Case Study: P.F. Chang’s achieves 75% faster scheduling and smarter labor management with Fourth (HotSchedules)

How One Powerful Restaurant Force Empowered their Workforce with Labor Solutions that Scale Across Locations and Concepts

P.F. Chang’s China Bistro is an upscale casual dining chain (213 bistros plus 200 Pei Wei locations) that struggled with a time‑consuming, manual scheduling process: managers were creating weekly schedules for 150+ employees across more than 650 shifts by hand, leading to frequent overstaffing or understaffing and long hours spent working on schedules offsite. The company needed a scalable solution to streamline labor planning and improve communication across locations.

HotSchedules was rolled out chain‑wide with hands‑on training and an Aloha POS integration, providing schedule templates, labor forecasting and budgeting, messaging, and a manager logbook. The result was a 75% reduction in scheduling time (from 2–4 hours to 20–30 minutes), improved employee morale and flexibility, fewer staffing errors, better reporting and overtime controls, and widespread adoption across the organization.

P.F. Chang’s

Peggy Rubenzer

VP of Training