Manager notes allow owners and managers to document and communicate critical information pertaining to day-to-day or the long-term. Thankfully, cloud-based technologies like ShiftNote’s logbook allows you to avoid writing multiple Post-its to communicate important operational and personnel-related notes.
Logging manager notes aids in communication between managers and other leaders within an organization. It also streamlines the process of communication, making decisions easier, and information clearer. Systemizing log notes also allows managers to keep your team on track & accountable. And, with a tool like ShiftNote’s logbook, you can measure important stats/data within the dashboard to inform future decisions with quantitative data.
Who Can Benefit From Online Manager Notes?
Single or multi-unit businesses can benefit from using cloud-based management notes. In fact, this type of solution can be used at restaurants, retail stores, hotels, country clubs, golf resorts, manufacturing companies, business facilities, healthcare, and just about any place where communication is needed to share from shift-to-shift. Really any business with a lot of moving parts can benefit from an online logbook tool.
What Types of Manager Notes Should You Log?
Here’s a running list of 25 different types of notes you can log:
- 1. Day-to-day operational notes
- 2. Issues that occurred during your shift, or ideas to make the next shift run smoother
- 3. Personnel issues
- 4. Employee notes to support a bi-yearly or yearly review
- 5. Employee feedback
- 6. Customer feedback
- 7. Maintenance and repair issues
- 8. Sales forecasting
- 9. Operational costs
- 10. Estimated labor percentages
- 11. Upcoming promotional ideas or marketing initiatives
- 12. Task tracking
- 13. Inventory analysis — things you may have run out of, or have just ordered more of
- 14. Industry or product trends
- 15. Meeting documentation and notes
- 16. Weather
- 17. Upcoming events
- 18. Maintenance or repair work necessary
- 19. Storing food safety standards and procedure information
- 20. Develop employee recognition programs
- 21. Technical/system improvements for software or computers used within your organization
- 22. Staff action items
- 23. Pricing notes
- 24. Short- or long-term staff action items or goals
- 25. Store documents
Manager Notes - Best Practices
Now that you understand the types of activities that can be logged, now you should gain insight on best practices for logging notes. Here are a few tips:
Critical Details Needed
- Each entry should have enough detail so that someone else who reads the posts can get a clear picture of what happened without asking for further information.
- Detailed log notes are also important because they can assist when legal issues arise. To this end.
- Avoid using nicknames on your log notes. Clearly state whom the entry involves.
- Stick to factual log notes. Personal opinions should be avoided. Instead, log your manager notes in a very analytical way. Answer the “5 W’s” -- who, what, where, when, and why.
- Log notes should be for business purposes only. It’s not the place to communicate casually. Use the messaging system, or email for non business matters.
Confidential Information
- Be cautious of posting confidential financial or medical information.
- Don’t label guests or employees using any of the Federally Protected Classes including race, color, sex, religion, national origin, disability, or age. This is important in the event of a discrimination claim.
If you follow the guidelines above and write clear, yet detailed shift note entries, then you should find ShiftNote to be an amazing tool to help make your life much easier!
While there are other manager logbook tools in the market available, we believe our solution far exceeds the rest. Our features include:
- Ability to create shift notes electronically
- Accessible anywhere
- Instant searches
- Easy document attachment
- Multiple location management
- Weather feed
- Stat & sales tracking
- Daily reports & alerts
- Event calendaring
- Task tracking
- Deposit drop & cash counts
- Customizable
