Why workforce management change fails: 5 challenges to solve

If adaptive systems are the engine of modern workforce management, then change is the fuel that makes them run - helping organisations remain competitive in fast-moving retail and hospitality environments.

In this 4-part series, drawn from conversations with Caffè Nero, William Hill, and The Entertainer, we explore how leading brands turn digital transformation into lasting adaptability on the frontline.

This third blog looks at the change management behind adopting new tech - and what it takes for new systems to become part of everyday life in retail and hospitality.

You can check out the other blogs here: 

Blog 1: Ready for anything, or left behind? The workforce trends reshaping retail & hospitality

Blog 2: From paper rotas to live data: scheduling software in action

For retail, hospitality and entertainment operators, workforce management change is rarely just a technology project. When change fails to land, the consequences show up quickly - inaccurate labour costs, frustrated managers, disengaged frontline teams and inconsistent customer experiences.

The difference between success and failure often comes down to how well change is designed, communicated and supported alongside the technology itself.

Why workforce management change often fails in practice

Speak to any retail or hospitality leader and they’ll tell you that implementation is often the easy part of adopting new tech. The real challenge and the factor that ultimately determines success, is whether people adopt it, trust it, and use it consistently in day-to-day decision-making, supported by a structured approach to change.

In fact, 48% of leaders say employee engagement and trust are the biggest determinants of rollout success, and 33% point to manager adoption and usability. In other words, workforce management change management has just as big an impact on outcomes as the system itself - and is the foundation of successful change management.

When adoption is strong, the benefits of the change show up quickly: fewer errors, better forecasting, less admin, automation that actually removes work instead of creating new steps, and more reliable data driven insights. When it’s weak, even the smartest tools struggle to deliver on their promise.

This blog looks at the five biggest change challenges leaders face when implementing new technology, and features insights from brands like William Hill, Caffè Nero and The Entertainer on managing change effectively.

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Challenge 1: Tailoring workforce management change management to different team members

Different starting points require different support

Every workforce has a mix of experience levels and digital confidence, and understanding the needs of the current workforce is what allows leaders to design support that helps everyone succeed with the new system.

Thomas George, Head of Business Insight at William Hill, describes the scale of that challenge. "We've got six and a half thousand colleagues. 250 have been here 30 years… and others are joining straight from the internet generation."

Without tailored support, rollouts risk uneven adoption, pockets of resistance, or teams using the system inconsistently. Different starting points create different barriers, including differences in digital skills, and if you don't account for that, some groups get left behind while others race ahead.

Using local champions to drive consistent adoption

William Hill's solution was to use local champions across demographics to relate and normalise the behaviour change. Rather than treating the rollout as a one-size-fits-all exercise, they identified people within each group who could translate the change into language that made sense for their peers.

The Entertainer took a similar approach, selecting champions from different areas who were "involved from day one and communicating with other managers in their area," as Indre Lapiene, Reward Manager, explained. By turning the rollout into something owned locally rather than imposed from the top, they gave the change credibility where it mattered most.

Managing change actually needs management for every demographic. The brands that accept this early are the ones that create the conditions for successful change, where adoption takes hold quickly and consistently across sites.

But even the best-designed support doesn't land if people don't trust the change in the first place, which is where the next challenge comes in.

This is where having the right workforce management partner matters. Rotageek supports not just implementation, but the behaviours, communications and confidence managers need to lead change on the ground - across teams with very different starting points.

Challenge 2: Building trust and reducing resistance 

Trust is built through early involvement and clarity

Trust is the foundation of successful workforce transformation and wider organisational change. When employees understand the 'why' and feel involved early, they engage rather than slipping into resistance to change. Without it, even well-funded change initiatives struggle to gain traction at the frontline.

Transparency and communication reduce resistance

Indre was direct about their approach: "We were very open with employees that change is coming… it's going to be a massive change, but we're going to work with them."

The Entertainer backed that honesty with action. They ran clear internal comms, published FAQs, offered flexible login options, did a soft launch, and gave regular updates - including when things weren't going to plan. "We frequently gave updates on the project, saying we're behind, or we're going to make some announcements in a month's time where we made this decision or that decision," Indre explained.

That level of transparency wasn't accidental - it reflected a culture of openness around change. Effective communication reduces resistance, builds psychological safety, and turns teams into contributors rather than just recipients of the change. When people feel informed rather than managed, they're far more likely to give the new system a fair shot and engage with meaningful change.

Indre was clear about the result: "I think because we were so frank with them, they took the change quite positively."

Resistance often shows up when people feel change is happening to them. Through a combination of intuitive technology and hands-on customer success support, Rotageek helps reduce that resistance.

