October 12, 2025 • 24 mins
Theo Gott and Mark Stacey from ModusForce discuss the evolving landscape of workforce management and how their Dayforce implementation expertise helps organisations maximise efficiency and employee satisfaction.
• The WFM market is experiencing 20% growth globally with key trends including AI automation, flexible working arrangements, and legislative changes
• Advanced scheduling combines WFM capabilities with automated scheduling and budgeting to deliver significant operational efficiencies
• The "perfect schedule" is a myth – successful implementations aim for 80-90% automation while preserving the crucial human element
• Modus Force offers a Minimum Viable Product approach that delivers advanced WFM capabilities in under five days, providing immediate benefits
• Unified HCM solutions like Dayforce eliminate the need for complex integrations between separate HR, scheduling and payroll systems
• Successful WFM implementations require managing change impact effectively, developing a clear roadmap, and prioritising data management
Reach Theo at theo@modusforce.com and Mark at mark@modusforce.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to the Productivity Podcast.
I'm delighted today to bejoined by Theo Gott and Mark
Stacey from Modus Force.
Hi, theo, how are you doing?
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Hi, simon, doing great thanks.
How are you?
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (00:16):
good thanks, hi Mark.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Hi, simon, good to speak to you.
I'm doing well, thanks, hopeyou are too.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Yeah, all good thanks .
So we're going to find out abit more about Modus Force in a
second.
But, theo, let's start with you.
Tell us a bit about about modusforce in a second.
But, theo, let's start with you.
Tell us a bit about yourself,career background, what you've
done today and how you ended upbeing, I think, one of the first
employees at motors force.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Yeah, thank you.
So, yeah, my, my backgroundstarted mostly in retail, pos,
uh support and managed services,but I I had an opportunity for
to work for the old ceridian,became a developer on their vFM
product.
Back then it was mostly dealingwith time and attendance.
And then an opportunity came upto work with product called
(00:57):
Dayforce when that first came tothe UK and I started
implementing that around 2014,15.
I think I was the second UKconsultant.
Back then we were known asDayforce Consultants.
We were in HR, WFM payroll andthen through the years just kind
of picked up more knowledge ofthe general solution.
(01:19):
Spent a couple of years at AxiomGroup working on a few larger
WFM strategy, vendor selectionsand some time-retended
scheduling presentations for UKGand WorkBrain.
Yeah, came back to the Dayforcemothership in 2020.
And last year I saw anopportunity on LinkedIn just out
(01:41):
of the blue.
Basically, it shouted to meit's a new company called
Motorsforce Dayforce exclusivepartner.
I saw he was involved in thestartup of the company and I
just jumped at the opportunity.
So that's where I am now.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Amazing, good, nice story.
Mark, can you follow that?
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Yeah, I can Thanks Simon, so, yeah.
So, mark Stacey, I guess justkind of to set this up
brilliantly, one of the thingsthat we're most proud of and one
of our core values atMotorsport is our background and
our experience, and we reallybelieve it helps us deliver an
exceptional service, havingwalked in the same shoes and the
same spaces as our customers,and that's really important to
us.
And that kind of leads me quitenicely onto this.
(02:22):
I've worked in retail for over20 years, from the shop floor to
store and area management.
I've been involved in thefascinating analytics of space
planning and the cost of all ofthe products.
I've been involved in storedesign, so all the legalities
and the fundamentals of how youbuild a brand new store and how
you design it, from the fun ofbeing on the refit team and
(02:42):
understanding how teams work topull around those stores quite
quickly in tight timelines todelivering WFM roles out for
Kronos and A-Force.
I've been the head of labor forWix Simon, which is where
obviously I met yourself andMatt Brown, where together we
all collectively built aoperating and Excel model from
the bottle up, and kind ofmeeting you guys was where I got
the bug for consultancy.
(03:04):
So I ended up at Accenture forthree years, kind of working on
many large projects, and thenexactly the same with Theo.
I was aware of many of thefounders of Motorsforce and I
was very excited to join themand see what I could bring to
the table.
So yeah, that's me.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Brilliant and Theo.
We've talked about Motorsforcea couple of times, mentioned
cryptically some of the founders.
Do you want to fill in some ofthose gaps for people on what
Modus Force does?
Maybe a bit about going on,chris, love and Emma, the kind
of driving forces.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Yeah, of course.
So Modus Force was firstincorporated in 2024 at the
start.
They are a Dayforce exclusiveimplementation partner.
They are a Dayforce exclusiveimplementation partner and they
(03:59):
were started by, as you said,emma Armitage and Chris Love,
joined by Thomas Quinton andNeil McGregor.
So those guys and Emma all werepart of our EPL group which
sold to Accenture, I think, in2020.
They've got a very longstandingand and excellent background in
wfm delivery, amongst otherthings, but the the main focus
of modus force is deliveringexcellence in not just wfm but
(04:20):
across all dayforce modules.
So we spend a lot of time bothwith existing Dayforce customers
and with new Dayforce customers.
Part of our customer base isthe existing Dayforce customers
in the optimization sphere, socustomers that want to add in
new modules, especially aroundWFM, where across the other
(04:44):
partner practices there isn'tthe best knowledge base, and
we've got people like Mark andour team and myself and other
people that we've selected fromaround the WF landscape to kind
of bolster and join that realcenter excellence.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Amazing.
