From assistant manager to district manager: Why Jennie advocated for Ameego as she rose through the ranks

Before we dive into why Jennie calls Ameego “the best, custom solution I’ve ever experienced,” we wanted to share more about her impressive journey. Jennie spent 15 years as a general manager at Tim Hortons managing multiple locations. When she was ready to take the next step in her career, she joined Compass Group as an assistant manager, got promoted to manager, and now, she’s the district manager of Compass One Healthcare, Ontario. If it isn’t obvious already, Jennie is a hardworking go-getter who cares deeply about making things more efficient so she can spend her time and energy on the important things – building sustainable teams and taking good care of her staff.

The challenge

As a district manager, Jennie handles everything from building and managing client relationships, to overseeing profit and loss (P&L) financials at a site level in collaboration with unit managers, to helping managers grow their business. With so much within Jennie’s scope, she runs into challenges from time to time. 

“Because there’s such a large variety of services, we’re managing multiple brands – both external and internal. Think: Tim Hortons, Subway, and then we have all of the different cafeterias. There’s lots to manage!”

One of the main challenges Jennie gave us insight into was the lack of cohesion across multiple units since there wasn’t one go-to software. Some businesses had their own scheduling platform that all restaurant units would have to use while others left it up to unit managers to decide how they wanted to handle scheduling. She found that with each option, there was always something that was missing. This meant pulling reports and doing analysis was a pain – each platform had a different set up and many delivered different outputs, so any sort of planning was dreadful and felt a lot like guesswork.

“One platform has payroll but doesn’t have scheduling. Another has scheduling but doesn’t have anything that would help managers out with HR needs. Some units just did it all using excel or even pen and paper because it was too time-consuming to learn a brand new platform. It’s always one thing or another and never all of the above. We have so much on the go already – multiple manual entries and trying to remember all of the different platform logins was a recipe for lots of errors.”

The solution

Because there were so many unknowns like how many people to have on shift, when to schedule the top performers, and key metrics like sales per hour worked, a software that was able to capture all of the data and recommend a solution was just what she needed. It was clear – Jennie was looking for an all-in-one software that could manage multiple brands and help her with labour forecasting all while being easy to learn. 

“I came across Ameego when I was a manager and it was a dream. I knew I needed to bring it with me as I got promoted to district manager because it would help all of the units get on the same page, save time, and make more money. It takes all of my data across the different units, does its analysis, and spits out next week’s perfect schedule within seconds. I can easily move staff across different units depending on where they’re needed, without having to pop in and out of different platforms to make changes and then of course, having to triple check for accuracy.”

Ameego’s one-touch scheduling and system integrations make all of this possible. But it doesn’t stop there – Jennie also uses Ameego to manage employee availability and shift swapping.

“My team can update their availability and the changes are live right away. And if the schedule has been made but someone can’t make their shift, they can request a shift swap within Ameego. Other team members can easily take the shift and all I have to do is approve the change. No more chasing down people to cover shifts? Sign me up.” 

The result

Jennie’s enthusiasm radiated as she talked about how Ameego helped her streamline many tasks. One of the features she called attention to was sharing the following week’s schedule as soon as it was available. She didn’t have to print it, post it on a bulletin board, and send a message out to her team. With Ameego, as soon as the schedule is created, managers can post it and all employees can view it right away. 

“From an employee perspective, everything is already there when you log in. There’s no more ‘when and where do you want me today?’ All the details are easily viewable for my team so they know exactly what to do right at the beginning of their shift.”

“It’s a complete game changer – it’s so flexible in application so it isn’t a crummy cookie-cutter solution because let’s be honest, those don’t work. I love Ameego because it’s not about cutting labour; it’s about optimizing it.”

Beyond being able to increase profits because Jennie’s putting her best staff on shifts where they can generate the most sales per labour hour, she’s saving time as a manager in a multitude of areas.

“I’ve easily saved upwards of 15-20 hours each week from not having to cross-reference employees' skills or certifications and availability. The dollar savings are just endless because if you continue to optimize each time you build the schedule, the product uses the previous weeks of data and trends from your own registers and continues to set you up for success.”