Are You Overstaffed? How Restaurant Operators Can Finally Prove It

You have a feeling you’re overstaffed.

Not dramatically. Not obviously. But something about the schedule doesn’t feel right.

There’s more coverage than you think you need. People seem underutilized during predictable slow periods. The numbers say you’re profitable, but cash isn’t building the way it should.

The problem is—you can’t prove it.

And gut feelings don’t change schedules.

Why Overstaffing Is Hard to Prove

Overstaffing in restaurants rarely looks like waste. It looks like “coverage.”

The extra person on Tuesday lunch? Coverage.
The two closers when one might do? Coverage.
The prep cook who starts at the same time no matter what? Coverage.

Coverage feels responsible. It feels like you’re preventing disasters.

But coverage that isn’t tied to expected demand is, by definition, more than you need. And more than you need costs money whether you call it coverage or not.

The reason operators can’t prove overstaffing is simple: they don’t have a baseline.

No clear number that says:
“This is what right looks like for this day, at this sales level.”

Without a baseline, you’re arguing with yourself.

The 5 Most Common Overstaffing Patterns

1) Slow days staffed like medium days

If Monday does 20–25% less in sales than Wednesday, Monday should not look identical in hours.

Most schedules don’t flex like that. Tuesday looks like Wednesday looks like Thursday.

Sales varies. Staffing doesn’t.

2) Fixed prep regardless of volume

“We always do three hours of prep.”

But if sales fluctuate, prep needs fluctuate. Over-prep quietly costs money. Under-prep creates panic. Most restaurants avoid panic—so they default to over-prep.

3) Open staffed for rare events

Once you got slammed at 11:15 three months ago—so now you carry extra open coverage every day “just in case.”

That’s paying 90+ days of insurance for a few rare spikes.

4) Closing built by template

“We need two closers” becomes a rule.

Templates don’t adjust for reality. They preserve decisions made long ago—whether or not they still fit today.

5) Transition overlap that lasts too long

Lunch ends around 1:30. Dinner doesn’t build until 5:30.

How many people are on the clock during that window—and why? Transition is where hours hide because no one is explicitly “owning” the total.

Why Labor % Won’t Catch This

“If I was overstaffed, my labor percentage would be high.”

Not necessarily.

Labor % is a weekly average. You can be heavy on Monday and light on Saturday and still land on target.

Labor % also shows up after the week is over—after the cash is gone.

It doesn’t tell you which hours were unnecessary.

How to Isolate Overstaffing (Without Guessing)

To find where overstaffing lives, you have to compare days (and ideally dayparts) separately.

For each day over the last four weeks, calculate:

Total labor hours ÷ Sales

You’ll get a number like 0.014 or 0.018.

Your efficient days (usually busier days) will be lower. Your inefficient days (usually slower days) will be higher.

The gap between those days is where the overstaffing lives.

This calculation gives you a starting signal—not a decision you should trust without adjustment. It tells you where to look, not exactly what to cut.

What “Proof” Actually Looks Like

Proof isn’t a feeling. Proof is a comparison:

• What you’re scheduling

• What you should be scheduling

When you have both, the conversation changes.

It’s no longer:
“I feel like we’re overstaffed on Tuesdays.”

It becomes:
“The target says 48 hours and we scheduled 57. Where are those 9 hours—and do they belong?”

That’s proof. That’s actionable.

Why Cutting Blindly Backfires

The temptation is to cut across the board and “see what happens.”

That usually backfires because blind cuts hit productive hours and unproductive hours equally.

You end up understaffed when it matters most, service suffers, the team gets frustrated, and you swing back to adding hours. Net result: nothing changes.

The fix isn’t cutting. It’s precision.

And that raises the next question:

What metric actually helps you set a target before you schedule?

Read this next → Sales-Per-Labor-Hour Explained: What It Tells You Before You Write the Schedule