William Hill

From local high streets to the nation’s leading sporting venues, William Hill is a stalwart of British business. With over 7,000 team members in over 1,400 locations across the UK, the iconic bookmaker operates seven days a week, 364 days a year; an always-on business in an ever-evolving world.

It was this fast-paced retail environment that prompted William Hill to look at how they planned their staff schedules and supported their people. This very traditional business had a very traditional way of handling their employee scheduling – handwritten rotas on a whiteboard; a process they’d had almost since they first opened their doors back in 1966. 

So even for this highly established business, modernisation was paramount.

William Hill chose Rotageek to help them modernise their workforce management. As well as choosing the right software, they also wanted a partner who could help them shape their workforce management strategy. Whilst some key metrics were outlined, they were on the lookout for a partner who would be able to help them set key metrics early in their digital journey.

William Hill needed three things when it came to their staff scheduling: visibility, consistency and adaptability - all things that their manual processes lacked and that implementing a robust workforce management solution like Rotageek could provide.

Visibility

With all their employee schedules in digital form rather than handwritten notes, the William Hill leadership team now had a robust solution that could handle the complexities of their business and provide a single view of the rotas for their 7,000 team members in over 1,400 locations - seven days a week, three hundred and sixty- four days a year.

Consistency

For the leadership team, the shift from manual rotas to a modern scheduling system didn’t only mean better visibility of rotas, but a chance to use consistent data to discuss the outcomes and analyse ways to improve.

Adaptability

Engaging their 7,000 strong workforce on the Rotageek solution, meant that employees had plenty of notice for their shifts, with clear lines of communication to managers and tools to be able to adapt their schedules as needed.

Since implementing Rotageek, William Hill have seen the impact of a robust workforce management system in their organisation. 

The wide-ranging impact it has on people's day-to-day lives has been one of the biggest positive changes. With a tool to help managers effectively plan their rota 3 weeks in advance, the William Hill leadership team have been able to fulfil their commitment to flexible working for their employees. The impact on employee engagement overall since deploying the Rotageek app has been significant, and has helped increase dialogue between the colleagues themselves and the store managers. 

Consolidating siloed workforce management data has also taken a huge step forward. The transparency Rotageek provides has enabled the leadership team to show that the workforce management operation is optimised - “that it's efficient, that it's the right fit for the business on a day-to-day, location by location level”.

William Hill have also integrated part of their own reporting suites and planning methods into Rotageek, meaning their leadership team has been able to improve metrics like fairness and the distribution of shifts. This has also allowed them to provide visibility and demonstrate the benefit of their shift scheduling to their employee in a transparent way, without subjectivity.

“I think I would say to any business considering Rotageek - when you're out on the market for a workforce planning system, of course it has to work for you commercially, of course you do all your due diligence, of course you get that strategic relationship right. But the really important part for us has been the relationship. Of all the providers we've spoken to over a number of years, Rotageek have always stood head and shoulders in front in terms of being able to work with us, grow the relationship together, understand that dialogue between the provider and the customer - and it's that ease of relationship, that ease of access, that feeling of comfort, that once all of the due diligence is done, those people that actually drive your business your own colleagues are getting the service that you intend for them. And if that ever changes, there's someone on the provider side who cares. That's a feeling we've always had with Rotageek, and it's one that's made a huge difference. And it's the reason we stay today.” - Joe Leith, Director of Retail Analytics, William Hill

We're excited to see how our partnership grows to further support William Hill with their workforce management!