cost effective workforce management for the retail & leisure industries

Mike Hennessy is a man on a mission. He is aiming to ensure that every betting shop in the country is using an automated staffing system within two years, and as the Business Development Director for Shopworks he is hoping he will be making those sales.

Having progressed from shop manager, to district manager to training manager with Ladbrokes and then Better, Mike has plenty of experience sorting out rotas, first on bits of paper and more recently on spread sheets. Mike worked for Shopworks first customer, Better and the company was so impressed they approached him to head up their sales push.  Having recently completed the roll out into Paddy Power’s UK shops and with lots of independent chains taking up the product Shopworks will soon be used in around 10% of UK betting shops.

“Our customers use us to save money, improve operational efficiency and also communicate more effectively with their staff” says Mike “we recently completed the roll out of a system into a chain of 20 or so shops and their monthly staff costs went from a Pre-Shopworks £99,600 to an average £92,300 in the first two full months after implementation. That’s a saving of over 7% on the staff cost for a product that cost nothing to install and around £8 per shop per week”

Shopworks believe that their online staffing system also saves considerably on the head office costs of managing the payroll as well as ensuring better management information, allowing their customers to really understand which shops are making money. The savings in the shops come from greater visibility of costs, a very accurate weekly comparison of actual costs v budget, zero double payments and no payment for un worked hours. The operational efficiencies come from error free rotas, instant SMS communications of rotas to staff and improved attendance.

Shopworks also offer a reporting package which is helping customers reduce the time and effort involved in producing “per shop per week accounts”, the system reduces cash differences and helps the staff with the daily close down procedure.

Mike is confident of the future; “We are a 2 year old company and have just launched Version 2, we have a growing customer base and we are so confident in our product that we will let you cancel the contract if it isn’t saving you money. There is no danger of that happening yet”

Shopworks is obviously a company to watch for the future.