Case Study: Centerplate achieves centralized union scheduling and reduced overtime with Shiftboard

Using Shiftboard, Centerplate manages 400 labor union workers at DC Convention Center

Centerplate provides all food, beverage and staffing services for the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, managing 400 union servers, bartenders, cooks and retail employees across ten departments. Manual spreadsheet scheduling made it nearly impossible to honor union seniority rules, staff simultaneous events reliably, control last‑minute callouts and overtime, or see how schedules affected labor budgets.

Centerplate implemented Shiftboard within weeks, using auto-scheduling and seniority‑aware rules to assign shifts, standardizing manager requests and integrating with Attendance Enterprise for time‑tracking. The system centralized scheduling and 24/7 calendar access, improved communication and real‑time labor forecasting, kept the team compliant with union rules while avoiding overtime, and helped Centerplate hit its financial targets.

Centerplate

Curtis McDonald

Chief Financial Officer