With the Swedish institution of 'fika' at its core, Fee-ka is a quirky, health-conscious cafe in Surbiton that aims to celebrate the simple act of spending a few minutes of quality time with friends, family or coworkers — along with a hot drink and tasty treat, of course.

The challenge

Fee-ka went from having just one full-time employee to nine in a very short space of time. While this was great news for the business, it meant that the management team found themselves spending less time running the business and more time on admin.

“Keeping on top of the shifts and how much we were spending on staff was one of the real challenges at first,” Director Glenda Gallone told us.

“My husband and I would create the rota on a shared spreadsheet with hourly rates and budgets, and then have to copy the shifts on a separate email to send to our employees. It was very convoluted.”

With “too many emails, text messages, and WhatsApp messages flying around”, Glenda decided that it was time to look for a solution.

The solution

“We looked for ways to manage rotas and found a few options online. RotaCloud had a free trial, so we signed up to give it a go,” Glenda said.

“The online interface is very clean and straightforward; the fact that you can also use the app on your phone makes it great to make and track changes on the go.”

After getting the thumbs-up from their staff, Glenda decided to make RotaCloud a permanent feature at their business. It wasn’t long before she began to notice the difference.

“I used to set up the rota every two weeks and it took around two hours in the evening to complete before emailing staff,“ Glenda said. “Now, I can do it in a much shorter amount of time, and when staff aren’t available or need to move their shifts around it is all very simple.”

“RotaCloud also keeps track of worked hours, breaks, budgets and the reports are effortless to access,” she added.

With Fee-ka’s rotas now under control, Glenda then decided to make use of our Time & Attendance add-on.

“Prompted by our shift managers complaining of some team members not showing up on time, I’ve recently started using the attendance feature. This way everyone knows when shifts start and end, and our budget is well spent for the effective working hours,” she said.

“I’m also excited to start using the multiple location feature once we expand to have multiple cafes.”

Finally, we asked Glenda whether she would recommend RotaCloud to other independent business owners.

“RotaCloud has become an indispensable tool for us, and we think it would be the same for anyone starting their own business when dealing with shifts and staff. I highly recommend it to any business managing staff — it will make your life so much easier!”

We think it’s fair to say that’s a ‘yes’!