Challenge 3: Why manager adoption makes or breaks any rollout 

Managers turn systems into everyday practice

Managers are central to the success of any WFM implementation; they’re the ones leading change day to day on the shop floor. When the system feels intuitive, credible, and genuinely useful in the rhythm of daily operations, managers become enthusiastic champions rather than reluctant users.

Peer-led training builds confidence and adoption

Caffè Nero built that credibility through peer-led training. They put store managers in charge of rolling out the system, working with the training team to design the training approach and delivery model. Andy Maynard, IT Director, explained why that mattered: "I've walked in your shoes… I can draw the comparison between what you used to do and what you're now being asked to do."

When training comes from someone who's done the job, it lands differently and helps managers develop confidence in the new system. Managers trust the advice more, ask better questions, and adopt the system faster because the guidance comes from people who understand their reality.

Confident managers mean consistent adoption, fewer mistakes, smoother scheduling, better reporting - and a stronger foundation for professional development alongside teams who feel more supported and less stressed.

This is what effective change management looks like in practice: managers trained by people who’ve done the job, confident enough to trust the system in everyday scheduling decisions.

Manager confidence is the difference between surface-level rollout and real operational change. Rotageek helps build that confidence through intuitive workflows and enablement that reflects how managers actually work on the ground.

But even motivated managers can only go so far without aligned leadership and cross-business sponsorship, which is where the fourth challenge sits.

👉 Watch Rotageek's on-demand webinar with William Hill

Challenge 4: Getting people, ops and IT moving in the same direction

Cross-business alignment is essential from day one

Workforce management change touches every part of a retail or hospitality business and its operating model, which means multiple stakeholders are involved from day one. When these functions move at different speeds or hold different priorities, rollout stalls. When they move together, change happens.

Shared sponsorship keeps change moving

Thomas George at William Hill was clear about the importance of cross-business alignment. "It is really important to have that kind of cross-business buy-in quite early on… we have two sponsors, one from the people side and one from operations. It wasn’t a nice-to-have, it was a must-have."

At The Entertainer, Indre explained they "had our Chief Selling Officer as a sponsor, and an IT project manager looking at APIs. You need both sides to move at the same pace."

Shared sponsorship creates momentum, clears blockers quickly, and ensures decisions aren't made in isolation - a critical factor in effective project management. Without it, projects get held up by competing priorities, budget arguments, or misaligned timelines - and the delays erode confidence before the system even goes live.

When commercial and technical leaders work in tandem, transformation becomes a business strategy. Frontline teams feel the difference: fewer delays, smoother integrations, and a rollout that feels coherent rather than patched together.

Alignment breaks down when teams operate in silos. Rotageek helps prevent that by acting as a shared operational backbone - supporting consistent decision-making, smoother integrations and coordinated rollout across people, ops and IT.

Even when teams are aligned, change can falter if existing processes work against the new workflow. This is the final challenge organisations need to tackle.

Challenge 5: Fixing processes so the tech can do its job 

Legacy processes limit the value of new technology

Technology can only amplify what already works - including the underlying business processes that support scheduling, payroll, and forecasting. If legacy processes are inconsistent, unclear, or overly manual, even the best workforce management system will struggle to deliver the outcomes leaders expect.

Indre at The Entertainer was candid about falling into this trap: "We were trying to adapt Rotageek to our processes rather than the other way round."

That's a common mistake. Some businesses assume the new system should slot into existing workflows without disruption, rather than redesigning new processes that make full use of the technology. 

The reality is that many legacy processes were built around the limitations of pen and paper or Excel, rather than the needs of a digital-first future. When you try to recreate those workarounds in a modern system, you end up with complexity that defeats the purpose of the upgrade.

Start from outcomes, not existing workflows

Thomas George's advice is to start from first principles: "Work out what your end goal is before you even start that project."

When businesses clarify the outcomes they want - cost control, fewer errors, better forecasting, fairer rotas - the tech can be configured to support those outcomes and unlock innovation. Without that clarity, teams risk recreating old problems in a new system, and adoption suffers because the tool feels like it's adding work rather than removing it.

This is where platforms like Rotageek earn their place; by helping teams rebuild rotas around real demand, fair distribution of hours, and shared visibility across people, ops, and finance.

Taken together, these five challenges show that workforce technology lives or dies by the change management process around it - not the tool itself. The next section focuses on how leading brands measure success, and why they each choose different KPIs.

How leading brands define success

Once change management is in motion, measuring what matters becomes the difference between proving impact and just hoping for the best. But "success" doesn't mean the same thing in every business.