Yeah, great people that foundedit that we know well and
clearly got you guys on board,and some of your colleagues as
well that we've known from otherorganizations and industries.
So really good team formingthere doing some great work,
Mark.
Let's talk about WFM.
I know you kind of you guysspecialize in day force, but
give us a kind of appraisal ofthe WFM market at the moment and
(05:28):
then we'll start to dig intosome of the more advanced
scheduling and AI-related pieces.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
Yeah, brilliant.
Thanks, simon.
I mean anybody that knows meI'm always super passionate
about this subject.
It's something that I live andbreathe and I really enjoy it,
and I just think it's going togo from strength to strength the
marketplace.
At the moment, I think we allunderstand the traditional
benefits from WFM projects, suchas time tracking, attendance
management free to schedulingand compliance, and all the
(05:54):
costs and time benefitsassociated with that.
This is something that I'vebeen seeing for a long time now,
but, however, I think we'regoing to see a shift in trend
and focus around those areas.
So the introduction AI and itsautomation and efficiencies is
just going to be incredible forthe area.
Some of the analysis that it'sgoing to be able to provide and
(06:15):
you know further accuracy isgoing to be stunning.
Something I really like tochampion as well, especially
when I'm working with customers,is all around flexible working,
not just around the traditionalflexible working, but also
colleague well-being as well.
So the use of those tools andhow they promote flexibility,
like the day force,functionality of shift bids and
(06:36):
shift swapping and you know, forme that's what people want now.
But also it's not just that.
It's the introduction of kindof like gig working or contract
or temporary working, if youprefer, where we're really
seeing a shift in the dynamic ofthat, where actually you know
people at the workforce, theyare looking for that, they want
that flexibility of shifts, theywant to pick them up when they
(06:59):
want, rather than thetraditional.
You know, nine to five that youknow many of us are used to in
the past.
And then probably just gettinga little bit more serious really
is like some of the legislativechanges that are coming in,
especially, for example, like inApril 2026, where we will see,
you know, the right from day oneof the request for flexible
working.
And obviously there's, you knowthere's lots of pieces in and
(07:20):
out around that.
But it's kind of like, you know, my question for organisation
and customers is, you know, doyou want to wait for that change
to come in or do you want tostart to look at what's right
and what you know what's bestfor your workforce and your
business now?
And just those three pointsreally for me so I'm just
(07:41):
highlighting and picking themout just shows why the WFM
market is so strong, why it'stracking.
You know we can all hit Googleand see some of the trends, but
you know I think we're talkinglike 20% increases in global
markets, with the likes ofAustralia and America really
standing out.
So it's just a super excitingtime in the WFM space and, yeah,
just looking forward to seeingwhat can come.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Yeah, the possibilities of endless is.
I think inevitably we end upwith probably more people in
customer-facing environmentsbecause of cost challenges, the
need to schedule more accuratelybecomes even more paramount.
And back to some of the stuffwe did at Wix have the right
demand and all that kind ofstuff.
So advanced scheduling then andforgive me if I'm wrong in my
(08:23):
mind that's, you know, using allthe computing power in these
solutions, feeding it withdemand data, shape data.
So how, how, how many hourshave I got and when do those
hours need to be spent?
Match with some of the stuffyou talked about in terms of
flexibility.
Is that something you've beenworking on and you kind of see
helping supporting clients?
Speaker 3 (08:45):
yeah, absolutely, and you're absolutely spot on, by
the way.
So advanced scheduling isexactly that.
It's the pure WFM, with theautomated scheduling on top of
that or the budgeting process inthe background.
And we are one of the very fewDayforce implementation partners
that are experts in deployingthe advanced WFM model.
We have experience acrossAmerica, australia and EMEA
(09:08):
delivering it across the retail,service and manufacturing space
, and it's often the mostoverlooked day force model
module.
Yet, you know, in the day forcetoolkit.
Yet for me you know, simon, asyou all know, you know these
types of WFM and budgetingmodels.
They release the biggestbenefits and operational
efficiencies and some of the MIthat can come out of it can not
(09:29):
just reshape your budgetallocation but, you know, can
completely shape.
It, really give you somehighlights of opportunities.
It can start to help you toplan your recruitment and I
think what excites me the most,as I think it does for for most
customers as well, is that timeit frees up for our managers, it
supports them in being able toproduce that great schedule, but
(09:50):
it just takes the pain and andthe effort away.
It still allows for the humanelement.
We'd absolutely never replacethat human element.
We still need that final 10percent of say so, but yeah it.
It just allows so much data andso much information to be able
to come through us in in realtimes.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Really I'll just pause you there and probably
question for both of you.
We'll start with theo.
This I'll call it mythicalbecause it it it is.
Cast your mind back years ago.
It was around setting up asystem that you fed all this
data into.
You pressed a button, you gotthis perfect schedule.
(10:29):
Everybody worked it with noqualms.
Somebody might come in a bitlate, somebody might be early,
and you repeat that each week.
Personally, I've never seenthat.
I still, ironically, see peopletrying to sell it.
But, as mark described there,getting to that 80, 85, 90
percent is that the sweet spot?
Speaker 2 (10:48):
I think if what you described there, simon, is the,
the utopia that we always referto when we do client discoveries
.
