Mobile Operator – Introduction of Workforce management (WFM)

The Client

UK Mobile Operator, Retail division.

The problem

With approx. 10,000 retail employers in the UK and legacy holiday and sickness tracking processes, often on locally held spreadsheets, it was extremely difficult to plan for product launches, mitigation seasonal trends and sickness, and ensure holiday cover was adequate. Implementing a time and attendance solution to help manage the retail estate and ensure adequate staff were on hand for a great customer experience was pivotable to improving the retail service. The mobile operator wanted a trial in a small region, before rolling out in the UK as an initial phase and then taking that use case as the approach for a wider European rollout.

The approach

Project Change supplied a senior project manager to support the initial senior stakeholder engagement, and the high-level project requirements gathering process, while also building out the delivery team and getting the business analysis underway. This business analysis was crucial as it covered HR requirements on ensuring that the time and attendance tool met with current and potential future HR requirements, while also supporting the Retail divisions strategic aims to improve staff levels, ensure appropriate skilled resource, and mitigate against significant demand/impact from seasonal events, while increasing overall visibility of the Retail estate capability and to bring together both sales and staff metrics to a cohesive data overview.

The solution and the outcome

The solution for the mobile operator was maintain Project Change project leadership of the project, and to then run the Request For Proposal (RFP) activity to secure both the most appropriate Workforce Management (WFM) solution, and a system integrator to bring the platform online. The tri-party arrangement was challenging, but successful, resulting in the following:

  • The platform was successfully trialled and provided instant insights to the performance of that trial region
  • Clarity of the Retail estate, and its ability to support normal operations, and also ad-hoc instore marketing was provided
  • Issues with both recording and management of holiday leave and sickness reduced immediately
  • The success of this delivery was shared with another international retailer who took the lessons learnt and applied them also to their own success

Overall with clear communication, a shared plan, and clear accountabilities a complex project with at least 3 stakeholder groups was able to both trial and then implement a new technology, with the direct leadership from Project Change.