Chris sits down with the team behind Bizimply, the Dublin-based workforce management and HR platform serving over 1,300 hospitality businesses and 100,000+ shift workers across the UK and Ireland. Emily and Conor share how they’re marrying workforce scheduling with smarter HR tools, and what AI really means for the people powering the hospitality industry.
Key Topics Covered
🍺 Bizimply’s Story: From a startup two doors down from the Guinness Brewery, Bizimply has grown into a 50/50 UK-Ireland business with a fully regional sales force. Founder Gerard’s passion for hospitality people management sparked a product built for the 70% of the world’s workforce on shift-based contracts, underserved by traditional HR software.
👥 Workforce Management Meets HR: Why “stick to your knitting” is their product philosophy. Bizimply doesn’t do payroll natively. They do workforce management and HR really well, and integrate with the best payroll providers. The mission: let managers manage, not fill in spreadsheets.
📊 The Data Problem in Hospitality: Clean, trustworthy data is the foundation of everything. Without it, AI is just noise. Bizimply is investing heavily in data quality so that what surfaces to operators is accurate, actionable, and meaningful.
🤖 AI: The Smart Intern on Your Shoulder Conor’s take: AI is like a brilliant intern, fast but always looking at the past. Emily’s view: the goal is to answer questions before they’re even asked, removing noise and showing each persona exactly what they need to know.
⚡ What Bizimply Is Building Next: Intelligent demand planning and automated scheduling, performance management tools tied to revenue and retention, a new UI designed around simplicity, and an operations hub connecting POS, payroll, inventory, and people.
🔮 The Illusion of Control: Multi-site operators often believe technology gives them control. Conor’s argument: it doesn’t. Technology gives your people the tools to do their jobs well. That’s what creates a great operation.
📱 The TikTok Test: If your rota app isn’t as intuitive as Uber Eats, you’ll lose your workforce’s attention. Emily and Conor discuss the generational shift in product expectations.
Quotable Moments:
“Technology should allow people to do what they’re really good at.” – Conor Shaw
“AI is like a really smart intern sitting on your shoulder who answers questions very quickly, but isn’t always right.” – Emily Kane
“The illusion of control: technology won’t give you that. But it’ll give your people the tools to do their jobs well.” – Conor Shaw
“Remove the noise. What are the top three things you need to know right now?” – Emily Kane