And back when I got involvedwith dayforce for the first time
, the, you know the primaryselling point was being able to
schedule people in the rightplace at the right time and
ultimately, you know, if all thecontracts were beneficial
(11:09):
enough towards the company, thatyou would be able to achieve a
90%.
I think the reality is that inmost organizations, the 80-90%
isn't actually that realisticwhen a company opts to take in
or implement advanced WFM.
I think if they set their eyesa little bit lower, set the bar
(11:32):
a little bit lower in terms ofwhat they're looking to achieve
from their current wage modeland their current contractual
base, then they'll be lesslikely to be disappointed with
the end result.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Yeah, and Mark again, have you ever seen the mythical
press the button, spit out theperfect schedule, everybody
works it and we carry on week in, week out with this.
You know, utopia.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
No, definitely not, and for me I don't think I'd
ever want it to either.
I think, if we're going to talkabout the three most exciting
trend areas in WFM, and one ofthose is still flexibility and
that human factor, I don't thinkwe want to lose that and I also
don't believe in all the hypearound that's what AI is going
to replace and take away thathuman factor.
It won't.
It will just deliver that sweetspot element.
(12:18):
And just kind of leading onfrom what fio said as well,
about just kind of like takingyou know, kind of like where you
are right now, like one of thebiggest challenges that I come
across from advanced wfm is isthat wonder and and that again,
like you say something thatmythical piece of how long is it
(12:40):
going to take to deliver?
Are we talking weeks and months?
Do we need to rebuild our model?
Do we need to understand all ofthe elements?
And actually we don't.
Uh motorsforce, we currentlyoffer an mvp, so a minimal,
viable product where within lessthan five days and we've
already just achieved this witha, a global retailer in
australia where we can deliverand the advanced wfm suite in in
(13:04):
under five days and we'retalking taking your current
budget model, putting that intoday force with an element of
forecasting or without, you knowit can be completely decided.
But what we can start to do isrelease some of those benefits
immediately.
When we talk about from our youknow, our schedulers having a
demand graph, so somethingvisual so, rather than just a
(13:24):
budgeted number on an Excelspreadsheet somewhere, a visual
demand in 15 minute incrementstelling them where they need
their colleagues or certainlywhere they should expire, to
have those colleagues to thenhaving the metrics that come
outside of that.
So, again, one of the thingsthat we've just done with our
current MVP is a client inputtedtheir budgeted data.
They then had all of theirstores schedule it and then the
(13:48):
reporting and the MI that wewere able to pull out of that
was kind of game changing forthem because it was just a view
of their current you knowscheduling, their current
workforce and that establishmentand what their operating
efficiency is.
And that's just another reasonwhy I love the advanced WFm
space.
Yes, it's been around for awhile, yes, it's been done, but
in terms of day force, it'ssomething that at motorsports
(14:10):
we're able to really bring tolife and do it quite quickly
just to help you get on yourjourney amazing, good, good,
good mvp in five days to kind ofprove the future.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
And how's ai going to change that?
What do you see coming in theworld of wfm specifically?
Speaker 3 (14:27):
to be honest, I think the world is.
I'm super excited about whatit's going to bring and I think
the efficient, I think it's justgoing to drive efficiencies,
time savings, further level ofaccuracy with machine learning.
I'm I'm like, beyond excitedabout machine learning and you
know dayforce have been lookingat this for quite a while and
undoubtedly will see animprovement in that historic
(14:48):
data analysis and then thepredictive analysis that will
come on from that in terms ofthe workforce demands, but I
think ultimately what we willsee is that age-old gap between
forecast and actuals reducingfurther.
So, yeah, really, reallyexcited about what that will
bring.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Theo, have you got any thoughts on where you see AI
above and beyond what Mark'stalked about?
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Just on the machine learning point, I think it's
been around 10 years that I'vebeen hearing in lots of
conference rooms and meetingsthe appetite to use weather data
, traffic data, to helpinfluence the level of demand
that's being generated.
I think in traditional systemswhere machine learning might not
(15:40):
be available, the generaltechnology trend is moving
towards being able to consumethat data and make sense of it
and also to not necessarilyover-egg what that influence
might be, but at least help makethe right decisions when it
comes to planning and budgetingon good weather days, for
example.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Yeah, I think all those things again sound great
in theory.
There's practicalities of ifyou're running a schedule in a
closed retailer three, fourweeks out, understanding the
weather tomorrow is going to bereally sunny or snowy or
whatever.
There's only so much you canreact to that within your
current contract confinement.
(16:21):
So if you, if someone'sfull-time, you've still got to
give them full-time hours andyou probably can't send them
home tomorrow and ask them tocome in the weekend.
So there's again.
There's a there's some nicemarketing stuff in there, isn't
there.
But also there's a pragmatismfor all of those of us that have
run stores of short term.
Some of that actually really Ican't do anything with, if that
(16:41):
makes sense yeah, it does.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
And the point you touch on there is the compliance
as well.
I mean that there's been anever-growing trend of
organizations being more andmore compliant and systemized
and compliant to some degree,where advanced wfm really kind
of comes into its own.
