Shift bidding apps helping bars keep their staff
A tech-driven scheduling model gaining traction overseas could offer UK bar groups a cost-effective, low-friction way to boost retention and reduce burnout.
Tech-powered rostering systems like Deputy and 7shifts are quietly transforming how some venues schedule bar staff in Australia and the US. It turns out that one of the most meaningful ways to retain hospitality workers isn’t better uniforms or staff pizza nights (though those do help). It’s simply letting them choose when they work.
This is the thinking behind so-called shift bidding: a rostering model where employees select or ‘bid’ for upcoming shifts via an app, within a controlled system. Rather than a rota imposed from on high, the approach hands some agency to staff while still allowing management oversight.
In Australia, the Civic Hotel Group in Sydney began using Deputy’s platform to trial this model. While they haven’t published turnover data, Deputy claims their hospitality users often see “a material drop in absenteeism and burnout” when flexible scheduling is introduced.
What Gen Z wants
In the US, 7shifts, another scheduling software provider, found that 42% of hospitality employees cited “flexibility” as their top workplace priority in 2024, beating both pay and free food. That means your team would rather pick their hours than get a free shift drink.
This data comes from 7shifts’ annual operations report, which also notes that restaurants using its Shift Pool function, where open shifts are posted and picked up by staff, saw fewer no-shows and smoother last-minute coverage. This is especially helpful when your brunch chef vanishes at 9.12am on a Sunday and your backup is still asleep in Hackney Wick.
Will UK and US venues bite?
So far, shift bidding in the UK remains the preserve of more experimental operators or chains that have the technology in place. But the appetite is there. RotaCloud, a UK-based platform, says demand for shift-swapping and availability-led scheduling tools has steadily increased across pubs and restaurants. The British Beer and Pub Association and UKHospitality have also flagged digital scheduling as a key area for improving recruitment and retention.
Partner Content
It isn’t hard to see why. The UK’s hospitality industry lost roughly 11% of its workforce between 2019 and 2023. Hiring is hard. Training is expensive. Retention is cheaper and, in some ways, more civilised, particularly if it prevents you from having to explain the till system to a stranger every second Thursday.
Limits and lessons
To be clear: this isn’t scheduling anarchy. Systems like Deputy or 7shifts let managers set limits, pre-assign key roles and review all bids before confirming the final rota. The risk, of course, is that everyone bids for Friday night and no one wants Tuesday lunch. This is where small perks, like points or early shift access, can help. Civic Hotel reportedly used flexible scheduling not only to reduce attrition but also to improve weekend cover by rewarding staff who took less glamorous slots.
If all of this sounds a bit Silicon Valley, that’s because it is. But hospitality doesn’t need to adopt tech dogma to learn from it. It just needs to stop losing its best people to office jobs where the only drinks served are passive-aggressive coffees.
So, should your venue try it?
In short: if you’re struggling with staffing and still building rotas with an Excel template older than your dishwasher, this may be a relatively painless fix.
Start small. Trial a few open shifts per week. Monitor coverage and morale. Reward those who mop up Mondays. And if your bartenders suddenly stop swapping shifts in alleyways like contraband, you’ll know it’s working.
Flexible scheduling won’t solve every labour problem. But neither will panic-hire the chef’s cousin who “used to run a bar in Ibiza.” Sometimes, a bit of structure, softened by choice, is exactly what the modern hospitality team needs.
Related news
Fruit-forward and aromatic wines win over modern drinkers
