How William Hill is rewriting the rota and scheduling playbook.

• Workforce costs have risen sharply - forcing retailers to rethink operations: Retailers are navigating some of the biggest cost pressures in a decade. Rising labour costs have made efficient, insight-led planning essential to protecting margins without compromising people or experience.

“National living wage being over 40% more than it was in 2021… that’s an enormous burden for employers to bear.”

• Transformation happens through iteration, not a ‘big bang’ moment: William Hill’s shift to workforce transformation wasn’t a single rollout, but a steady, cumulative change built through small wins, learning, and continuous refinement.

“I’m not a believer in watershed moments… it’s been much more about looking back than waiting for big bang moments.”

• Empowering colleagues with clarity unlocks confidence and wellbeing: A practical example of this is pre-booking holidays. What began as a simple operational improvement became a wellbeing win - strengthening trust, fairness, and team morale.

  “The perception shifted from fear to: the business is helping me make sure I get all the leave I’m owed.”

• Fairness can’t be mandated - it has to be co-created: Rather than imposing a rigid definition of fairness, William Hill saw better results by giving colleagues visibility, tools and shared ownership of what ‘fair’ looks like within their teams.

“Fairness isn’t a KPI… empowering teams to agree what’s fair works better than imposing it top-down.”

• Real-time data creates more time to lead, not just schedule: Reducing time spent on admin allowed managers to focus on people, performance, and operational priorities - shifting scheduling from a burden to an enabler.

“The amount of time our colleagues spend on scheduling has fallen off precipitously in the last few years.”

• Consistency improves when employees control their availability: Allowing colleagues to update availability themselves - with transparency and flexibility - reduced scheduling friction and increased ownership across teams.

“Colleagues can mark and change their availability at will… scheduling drafts don’t lock them in.”

• AI’s true value is removing friction - not replacing people: AI’s role at William Hill is to support better decisions, faster - giving teams more time for meaningful, human work.

“AI’s true value is quietly removing friction… freeing leaders to have high-quality conversations.”

Here are Joe's 3 biggest lessons: 

1. Start small - MVP first, then iterate

"Begin with the minimum viable product...make it as familiar as possible."

2. Bring trusted voices (long-tenure employees) onside early

"If you can get long-term employees onside, they become champions." 

3. Put a face to change 

"Deploy change from a person, not a team - it builds trust."

For retail (and hospitality) leaders, the balance between consistency and flexibility has never been more critical.

The world’s best operations aren’t just managing - they’re transforming. By putting data and people at the heart of workforce planning, organisations like William Hill are turning rotas into growth levers and adaptability into a competitive edge.

Because when technology supports autonomy, not just efficiency, it becomes something deeper: an enabler of adaptability.

That’s how today’s leaders build operations ready for anything.