Sephora

The challenge.

A lack of central visibility and reporting at the group level
Excessive time spent creating rotas that still were left with errors
Gaps in coverage at store-level for tasks or skill requirements that could impact customer service
Manual and time-consuming processes for both management and head office teams in signing off and collating timesheets and payroll
Disjointed and complicated processes for leave applications, shift swaps and communicating rota changes

The results.

Increased visibility across the whole organisation
Countless hours saved each month
Removed manual, paper-based processes from the business
Ensured rota creation is truly fair, compliant and has fulls kill coverage

Born in France in 1969 and launched in the Middle East in 2007, Sephora has become a leading beauty products and personal care retailer in the region.

Sephora is renowned for offering a unique service-oriented environment for women and men to discover the latest and most advanced skincare, makeup, and fragrances from around the world. Sephora has exponentially grown to more than 75 stores in five markets (UAE, KSA, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait) with its flagship store in Dubai Mall ranking as the number one store worldwide.

In 2019, the team at Sephora Middle East (ME) realised they had a problem. After a previous project to implement an employee scheduling system failed to deliver, they were long overdue to move away from spreadsheets and embrace a digital platform. They had identified the above challenges in their current way of operating that they were keen to address. They decided to go back to the market to find a solution partner to help solve these challenges.

In the beginning of this project, they had four main goals to secure its success: 1. Save their managers time by removing complex, manual and outdated processes. 2. Ensure full coverage for every store for all the various tasks and skill requirements in a complex retail environment. 3. Create real fairness in rotas for their team members. 4. Improve visibility of workforce management at every level of the business - from team member to head office.

"Autoscheduling provides our teams a much fairer way to plan their rotas, they achieve a better match to customer demand across the week, ensure coverage of necessary skills, and they also save time while doing it compared to using a spreadsheet file."

Diana Gulinescu - Retail Experience Manager, Sephora Middle East

Rotageek’s mobile app has enabled greater visibility with user notifications and reporting platform, Sephora can get much greater visibility at every level of the business of what’s going on and when and use that information to make better decisions for the future.

Autoscheduler creates optimal rotas based on forecasts made from real traffic data, managers at Sephora ME have a fool-proof process that ensures rotas are fit to meet customer demand as well as compliant to their operating rules and employee preferences. This has saved a lot of time every month for managers looking after large complex teams and means they can focus on the higher-value tasks.

Structured workflows for everyday occurrences such as shift change notifications, swaps, extra cover, T&A, timesheets and payroll sign-off has removed occasions where errors, miscommunications and mistakes used to happen. This has been a real improvement for employees, managers and head office teams together.

Since Rotageek easily identifies an optimum rota based on what it knows is most important to Sephora ME, there are no more worries about fairness or whether there is the correct skillset on the store floor today. Employees can see and know that they are getting the right allocation of shifts, and managers have confidence that the right people are in the right place.

RotaGeek Limited is a company registered in England and Wales with the company number 06783810 and registered address of 71-75 Shelton Street, London WC2H 9JQ

Improving in-store experience, team productivity and employee happiness through smart scheduling.

Born in France in 1969 and launched in the Middle East in 2007, Sephora has become a leading beauty products and personal care retailer in the region.

Giving spreadsheets the brush off.

Finding the perfect blend.

Scheduling on fleek.