According to Rotageek’s panel poll, 41% of leaders measure success through labour cost control, and 35% focus on forecast accuracy. Only 18% prioritise engagement and retention, 4% track compliance, and just 2% look at customer experience.

Cost and accuracy matter, but the brands in our series show that the most resilient transformations track a broader set of KPIs, balancing financial control with operational and people metrics to support a resilient workforce.

For many leaders, these KPIs aren’t just about short-term wins - they’re how teams test the long-term sustainability of new ways of working and alignment with wider business goals.

The Entertainer: reclaiming time and reducing admin friction 

Success measures: hours saved per store, payroll query reduction, and manager time returned to customers.

Before Rotageek, payroll spent half their working hours fielding questions and correcting errors. Managers spent hours wrangling Excel timesheets.

Indre set clear targets: "We wanted to lose at least two hours per shop per week on admin - 340 hours across the business." They hit it. Automated timesheets and self-service visibility helped streamline payroll queries, reduce mistakes, and return time to stores for customer focus and productivity.

William Hill: accuracy and financial control 

Success measures: Payroll error reduction, labour cost visibility, adoption rates across shop types.

Thomas George found that errors found in their manual system "were enough to pay for the [Rotageek] project by itself."

Their KPIs focused on reducing payroll mistakes and improving labour reporting. The result? Significant cost recapture and the ability to control labour spend in real time rather than reacting weeks later.

👉 Read William Hill's 8 key insights blog on workforce planning with AI and data

Caffè Nero: visibility, ease of use and manager wellbeing 

Success measures: System usability, store-level reporting capability, manager workload balance.

Caffè Nero's store managers spend 95% of their time on their feet, with no luxury of back-office admin time.

Andy Maynard was clear: "Ease of use and simplicity... and the ability to report at a store level on a day-to-day basis."

When managers can see patterns and schedule fairly, they reduce stress in already high-pressure environments and create a more predictable, supportive employee and workplace experience. That visibility protects teams from burnout and creates rotas that people can build their lives around.

The pattern: visibility + accuracy + recliamed time = stronger teams 

Each brand defined success differently, but there’s a consistent pattern. The brands that succeed with workforce management change track balanced KPIs - combining cost control with engagement, accuracy, visibility, and wellbeing.

Rotageek helps brands measure what matters by giving teams the data and reporting tools they need to track progress across the KPIs that drive their business forward.

A simple playbook for workforce management change management 

In our experience, successful workforce management change follows a consistent pattern - one that combines modern technology with the right level of partnership and support.

We’ve pulled together the lessons from the five challenges into a change management strategy framework you can act on immediately:

1. Define the "why" first 

What does success look like in your business: cost control, accuracy, fairness, wellbeing, visibility? Without a clear destination, teams risk recreating old patterns or behaviours in a new tool.

2. Choose 3-5 KPIs across cost, accuracy, people and experience 

Balanced measurement prevents fixating solely on labour cost. Track the metrics that matter to your operation - whether that's hours saved, error reduction, manager adoption, or employee engagement.

3. Design change around champions, transparent comms and intuitive training 

Frontline credibility + clear expectations = faster adoption and stronger trust. Use local champions who understand different demographics, communicate honestly (even when things are delayed), and make training relevant to real workflows.

4. Review early and iterate with employee feedback 

The brands that succeed treat rollout as a continuous improvement process grounded in continuous learning, not a one-off event. Check in with managers and teams regularly, fix what's not working, and adjust based on what you hear on the ground.

When leaders approach workforce management change with clarity, balanced KPIs, strong communication, and continuous review, adoption accelerates - and the benefits (like accuracy, control, visibility, wellbeing) land far faster.

The real outcome of getting change right 

Workforce transformation succeeds when people, process, and technology move together - and when organisations can meet changing business goals through change that sticks long term

William Hill, Caffè Nero, and The Entertainer showed that with trust, clear comms, aligned leadership, and strong training, teams adopt new ways of working faster and more confidently.

When change lands well, businesses gain accuracy, visibility, time back, stronger forecasting, fairer rotas, and a calmer, more supported workforce.

Workforce management change doesn’t fail because organisations lack ambition or effort. It fails when people, processes and technology are treated as separate problems.

The organisations that succeed are those that approach change as a partnership - combining workforce management software with the guidance, support and experience needed to make it stick.

Want the full set of poll results, benchmarks, and brand stories from William Hill, Caffè Nero, and The Entertainer? Download the full ‘Ready for anything’ report for the complete playbook on workforce transformation.

And if you’re ready to apply these lessons to your own operation, Rotageek partners with teams to get the people side of workforce management right – from rollout through to measurement.

👉 Download the workforce transformation report