictions might have changed, so when something looks unexpected, you're not just accepting it, you're in a position to question and subsequently act on it. Copilot can even help you with course image creation - helping you build training content at pace and without image licensing costs. 

And when it comes to payroll, it can answer compliance questions on the spot, saving your managers from having to escalate something that should have a straightforward answer.  
 

Feeds is one of those things that's hard to explain until you've seen it in action, and then you wonder how you managed without it. Rather than waiting for something to go wrong and then working backwards, it surfaces the things that need your attention proactively, meaning you’re always at least one step ahead. 
 
Feeds makes sure that nothing important gets missed - whether that's a compliance issue, a gap in your staffing, or a change in performance that needs attention.  

For example, Feeds will flag if a team member is scheduled to work over their contracted hours, or when updated sales predictions suggest you're about to be short-staffed on a Friday night. And when it comes to onboarding and training new team members, it can spot that a group of new starters haven't completed their food safety training before their first shit (a potential compliance concern). 

But because the suite shares data across modules, Feeds gives you something even more valuable than individual alerts - it gives you a joined-up picture of what's happening across your whole operation, but without you having to figure it out.  

The Hospitality People Suite offers a flexible approach to employee scheduling - from manual to auto-scheduling and AI forecasting. But for the purpose of this blog, we're going to look at the latter, AI-powered scheduling. 

The driving force behind our HR & workforce management module, Rotaready Evo offers an auto-scheduling functionality, meaning you're not building from scratch every week. You’re defining your rules once and generate new rotas in seconds. 

 
Auto-scheduling can be enhanced even further with Forecasting, our smart scheduling booster. Using AI & machine learning the booster forecast demand hour by hour, drawing on your historical sales data, trading patterns, local events and even the weather, helping you improve rota accuracy by 5% on average 

Over a year, across a busy site, those numbers are worth paying attention to. 
  

A lot of the value in the Hospitality People Suite comes from the fact that data moves between products automatically. A huge time saver, when you think about how much time gets spent manually moving information from one place to another or chasing people to make sure something's been updated. It also eliminates the risk of human error that comes with manual data entry. 
 
And that’s why our integrations don’t stop at Access Hospitality solutions.  

The suite connects with the host of third-party platforms, including EPOS systems, reservation, tipping and other people solutions, meaning your Access Hospitality People modules can easily become part of your wider operation, enabling you to select the exact tools and set-up that works for you.  

Hospitality managers aren't sitting at computers for most of their day, and the People Suite is built with that in mind.  

From your phone, you can message employees directly, build and view rotas, manage holiday and attendance, and all without needing to be at a desk. For your team, it's just as straightforward: they can view their shifts, request holiday, and swap shifts without having to track down a manager to do it for them. 
  

Training doesn't need a desktop either. CPL Learning Evo's mobile-first courses mean your team can complete their learning in the moments that work for them whether that's before a shift, on a break, or at home. The content is designed to work on a phone, which in hospitality is usually the only screen people have on them. 

Hospitality has one of the highest staff turnover rates in any industry with annual churn sitting at around 40%. A lot of the time, the signs were there - they just weren't picked up early enough.  

Employee sentiment analysis in Rotaready Evo is a feature that gives managers an early warning when engagement starts to drop. It doesn’t replace good management, but it gives your managers a level of visibility that they wouldn’t previously had, so they can proactively address any drops in moral and have the right conversation at the right time - before someone has already mentally checked out.

7. Discount vouchers - a benefit that goes a long way 

Through Paywise+, employees get access to a range of discount vouchers covering everyday spending. 

Fair pay is a given, but in an industry with notoriously high turnover, it's rarely enough on its own. Increasingly, employees are looking for more than just a wage, and the businesses that hold on to good people tend to be the ones that go above and beyond the basics.  

In an industry where only 52% of employees say they're happy in their current role, the businesses that hold on to good people tend to be the ones that go above and beyond the basics, offering benefits that make a real difference to everyday life and showing their team that they're genuinely valued. 

9. Learning Journeys  

One of the most common frustrations with training in hospitality is that it doesn't feel relevant -the same content lands in front of everyone regardless of their role, how long they've been with the business, or where they're trying to get to.  

Learning Journeys, a functionality within CPL Learning Evo, are designed to structure the content around job role so a new team member gets what they need to get started, and someone moving into a supervisory position gets something that reflects that transition. It supports compliance, yes, but it also gives people a visible path forward - which matters when you're trying to hold on to good employees. 

They can also be used to support seasonal campaigns and key trading moments - from onboarding teams on new Christmas menus to rolling out training around initiatives like Pride Month, helping ensure everyone is aligned, informed, and ready to deliver a consistent guest experience 

10. Appraisals 

Appraisals within CPL Learning Evo go well beyond the annual review. Managers can run formal appraisal cycles but also create on-demand templates for 90-day check ins, probation reviews and performance improvement plans. And for succession planning, the 9-box grid gives leaders an objective way to assess performance and potential across their team, with key objectives set for each individual to work towards and review over time.  

11. Employee self-onboarding - starting well before day one 

Nobody wants their first day to be spent filling in forms. And equally, managers don't want to be chasing paperwork when there's a service to run.  

We thought about it too, when building the Hospitality People Suite, and made sure that the self-onboarding process (which happens through the Rotaready Evo mobile app) lets new starters input their key personal details - contact information, bank details, right to work documents, before they've even walked through the door.  

And since the suite consist of a recruiting tool (Eploy), a lot of that information is already pre-populated from the recruitment process, key candidate information carries straight through into scheduling  (Rotaready Evo) once someone is hired, eliminating duplicate data entry and reducing the risk of human error that comes with manually transferring details between systems.  

12. Payroll intelligence - built for how hospitality works  

Hospitality payroll has a lot of moving parts, and the margin for error is smaller than it looks. Paycircle is built around that reality, and since it's connected to Rotaready Evo within the suite, a lot of the manual work is taken care of in the background. 

It also brings in a couple of features that make day-to-day payroll a lot easier: