We can’t quite believe it, but this weekend Rotaready turns 10! In celebration, we’re looking back at our journey so far, including how it all started how our product and team has grown, personal and professional milestones, and a sneak peek at where we’re going next.
But before we get into that, we’d like to say a huge thank you to everyone who’s been part of our journey, we wouldn’t be where we are today without you. So, without further ado, let’s kick things off with some stats about…
Our rota software:
Rotaready has been used to schedule over 20 million shifts in UK Hospitality
We have 750 live running integrations across >60 applications
In the past 24 months, we’ve sent about 500 live chat responses per day with an average response time of 3 mins 22 seconds
In the past 12 months we automatically rolled out 1,000 production deployments across 10 codebases
And our customer number has tripled since we joined The Access Group in 2022
And our team:
There have been 8 engagements
5 weddings
6 babies
4 marathons run, plus a group entry into the daunting Snowdon Race
Too many games of ping pong to count
7 of us have celebrated 5 years (or more) at Rotaready
And we’ve had at least 8,000 team socials (okay, we made that number up but, you get the idea)
Now for a trip down memory lane…
2015: Where it all began
Inspired from first-hand experiences of working at a theme park and behind the bar at a golf club, Jamie and Carl started building a rota management tool. And after 5 years in the making, Rotaready was born. They quickly learned (through a rocky bit of live market research!) that rota management was only part of the puzzle. So they began their journey into the workforce management world, adding functionality across attendance, cost control, HR and reporting
We signed our first customer, who we’re still proud to support today
Our first office had excellent rates, and a fantastic commute but… it wasn’t long before we needed a larger working space, plus Carl’s parents really wanted their spare bedroom back
2016: Growing up
APRIL …As we looked to hire our first team member it was time for our first proper home. It took a little while to find the perfect fit, but we soon found our first true home at TMRW, Croydon
SEPTEMBER – Team Rotaready grew from two to three, as our first full-time engineer joined us
2017: Gaining momentum
As our customer base grew, so did our team. Three soon turned into six as we hired heads sales, customer support and engineering
OCTOBER – We secured the backing of True, one of Europe’s leading Venture Capital firms
2018: Making waves
MAY – We exhibited at our first ever trade show.
JUNE – We hit 10,000 users!
OCTOBER – We headed to Aberdeen to visit BrewDog and see Rotaready in action in a brewery and bar environment. Sampling the beer was of course a must!
NOVEMBER – We were delighted to win the Lloyd’s Bank Business Enabler of The Year Award
2019: A fresh new look
Our team grew across all functions as we were joined by more customer support, engineering, design, sales and marketing
JULY – We headed to Clapham Common for our very own sports day
AUGUST – We launched our brand-new website and refreshed brand
2020: Navigating our way through the pandemic
2020 didn’t come without its challenges for any of us, with the hospitality industry hit particularly hard. So, in addition to offering financial support to our customers in distress, we got creative to do what we could to support the industry elsewhere and…
Teamed up with TiPJAR to develop a furlough calculator to help hospitality employees work out what they’d be paid if they’ve been furloughed.
As the world came to a standstill, our product development didn’t. We worked hard behind the scenes to make Rotaready even better for our customers as and when they began to reopen:
And we introduced numerous integrations, including Tenzo, Tevalis and Access EPOS
With our team separated our team socials looked a little different. Think…
Virtual quizzes
And we can’t forget the time a goat joined our team call (yes, you read that right)
An online Christmas party powered by meal kits and drinks from some of our wonderful customers
The meal kits weren’t limited to Christmas parties, as Pizza Pilgrims treated the whole team to ‘Pizza in the Post’ in July 2020
2021: A new chapter
Adversity turned to opportunity, as operators used the spell without the distraction of day-to-day business to migrate away from their legacy supplier, meaning we kicked off 2021 with a boom of growth
Even more integrations landed, including those with Access Collins, Lightspeed, ResDiary, Eploy and OpenTable
JULY Having worked from home for over a year, we graduated from our Croydon office to a brand new space in London Victoria
AUGUST The whole team met in person for the first time since before COVID – and it was on a boat on the Thames
OCTOBER We returned to in-person events at The Restaurant Show
And we featured in Capterra’s ‘Best Ease of Use – Employee Scheduling Software’
2022: Stronger together
FEBRUARY We made our first post pandemic hire – Fiona, a previous Rotaready user at longstanding customer -Golden Lion Group
MARCH We hosted our first brunch event in Manchester with the wonderful team at Tech on Toast
AUGUST We were acquired by The Access Group and joined their hospitality division, alongside well-loved products like DesignMyNight, Trail, Acteol and Procure Wizard!
We welcomed five new team members
And our team socials were well and truly back as we spent a weekend in East Sussex, over-indulged at Jamie’s yearly BBQ and enjoyed numerous nights out
OCTOBER We exhibited alongside our new Access Hospitality colleagues at Restaurant & Bar Tech Live
2023: Breaking Records
We hit 600+ live integrations
And downloads of our mobile app surpassed 50,000
It wasn’t just our tech that was hitting milestones – Not one, not two, but six of the Rotaready team got engaged.
And three of us celebrated five years as part of the Rotaready team
We had the pleasure of sponsoring the ‘Future Rockstar’ award at the Otolo People Recognition Awards.
Together with other leading hospitality organisations, we launched The UK’s Largest Hospitality Salary Survey.
2024: A new home
MARCH Our colleagues from Romania came to visit us in London, which of course called for a team social. This time at Flight Club, Victoria
MAY We had the pleasure of visiting The Hotel Folk to film a video case study
Not 1, not 2, but 4 new team members joined us – two Technical Success Managers and two Onboarding Consultants
JULY We attended the Access Festival
OCTOBER We said goodbye to our Victoria office and joined the rest of The Access Group in a brand new office on Bishopsgate
2025: The next chapter
So far this year we’ve made the integrations between Rotaready and two other Access products – Access CPL Learning and Guestline, stronger than ever. And improved our Employee Self-Onboarding functionality to make the process slicker and easier than ever. And we’re delighted to have been shortlisted for the People Solution of the Year Award at The Caterer Supplier Awards 2025
But of course, we’re not done there… in addition to the team socials and events we’re planning, next on the agenda for Rotaready as a product is the introduction of Company Documents, even more management tools available via the Rotaready app, and Labour predictions – enabling you to intelligently forecast the required staffing hours directly within your rota. See more details on these and what else we’re planning here.
We hope you enjoyed looking back at our last 10 years as much as we did. Once again, we’d like to say a huge thank you to everyone who’s been part of our journey so far. Here’s to the next 10 years of great partnerships, customers, colleagues and continued innovation!
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