He's been able to layer inthose, those business rules with
the legislation and to makesure that managers, when they're
(17:05):
scheduling their staff, they'reyou know, they're not breaking
the law, they're not bringingpeople in without the minimum
rest, etc.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Yeah, critical, and I think, like you, historically,
when organisations have beenstarting to implement WFM, some
of those are the biggest pushbacks where people inadvertently
have not understood they'rebreaking the rules, and customer
practice gets into that.
So, all good, and, theo, justtell me, we've talked before and
(17:32):
we've done some podcasts withwith day force, but just remind
us of, I suppose, the power ofhaving a unified solution and
from that you know, I think theycall it, or I've referred to,
as cradle to grave, almost,which is the most gracious of
explanations.
But from hr through toscheduling, through to payroll,
through to leaving, yeah, fromhigher to fire, I think is the
(17:54):
the slightly less it's the endof it.
That's challenging.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Anyway, tell us why that's important so one of the
trends that we see mostly whenorganizations are coming from
fragmented systems and this isthis is often where you might
have a separate WFM system toyour payroll system or you might
have a completely separate HRWFM payroll system In a single
consolidated database, you canfollow the end-to-end impact of
(18:24):
bringing a new employee into ateam, forecasting and building
out your your schedule andseeing immediately the cost
implication that those schedulescan have.
It's helping a lot oforganizations to manage their
headcount budgets.
When it comes to managing howmany people sit within a
(18:47):
particular location or aparticular team.
Using some of the metrics thatMark's been able to pull out and
the MI data, organizations areable to make longer-term
decisions over how many peoplethat they need to bring in for
future seasons.
And when it comes to justsimplifying your processes,
(19:10):
having more time to calculateyour payroll, you know, not
having to wait for a time sheetcut off at the either the end of
the week or the end of themonth organizations can can
really make absoluteefficiencies when it comes to
processing that data all in oneplace that's yeah, and yeah,
(19:30):
fully reportable as well.
So in terms of where we seeorganizations taking the false
HCM suite so that might be fromrecruitment all the way to
payroll and benefits andpensions etc they're really able
to reduce the amount ofsegregated systems and it just
(19:53):
simplifies their entireimplementation when they're not
having to create complexintegrations from system to
system, they're not having touse manual processes to key in
new starters into their payrollsystem and the reporting that's
available from a singleconsolidated database and having
(20:13):
that data readily available toconsume into a data lake to
produce further BI, it's just sopowerful that you can't merit
it.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Yeah, and in terms of final thoughts, then we'll come
to you, mark.
Any kind of advice for peoplelistening if they're getting
ready for the WFM or the dayforce journey and what they
should look out for aroundimplementation?
Speaker 3 (20:42):
Yeah, definitely Just number one.
For me, this is nothing new,right, but do not underestimate
the change impact, the wfmespecially not an advanced wfm
project, so they are verydifferent.
When we're talking aboutbudgets and, ultimately, people,
we're not just recording time.
Now we're talking about, youknow, our people and our teams
being scheduled, but also don'tdon't you know, don't forget the
(21:05):
impact to our central functions.
I I would always say bestpractice, develop your, your
roadmap early on.
Again, I know this sounds basic, but set realistic goals and
approach them for a winninghearts and minds mindset.
That's something that reallyworks well for me Understanding
what your decisions, what thoseimpacts of those decisions are
going to be on those real peopleand, most importantly, those
(21:26):
adoption rates.
And I guess you know not toharp on about it but use an MVP
approach.
It's kind of only the secondtime that we've done it, or
certainly I've done it, rather,and I can really see the
benefits of that now.
So, having a platform whereyou're able to go back to your
leadership teams and say, look,this is what we've achieved.
This is where we currently are,how does this affect our
(21:47):
roadmap?
You know, what does this reallymake us think?
We're piloting it immediately,so straight away.
We're going to have MI that'sgoing to show us recruiting
patterns or forecasting gaps orgaps within our budgeting
process, and it can even thenstart to show you areas around
your adoption rates.
If you do have teams thataren't already doing the basics,
(22:08):
before you're getting down theline of full implementation,
you're already starting to seethe fruits of those labours.
So I think they would be thethree big ones for me.
I don't know if you've got anywith all your experience.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
I think that the key area when it comes to an
implementation whether it'sDayforce, ukg or any other
platform is don't underestimatethe importance of data, both
pre-implementation andpost-implementation.
Having a key data stakeholderand SME on a project that has
(22:42):
the skills to both extract,transform and organize your data
and your ETL processes itreally is one of the most
important roles in a project andorganize your data and your ETL
processes it really is one ofthe most important roles for the
project.
When it comes topost-implementation, having your
(23:03):
data, your BI teams, your MIteams involved in the project
from not necessarily the startof the project but at the very
least being involved and havingknowledge transfer delivered to
them from mid-project, wheredata is available and can be
queried from the system, reallyreally sets them up to make the
best use of the outputs that areavailable once you go live.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Excellent Sound words , good advice, good advice.
So we'll pause there.
Really appreciate your time,theo and Mark.
We'll put some links in theshow notes to your LinkedIn
profiles.
If people want to get in touchwith you via LinkedIn, they can
click through.
Is there anywhere else, theo,that people should look if they
want to find out more aboutMotorsforce?
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Yeah, of course.
Thank you, Simon.
Our URL is wwwmotorsforcecom.
Url is wwwmodusforcecom.
If you want to reach out to medirectly, you can reach me on
LinkedIn or my email address istheo at modusforcecom.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Do you want to add your email address for
completeness?
