LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov 18, 2025--
Fourth, the leading provider of workforce and inventory management solutions for the hospitality sector, today announced the release of Fourth iQ 2.2, introducing new AI-powered recommendations designed to help managers better plan, communicate, and optimise their teams, while continuing to improve the overall user experience of the iQ App.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251118623431/en/
Clinton Anderson, CEO at Fourth, said: “With every new release of Fourth iQ, we’re continuing to deliver exciting new functionality. iQ 2.2 helps managers make more informed, data-led decisions, while reducing the effort needed to stay on top of daily operations. Just as importantly, we’re listening to customer feedback and acting quickly to refine and enhance the iQ experience, ensuring the app continues to evolve in ways that make a please to use and deliver real impact on controlling cost and improving guest experience.”
Moving from reactive to proactive schedule operations
At the centre of the iQ 2.2 release are three new workforce management recommendations that support better scheduling decisions, improve communication, and strengthen operational performance.
Published Schedule Action – No more outdated schedules
This alert helps maintain an accurate schedule, and prompt communication, by reminding managers whenever there are updates to the schedule that have not been published yet. The notification helps maintain alignment between planned and actual staffing - preventing outdated schedules from being used, keeping teams informed and operations running smoothly.
Busy Periods Sales Alerts – Sales summary at-a-glance
The Labour Productivity system analyses actual sales data and identifies the top three busiest trading periods from the previous day. Managers receive a concise sales summary, helping them review performance and adjust upcoming schedules to better match demand.
Assign Employee Skill Action – Ensure the right mix of skills on each shift
Each employee is assigned a skill score within Fourth’s Auto-Scheduling solution based on their training and experience. When a new employee is added to the system, they are automatically assigned a score of 0 until updated by a manager. This action triggers an alert reminding managers to assign a skill score, ensuring only trained or qualified staff are scheduled for shifts. The feature helps maintain service while preventing untrained employees from being scheduled without experienced colleagues to support them.
An ever-increasing number of Fourth customers are benefitting from Fourth iQ for both workforce management and inventory management. Oscar Congote, Planning & Special Projects Director at International Restaurant Services Inc, shared their experience – “Fourth continues to innovate in ways that make forecasting more precise and actionable. With iQ, we can anticipate challenges before they happen and that kind of forward thinking makes a huge difference in our operations.”
An even more intuitive and insightful iQ experience
The iQ 2.2 release also includes a range of user interface updates driven by feedback from early adopters, reflecting Fourth’s commitment to continuous improvement and responsiveness to customer input.
Enhancements include:
Display of ‘iQ Reasoning’ text, giving managers more context behind each recommendation.
Updates to the prioritisation algorithm, ensuring time-sensitive actions appear first.
Regional support for dates, times, currencies, and decimals.
A refreshed experience featuring animated highlights, expandable recommendation cards, and an optimised iPad landscape layout for easier viewing and interaction.
Fourth iQ 2.2 builds on the growing success of the iQ App, expanding its library of AI-powered recommendations that help managers act faster, improve scheduling accuracy, and spend more time supporting their teams and delivering great guest experiences.
For more information, visit the Fourth website
About Fourth
When every hour of every shift matters, Fourth helps restaurants, retailers, and hotels conquer the day with data-driven workforce and inventory technology. The Fourth AI Platform leverages more than 20 years of rich data and advanced analytics to deliver actionable insights and demand forecasting for optimising operations, maximising margins, and empowering employees. With a streamlined business powered by the Fourth AI Platform, industry operators can act with certainty and conquer with confidence whatever comes their way every day. Fourth serves more than 15,000 customers across 120,000 locations globally. For more information, please visit uk.fourth.com.
Fourth launches iQ 2.2, enabling hospitality managers to proactively manage their scheduling operations within the iQ App
HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong voters are casting ballots Sunday in their second legislative election since a 2021 overhaul of the system eliminated the pro-democracy opposition in the Chinese territory.
The poll, coming less than two weeks after an apartment fire that killed at least 159 people, is a possible test of public sentiment about the government's handling of the tragedy.
The focus is on voter turnout, which fell to about 30% in the last election in 2021, after the overhaul dampened interest. Some analysts believe mounting public anger over government accountability in the blaze could suppress turnout further.
City leader John Lee has called on citizens to vote, saying Friday it would send a signal on promoting reforms. He said he would put forth a proposal to the new legislature on how to support the victims, many who have been left homeless by the fire.
The polls close at 11:30 p.m.
Election campaigning was suspended after the fire and remained subdued in the final days out of respect for the victims.
Government efforts to drive up turnout — seen as a referendum on the new electoral system — had been in full swing before the blaze.
Officials held candidate forums, extended voting by two hours, added polling stations and offered subsidies to older people and centers for people with disabilities to help their clients vote, along with hanging promotional banners and posters throughout the city.
Authorities arrested people who allegedly posted content that incited others not to vote or cast invalid votes.
Hong Kong's deadliest fire in decades has raised questions over government oversight and suspected bid-rigging in building maintenance projects. The 1980s-era apartment complex was undergoing renovations.
Lee said last week that going ahead with the election, rather than delaying it, would better support the response to the fire.
"They have all experienced this fire and shared the pain,” he said of the city's Legislative Council. “They will certainly work with the government to promote reforms, diligently review funding, and draft relevant laws.”
Many of the city's 4.1 million eligible voters, especially democracy supporters, have turned away from politics since a crackdown that followed massive anti-government protests in 2019.
Even before the 2021 electoral changes, only half of what had been a 70-member legislature was chosen by the general electorate.
Now, that has been reduced to 20 out of 90 seats. Another 40 are chosen by a largely pro-Beijing election committee. The remaining 30 represent various groups — mainly major industries such as finance, health care and real estate — and are elected by their members.
Candidates are vetted to ensure they are patriots loyal to the central government in Beijing.
The candidate pool seems to reflect Beijing's desire to have more lawmakers who are more in tune with its agenda, some observers said, in what they see as signs of Beijing’s tightening control even over its loyalists.
Lee has said that personnel changes are normal during an election. He criticized attempts to “distort” these changes to smear the new election system.
A fall in turnout would show that even some government supporters are staying away, said John Burns, an honorary professor of politics and public administration at the University of Hong Kong.
Some might want to show support for the government's response to the fire, but others might have reservations because of the high death toll and reports of systemic problems in the building maintenance industry.
“It is a reflection of public sentiment,” he said.
Moritsugu reported from Beijing. Associated Press writer Chan Ho-him in Hong Kong contributed to this report.
People walk past a polling station near the site of the fire at Wang Fuk Court in the Tai Po district during the Legislative Council General Election in Hong Kong on Sunday, Dec. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)
Hong Kong's Chief Executive, John Lee casts his ballot at a polling station during the Legislative Council General Election in Hong Kong on Sunday, Dec. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)
People read the candidates information at a polling station near the site of the fire at Wang Fuk Court in the Tai Po district during the Legislative Council General Election in Hong Kong on Sunday, Dec. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)
Hong Kong's Chief Executive John Lee, poses for photos at a polling station during the Legislative Council General Election in Hong Kong on Sunday, Dec. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)
Hong Kong's Chief Executive John Lee speaks to the media at a polling station during the Legislative Council General Election in Hong Kong on Sunday, Dec. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)
Hong Kong's Chief Executive John Lee casts his ballot at a polling station during the Legislative Council General Election in Hong Kong on Sunday, Dec. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)
People look at a candidate brochure of the Hong Kong Legislative Council General Election at a forum in Hong Kong on Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)
Pedestrians walk past the banner promoting the Hong Kong Legislative Council General Election in Hong Kong on Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)
