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🎥 Live webinar panel discussion

Hidden workforce risks in 2026 - and what leaders can change now.

Why waiting for certainty quietly increases cost, scrutiny, and leadership exposure

A senior panel discussion for operations and workforce leaders navigating volatility, scrutiny, and rising accountability.

Date: Thursday 5th March 2026
Time: 10am | 1 hour
Speakers from:

Our Coop Currys Redline Retail

Speakers

Sarah Cowen
Senior Change Manager

Currys

 

Heather Weaver
Workload Manager

Our Coop

 

Andrew Busby
Founder

Redline Retail

 

Chris McCullough
Co-founder & Director of Product

Rotageek Logo
 

Why hidden workforce risks are rising for today’s workforce leaders

Labour is your largest controllable cost – yet many organisations enter 2026 with limited visibility across forecasting, scheduling and compliance.

In stable periods, this rarely feels urgent. Schedules exist. Costs feel broadly under control. Nothing appears broken enough to force change.

But in volatile environments, small inefficiencies compound and visibility gaps widen. What looks manageable on paper can shift quickly when demand changes or disruption hits.

Across conversations with senior leaders in retail, hospitality and other high-variability sectors, a consistent pattern is emerging:

  • Plans look right on paper – until conditions change
  • Insight arrives after decisions matter
  • By the time issues surface, cost has already landed

In this senior panel discussion, we’ll explore:

  • Where workforce risk typically hides – and why it often goes unnoticed
  • How forecasting misalignment drives cost overrun and operational pressure
  • The controls high-performing teams use to safeguard margin
  • Strategies to strengthen workforce agility without increasing cost

This session is for leaders who want greater foresight and control – and who recognise the role workforce decisions already play in protecting margin and performance.

Register for the webinar

What this session invites leaders to consider now

This isn’t a product demo.

It’s a senior conversation about how workforce risk shows up across core functions and key area of decision-making - beyond surface-level features or benefits.

These are the three workforce realities we’re bringing into focus for leaders in the months ahead:

1. The cost of waiting - and the value of earlier action

 

2. The visibility problem - and what stronger insight unlocks

 

3. The adoption gap - and how alignment strengthens performance

.

 

The speakers and perspectives you’ll hear from

This session brings together senior leaders with direct experience and expertise in navigating workforce pressure - from both sides of the table.

Heather Weaver
Workload Manager
Our Coop

Heather leads workforce management strategy across a diverse, multi-site retail business. With over 14 years at Midcounties, Heather has built extensive experience across retail, healthcare services, and operational leadership.

In her current role, she is responsible for workforce planning and optimisation across the organisation, following the successful implementation of time and attendance systems for 8,000 colleagues and labour scheduling across 200 sites. She previously led the Workforce Management team, driving large-scale change initiatives and embedding new systems to improve efficiency, visibility, and performance.

Sarah Cowen
Senior Change Manager
Currys

TBC

 

Andrew Busby
Founder
Redline Retail

A well-known retail industry expert, speaker, and writer, Andrew is a former retailer with over 30 years in the industry. He has extensive experience and knowledge in the retail sector, particularly in retail technology, customer experience, and emerging trends. He is Senior Industry Adviser at BOXTEC, Board Adviser at The Industrious, and founder of Redline Retail Consulting.

He is a retail writer at Fortune Magazine and also a regular contributor to various media outlets, including retail trade publications and national news media, where he is known for his expertise in analysing and commenting on the latest developments, challenges, and opportunities in the retail industry.

Chris McCullough
Co-founder & Director of Product
Rotageek

Chris co-founded Rotageek in 2009 after beginning his career as an NHS emergency medicine doctor, where he saw firsthand the operational complexity of workforce scheduling in high-pressure environments. He has since helped scale Rotageek into an enterprise SaaS platform supporting leading UK organisations across retail and leisure.

As Director of Product, Chris focuses on building data-driven workforce technology that improves labour efficiency, operational performance, and organisational resilience in complex, multi-site businesses.