Speaker 3 (24:00):
Yeah, lovely, thank you.
Yeah, so it'd be mark atmodusforcecom.
So nice and simple.
And yeah, absolutely, onLinkedIn or email, just drop me
a message, as many of you outthere already do.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
Brilliant.
We'll pause there, thanks Mark,thanks Theo for your time and
we'll catch up soon.
Thanks, simon.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
Thanks, Simon Cheers.
Welcome to the Productivity Podcast.
I'm delighted today to bejoined by Theo Gott and Mark
Stacey from Modus Force.
Hi, theo, how are you doing?
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Hi, simon, doing great thanks.
How are you?
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (00:16):
good thanks, hi Mark.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Hi, simon, good to speak to you.
I'm doing well, thanks, hopeyou are too.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Yeah, all good thanks .
So we're going to find out abit more about Modus Force in a
second.
But, theo, let's start with you.
Tell us a bit about about modusforce in a second.
But, theo, let's start with you.
Tell us a bit about yourself,career background, what you've
done today and how you ended upbeing, I think, one of the first
employees at motors force.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Yeah, thank you.
So, yeah, my, my backgroundstarted mostly in retail, pos,
uh support and managed services,but I I had an opportunity for
to work for the old ceridian,became a developer on their vFM
product.
Back then it was mostly dealingwith time and attendance.
And then an opportunity came upto work with product called
(00:57):
Dayforce when that first came tothe UK and I started
implementing that around 2014,15.
I think I was the second UKconsultant.
Back then we were known asDayforce Consultants.
We were in HR, WFM payroll andthen through the years just kind
of picked up more knowledge ofthe general solution.
(01:19):
Spent a couple of years at AxiomGroup working on a few larger
WFM strategy, vendor selectionsand some time-retended
scheduling presentations for UKGand WorkBrain.
Yeah, came back to the Dayforcemothership in 2020.
And last year I saw anopportunity on LinkedIn just out
(01:41):
of the blue.
Basically, it shouted to meit's a new company called
Motorsforce Dayforce exclusivepartner.
I saw he was involved in thestartup of the company and I
just jumped at the opportunity.
So that's where I am now.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Amazing, good, nice story.
Mark, can you follow that?
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Yeah, I can Thanks Simon, so, yeah.
So, mark Stacey, I guess justkind of to set this up
brilliantly, one of the thingsthat we're most proud of and one
of our core values atMotorsport is our background and
our experience, and we reallybelieve it helps us deliver an
exceptional service, havingwalked in the same shoes and the
same spaces as our customers,and that's really important to
us.
And that kind of leads me quitenicely onto this.
(02:22):
I've worked in retail for over20 years, from the shop floor to
store and area management.
I've been involved in thefascinating analytics of space
planning and the cost of all ofthe products.
I've been involved in storedesign, so all the legalities
and the fundamentals of how youbuild a brand new store and how
you design it, from the fun ofbeing on the refit team and
(02:42):
understanding how teams work topull around those stores quite
quickly in tight timelines todelivering WFM roles out for
Kronos and A-Force.
I've been the head of labor forWix Simon, which is where
obviously I met yourself andMatt Brown, where together we
all collectively built aoperating and Excel model from
the bottle up, and kind ofmeeting you guys was where I got
the bug for consultancy.
(03:04):
So I ended up at Accenture forthree years, kind of working on
many large projects, and thenexactly the same with Theo.
I was aware of many of thefounders of Motorsforce and I
was very excited to join themand see what I could bring to
the table.
So yeah, that's me.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Brilliant and Theo.
We've talked about Motorsforcea couple of times, mentioned
cryptically some of the founders.
Do you want to fill in some ofthose gaps for people on what
Modus Force does?
Maybe a bit about going on,chris, love and Emma, the kind
of driving forces.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Yeah, of course.
So Modus Force was firstincorporated in 2024 at the
start.
They are a Dayforce exclusiveimplementation partner.
They are a Dayforce exclusiveimplementation partner and they
(03:59):
were started by, as you said,emma Armitage and Chris Love,
joined by Thomas Quinton andNeil McGregor.
So those guys and Emma all werepart of our EPL group which
sold to Accenture, I think, in2020.
They've got a very longstandingand and excellent background in
wfm delivery, amongst otherthings, but the the main focus
of modus force is deliveringexcellence in not just wfm but
(04:20):
across all dayforce modules.
So we spend a lot of time bothwith existing Dayforce customers
and with new Dayforce customers.
Part of our customer base isthe existing Dayforce customers
in the optimization sphere, socustomers that want to add in
new modules, especially aroundWFM, where across the other
(04:44):
partner practices there isn'tthe best knowledge base, and
we've got people like Mark andour team and myself and other
people that we've selected fromaround the WF landscape to kind
of bolster and join that realcenter excellence.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Amazing.
Yeah, great people that foundedit that we know well and
clearly got you guys on board,and some of your colleagues as
well that we've known from otherorganizations and industries.
So really good team formingthere doing some great work,
Mark.
Let's talk about WFM.
I know you kind of you guysspecialize in day force, but
give us a kind of appraisal ofthe WFM market at the moment and
(05:28):
then we'll start to dig intosome of the more advanced
scheduling and AI-related pieces.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
Yeah, brilliant.
