Featuring first-hand insights from retail and workforce leaders at Fortnum & Mason.
For more than three centuries, Fortnum & Mason has built its reputation on craft, service and attention to detail. Behind the counter, rotas were still being built on spreadsheets. In this panel session, Fortnum & Mason's retail operations leaders, talk through why they changed systems, what made adoption work on the shop floor and what their teams have gained since.
Watch an unscripted conversation recorded live at Rotageek's latest customer event, The Shift 2026.
See how a 318-year-old institution modernised without losing what makes it iconic
Hear why harmonising rotas across every store was as much a people project as a technology one
Walk away with a sharper question to bring back to your own team: what decisions are you making today that you'll thank yourself for in five years?
"Our biggest asset is the teams facing our customers. If they're in a happy place where they've got consistency and transparency so they can plan their lives, that really does help the overall culture."
This is a candid conversation about what it actually takes to modernise workforce planning inside a business built on 300+ years of tradition - beyond the theory of digital transformation.
The cost of staying with "what's always worked" - and the tipping point that forces change
The adoption challenge - and why listening to the shop floor matters more than the software
The culture and experience payoff - and how giving people back their time changes how they show up for customers
A first-hand account of what it takes to move a 300-year-old business off spreadsheets and onto a single, consistent way of managing people
Practical language for making the case that "80% right, ready to iterate" beats waiting for a perfect rollout
Why involving frontline managers early, not just head office, is what actually determines whether a rollout sticks
How real-time rota and payroll visibility changes day-to-day decision-making for managers
A view on why giving people flexibility, consistency and room to grow their skills is a culture advantage, not just an operational one
'Excellence in craft and tradition doesn't have to mean falling behind on the systems that support your people.'