What you’ll leave the session with

  • A clear executive framework for diagnosing and managing workforce risk
  • Language to pressure-test your current approach
  • Early signals to look for before scrutiny forces the issue
  • A clearer view of where earlier signals support controlling costs without increasing operational friction
  • Insight into where earlier signals create a competitive advantage, not just tighter control
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Where workforce risk - and opportunity - shows up first

  • Assumptions around coverage, skills availability, and availability holding longer than they should
  • Delayed visibility into labour variance and cost across teams
  • Local decisions made by managers that scale before leadership can intervene
  • Fragmented use of time, people, and resources as conditions shift

 

Why waiting for certainty can increase exposure

In volatile environments, certainty rarely arrives before decisions are made.

When insight lags reality, leaders can find themselves managing outcomes rather than shaping them - limiting their ability to make informed decisions and increasing exposure across cost, compliance, and delivery.

 

Who should attend

This session is designed for senior decision-makers, including:

  • Operations and workforce leaders who are accountable for revenue and margin - and expected to drive revenue even as conditions fluctuate
  • Executives responsible for resilience, delivery, and risk exposure - and expected to lead through periods of uncertainty and scrutiny
  • Leaders navigating complex, hourly, and volatile labour environments

If you’re responsible for outcomes - not just plans - and accountable for protecting the wider business, this is for you.

Most leaders aren't ignoring risk. 

The challenge is that it doesn't always look urgent at the time. 

This session is a chance to sense-check your position - calmly, deliberately, and with the right focus - and understand what it really takes to streamline operations and focus on optimising efficiency before pressure limits your options.

What leaders are quietly dealing with

These are common reflections we hear from experienced leaders navigating complex environments:

  • “We’ve got a workforce system - it’s not perfect, but it works.
  • “We can see the numbers eventually.
  • “Change feels riskier than staying put.”
  • “Scrutiny always comes after the busy periods.”

Leaders are under pressure to improve efficiency, while juggling multiple factors that make workforce decisions harder to assess in real time.

What we’re seeing across organisations is not a lack of effort or planning. It’s a growing gap between where value is created on the floor and where visibility exists at leadership level.

It’s also not a lack of technology, but a timing and visibility problem when conditions change.

It’s a gap between confidence and control - and under pressure, that gap can widen, making consistency and operational excellence harder to sustain when it matters most.

Key takeaways for senior leaders

  • Workforce risk is not always evenly visible - but earlier insight changes outcomes 
  • Waiting for certainty can increase cost and scrutiny
  • Earlier insight strengthens decision-making, not just reporting

 

Register now

FAQs


What should the primary goal of workforce management be under pressure - and is your approach fit for the future?

Most leaders we speak to already have an approach in place. This session is about pressure-testing whether it gives you early enough signals to stay in control - or whether risk only becomes visible once scrutiny increases and options narrow.

Will this session be specific to retail, or applicable to other sectors?

The insights are drawn from conversations across retail, the hospitality industry, and other complex hourly environments. While examples vary, the underlying workforce dynamics - volatility, decision timing, and accountability - are consistent across sectors.

Is this a product demo?

No.
The focus is on decision-making, risk, and accountability. While real-world examples may reference how organisations surface insight, the session is designed to help leaders think more clearly about their operating model - not evaluate features.

What makes this session different from other workforce webinars?

Most sessions focus on planning, tools, or optimisation theory. This panel focuses on what happens after plans are approved - when conditions change, decisions decentralise, and leaders are held accountable for outcomes they didn’t see coming.

Who should attend from our organisation?

This session is best suited to senior leaders responsible for revenue, margin, delivery, and risk exposure. Many attendees also invite peers from finance, operations, or workforce teams to align on what “control” actually means under pressure.

What will we be able to do differently after attending?
Attendees leave with clearer language to challenge assumptions, identify early warning signals, and understand where workforce risk is accumulating - before it shows up in cost, scrutiny, or board-level questions.

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