Thanks, simon.
I mean anybody that knows meI'm always super passionate
about this subject.
It's something that I live andbreathe and I really enjoy it,
and I just think it's going togo from strength to strength the
marketplace.
At the moment, I think we allunderstand the traditional
benefits from WFM projects, suchas time tracking, attendance
management free to schedulingand compliance, and all the
(05:54):
costs and time benefitsassociated with that.
This is something that I'vebeen seeing for a long time now,
but, however, I think we'regoing to see a shift in trend
and focus around those areas.
So the introduction AI and itsautomation and efficiencies is
just going to be incredible forthe area.
Some of the analysis that it'sgoing to be able to provide and
(06:15):
you know further accuracy isgoing to be stunning.
Something I really like tochampion as well, especially
when I'm working with customers,is all around flexible working,
not just around the traditionalflexible working, but also
colleague well-being as well.
So the use of those tools andhow they promote flexibility,
like the day force,functionality of shift bids and
(06:36):
shift swapping and you know, forme that's what people want now.
But also it's not just that.
It's the introduction of kindof like gig working or contract
or temporary working, if youprefer, where we're really
seeing a shift in the dynamic ofthat, where actually you know
people at the workforce, theyare looking for that, they want
that flexibility of shifts, theywant to pick them up when they
(06:59):
want, rather than thetraditional.
You know, nine to five that youknow many of us are used to in
the past.
And then probably just gettinga little bit more serious really
is like some of the legislativechanges that are coming in,
especially, for example, like inApril 2026, where we will see,
you know, the right from day oneof the request for flexible
working.
And obviously there's, you knowthere's lots of pieces in and
(07:20):
out around that.
But it's kind of like, you know, my question for organisation
and customers is, you know, doyou want to wait for that change
to come in or do you want tostart to look at what's right
and what you know what's bestfor your workforce and your
business now?
And just those three pointsreally for me so I'm just
(07:41):
highlighting and picking themout just shows why the WFM
market is so strong, why it'stracking.
You know we can all hit Googleand see some of the trends, but
you know I think we're talkinglike 20% increases in global
markets, with the likes ofAustralia and America really
standing out.
So it's just a super excitingtime in the WFM space and, yeah,
just looking forward to seeingwhat can come.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Yeah, the possibilities of endless is.
I think inevitably we end upwith probably more people in
customer-facing environmentsbecause of cost challenges, the
need to schedule more accuratelybecomes even more paramount.
And back to some of the stuffwe did at Wix have the right
demand and all that kind ofstuff.
So advanced scheduling then andforgive me if I'm wrong in my
(08:23):
mind that's, you know, using allthe computing power in these
solutions, feeding it withdemand data, shape data.
So how, how, how many hourshave I got and when do those
hours need to be spent?
Match with some of the stuffyou talked about in terms of
flexibility.
Is that something you've beenworking on and you kind of see
helping supporting clients?
Speaker 3 (08:45):
yeah, absolutely, and you're absolutely spot on, by
the way.
So advanced scheduling isexactly that.
It's the pure WFM, with theautomated scheduling on top of
that or the budgeting process inthe background.
And we are one of the very fewDayforce implementation partners
that are experts in deployingthe advanced WFM model.
We have experience acrossAmerica, australia and EMEA
(09:08):
delivering it across the retail,service and manufacturing space
, and it's often the mostoverlooked day force model
module.
Yet, you know, in the day forcetoolkit.
Yet for me you know, simon, asyou all know, you know these
types of WFM and budgetingmodels.
They release the biggestbenefits and operational
efficiencies and some of the MIthat can come out of it can not
(09:29):
just reshape your budgetallocation but, you know, can
completely shape.
It, really give you somehighlights of opportunities.
It can start to help you toplan your recruitment and I
think what excites me the most,as I think it does for for most
customers as well, is that timeit frees up for our managers, it
supports them in being able toproduce that great schedule, but
(09:50):
it just takes the pain and andthe effort away.
It still allows for the humanelement.
We'd absolutely never replacethat human element.
We still need that final 10percent of say so, but yeah it.
It just allows so much data andso much information to be able
to come through us in in realtimes.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Really I'll just pause you there and probably
question for both of you.
We'll start with theo.
This I'll call it mythicalbecause it it it is.
Cast your mind back years ago.
It was around setting up asystem that you fed all this
data into.
You pressed a button, you gotthis perfect schedule.
(10:29):
Everybody worked it with noqualms.
Somebody might come in a bitlate, somebody might be early,
and you repeat that each week.
Personally, I've never seenthat.
I still, ironically, see peopletrying to sell it.
But, as mark described there,getting to that 80, 85, 90
percent is that the sweet spot?
Speaker 2 (10:48):
I think if what you described there, simon, is the,
the utopia that we always referto when we do client discoveries
.
And back when I got involvedwith dayforce for the first time
, the, you know the primaryselling point was being able to
schedule people in the rightplace at the right time and
ultimately, you know, if all thecontracts were beneficial
(11:09):
enough towards the company, thatyou would be able to achieve a
90%.
I think the reality is that inmost organizations, the 80-90%
isn't actually that realisticwhen a company opts to take in
or implement advanced WFM.
