Tracking your Sales Per Labour Hour

As a responsible cafe owner you should be tracking your sales per labour hour, otherwise known as S P L H. This is calculated by dividing your total sales revenue by the total number of labour hours rostered. The higher the S P L H number, the more productivity is being generated by your business. .

S P L H is a key performance indicator that helps optimise operations, control labour costs, and boost profitability in a high-volume, low-margin industry like hospitality.

Here’s why it’s particularly valuable.

By tracking sales per labour hour you gain greater insight into how effectively your staff are generating revenue. This allows you to spot issues like slow service or overstaffing across the entire business.

To take it one step further, try tracking your SPLH for every hour of the day. For example, the 8am–9am period will likely differ from 2pm–3pm.

By fine-tuning your analysis this way, it will reveal specific times of the day that you’re overstaffed, enabling more efficient rostering and therefore reducing your labour costs relative to your revenue.