I think if they set their eyesa little bit lower, set the bar
(11:32):
a little bit lower in terms ofwhat they're looking to achieve
from their current wage modeland their current contractual
base, then they'll be lesslikely to be disappointed with
the end result.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Yeah, and Mark again, have you ever seen the mythical
press the button, spit out theperfect schedule, everybody
works it and we carry on week in, week out with this.
You know, utopia.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
No, definitely not, and for me I don't think I'd
ever want it to either.
I think, if we're going to talkabout the three most exciting
trend areas in WFM, and one ofthose is still flexibility and
that human factor, I don't thinkwe want to lose that and I also
don't believe in all the hypearound that's what AI is going
to replace and take away thathuman factor.
It won't.
It will just deliver that sweetspot element.
(12:18):
And just kind of leading onfrom what fio said as well,
about just kind of like takingyou know, kind of like where you
are right now, like one of thebiggest challenges that I come
across from advanced wfm is isthat wonder and and that again,
like you say something thatmythical piece of how long is it
(12:40):
going to take to deliver?
Are we talking weeks and months?
Do we need to rebuild our model?
Do we need to understand all ofthe elements?
And actually we don't.
Uh motorsforce, we currentlyoffer an mvp, so a minimal,
viable product where within lessthan five days and we've
already just achieved this witha, a global retailer in
australia where we can deliverand the advanced wfm suite in in
(13:04):
under five days and we'retalking taking your current
budget model, putting that intoday force with an element of
forecasting or without, you knowit can be completely decided.
But what we can start to do isrelease some of those benefits
immediately.
When we talk about from our youknow, our schedulers having a
demand graph, so somethingvisual so, rather than just a
(13:24):
budgeted number on an Excelspreadsheet somewhere, a visual
demand in 15 minute incrementstelling them where they need
their colleagues or certainlywhere they should expire, to
have those colleagues to thenhaving the metrics that come
outside of that.
So, again, one of the thingsthat we've just done with our
current MVP is a client inputtedtheir budgeted data.
They then had all of theirstores schedule it and then the
(13:48):
reporting and the MI that wewere able to pull out of that
was kind of game changing forthem because it was just a view
of their current you knowscheduling, their current
workforce and that establishmentand what their operating
efficiency is.
And that's just another reasonwhy I love the advanced WFm
space.
Yes, it's been around for awhile, yes, it's been done, but
in terms of day force, it'ssomething that at motorsports
(14:10):
we're able to really bring tolife and do it quite quickly
just to help you get on yourjourney amazing, good, good,
good mvp in five days to kind ofprove the future.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
And how's ai going to change that?
What do you see coming in theworld of wfm specifically?
Speaker 3 (14:27):
to be honest, I think the world is.
I'm super excited about whatit's going to bring and I think
the efficient, I think it's justgoing to drive efficiencies,
time savings, further level ofaccuracy with machine learning.
I'm I'm like, beyond excitedabout machine learning and you
know dayforce have been lookingat this for quite a while and
undoubtedly will see animprovement in that historic
(14:48):
data analysis and then thepredictive analysis that will
come on from that in terms ofthe workforce demands, but I
think ultimately what we willsee is that age-old gap between
forecast and actuals reducingfurther.
So, yeah, really, reallyexcited about what that will
bring.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Theo, have you got any thoughts on where you see AI
above and beyond what Mark'stalked about?
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Just on the machine learning point, I think it's
been around 10 years that I'vebeen hearing in lots of
conference rooms and meetingsthe appetite to use weather data
, traffic data, to helpinfluence the level of demand
that's being generated.
I think in traditional systemswhere machine learning might not
(15:40):
be available, the generaltechnology trend is moving
towards being able to consumethat data and make sense of it
and also to not necessarilyover-egg what that influence
might be, but at least help makethe right decisions when it
comes to planning and budgetingon good weather days, for
example.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Yeah, I think all those things again sound great
in theory.
There's practicalities of ifyou're running a schedule in a
closed retailer three, fourweeks out, understanding the
weather tomorrow is going to bereally sunny or snowy or
whatever.
There's only so much you canreact to that within your
current contract confinement.
(16:21):
So if you, if someone'sfull-time, you've still got to
give them full-time hours andyou probably can't send them
home tomorrow and ask them tocome in the weekend.
So there's again.
There's a there's some nicemarketing stuff in there, isn't
there.
But also there's a pragmatismfor all of those of us that have
run stores of short term.
Some of that actually really Ican't do anything with, if that
(16:41):
makes sense yeah, it does.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
And the point you touch on there is the compliance
as well.
I mean that there's been anever-growing trend of
organizations being more andmore compliant and systemized
and compliant to some degree,where advanced wfm really kind
of comes into its own.
He's been able to layer inthose, those business rules with
the legislation and to makesure that managers, when they're
(17:05):
scheduling their staff, they'reyou know, they're not breaking
the law, they're not bringingpeople in without the minimum
rest, etc.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Yeah, critical, and I think, like you, historically,
when organisations have beenstarting to implement WFM, some
of those are the biggest pushbacks where people inadvertently
have not understood they'rebreaking the rules, and customer
practice gets into that.
So, all good, and, theo, justtell me, we've talked before and
(17:32):
we've done some podcasts withwith day force, but just remind
us of, I suppose, the power ofhaving a unified solution and
from that you know, I think theycall it, or I've referred to,
as cradle to grave, almost,which is the most gracious of
explanations.
But from hr through toscheduling, through to payroll,
through to leaving, yeah, fromhigher to fire, I think is the
(17:54):
the slightly less it's the endof it.
That's challenging.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Anyway, tell us why that's important so one of the
trends that we see mostly whenorganizations are coming from
fragmented systems and this isthis is often where you might
have a separate WFM system toyour payroll system or you might
have a completely separate HRWFM payroll system In a single
consolidated database, you canfollow the end-to-end impact of
(18:24):
bringing a new employee into ateam, forecasting and building
out your your schedule andseeing immediately the cost
implication that those schedulescan have.
It's helping a lot oforganizations to manage their
headcount budgets.
When it comes to managing howmany people sit within a
(18:47):
particular location or aparticular team.
Using some of the metrics thatMark's been able to pull out and
the MI data, organizations areable to make longer-term
decisions over how many peoplethat they need to bring in for
future seasons.
And when it comes to justsimplifying your processes,
(19:10):
having more time to calculateyour payroll, you know, not
having to wait for a time sheetcut off at the either the end of
the week or the end of themonth organizations can can
really make absoluteefficiencies when it comes to
processing that data all in oneplace that's yeah, and yeah,
(19:30):
fully reportable as well.
So in terms of where we seeorganizations taking the false
HCM suite so that might be fromrecruitment all the way to
payroll and benefits andpensions etc they're really able
to reduce the amount ofsegregated systems and it just
(19:53):
simplifies their entireimplementation when they're not
having to create complexintegrations from system to
system, they're not having touse manual processes to key in
new starters into their payrollsystem and the reporting that's
available from a singleconsolidated database and having
(20:13):
that data readily available toconsume into a data lake to
produce further BI, it's just sopowerful that you can't merit
it.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Yeah, and in terms of final thoughts, then we'll come
to you, mark.
Any kind of advice for peoplelistening if they're getting
ready for the WFM or the dayforce journey and what they
should look out for aroundimplementation?
Speaker 3 (20:42):
Yeah, definitely Just number one.
For me, this is nothing new,right, but do not underestimate
the change impact, the wfmespecially not an advanced wfm
project, so they are verydifferent.
When we're talking aboutbudgets and, ultimately, people,
we're not just recording time.
Now we're talking about, youknow, our people and our teams
being scheduled, but also don'tdon't you know, don't forget the
(21:05):
impact to our central functions.
I I would always say bestpractice, develop your, your
roadmap early on.
Again, I know this sounds basic, but set realistic goals and
approach them for a winninghearts and minds mindset.
That's something that reallyworks well for me Understanding
what your decisions, what thoseimpacts of those decisions are
going to be on those real peopleand, most importantly, those
(21:26):
adoption rates.
And I guess you know not toharp on about it but use an MVP
approach.
It's kind of only the secondtime that we've done it, or
certainly I've done it, rather,and I can really see the
benefits of that now.
So, having a platform whereyou're able to go back to your
leadership teams and say, look,this is what we've achieved.
This is where we currently are,how does this affect our
(21:47):
roadmap?
You know, what does this reallymake us think?
We're piloting it immediately,so straight away.
We're going to have MI that'sgoing to show us recruiting
patterns or forecasting gaps orgaps within our budgeting
process, and it can even thenstart to show you areas around
your adoption rates.
If you do have teams thataren't already doing the basics,
(22:08):
before you're getting down theline of full implementation,
you're already starting to seethe fruits of those labours.
So I think they would be thethree big ones for me.
I don't know if you've got anywith all your experience.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
I think that the key area when it comes to an
implementation whether it'sDayforce, ukg or any other
platform is don't underestimatethe importance of data, both
pre-implementation andpost-implementation.
Having a key data stakeholderand SME on a project that has
(22:42):
the skills to both extract,transform and organize your data
and your ETL processes itreally is one of the most
important roles in a project andorganize your data and your ETL
processes it really is one ofthe most important roles for the
project.
When it comes topost-implementation, having your
(23:03):
data, your BI teams, your MIteams involved in the project
from not necessarily the startof the project but at the very
least being involved and havingknowledge transfer delivered to
them from mid-project, wheredata is available and can be
queried from the system, reallyreally sets them up to make the
best use of the outputs that areavailable once you go live.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Excellent Sound words , good advice, good advice.
So we'll pause there.
Really appreciate your time,theo and Mark.
We'll put some links in theshow notes to your LinkedIn
profiles.
If people want to get in touchwith you via LinkedIn, they can
click through.
Is there anywhere else, theo,that people should look if they
want to find out more aboutMotorsforce?
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Yeah, of course.
Thank you, Simon.
Our URL is wwwmotorsforcecom.
Url is wwwmodusforcecom.
If you want to reach out to medirectly, you can reach me on
LinkedIn or my email address istheo at modusforcecom.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Do you want to add your email address for
completeness?
Speaker 3 (24:00):
Yeah, lovely, thank you.
Yeah, so it'd be mark atmodusforcecom.
So nice and simple.
And yeah, absolutely, onLinkedIn or email, just drop me
a message, as many of you outthere already do.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
Brilliant.
We'll pause there, thanks Mark,thanks Theo for your time and
we'll catch up soon.
Thanks, simon.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
Thanks, Simon Cheers.
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