Case Study: Urban Playground
Centralising workforce operations to support growth across the UK and prepare for US expansion
Overview
Urban Playground runs The Cube Live Experience, a hosted gaming concept where every session is led by a member of staff. Unlike most hospitality venues where guests are largely self-managed, each Cube requires a dedicated host to guide players through the experience.
At the Canary Wharf site alone there are 21 Cubes running at the same time. Across each venue this means around 120–130 staff working across hosting, bar, kitchen and operations.
As the business expanded, managing people, rotas and recruitment across multiple locations became increasingly difficult.
The Challenges – Systems that couldn’t keep up
Urban Playground had been using a bespoke workforce system to manage rotas and people processes. While it was designed to support the business, it struggled with the volume and complexity of day-to-day operations and was often slow to use. Managers were spending too much time on admin rather than running the venue.
Shift swaps through WhatsApp
Most operational communication, particularly around covering shifts, happened through WhatsApp group chats.
“Shift swaps were a big issue. Messages would be coming through late at night or early in the morning – ‘I can’t work today’ – followed by loads of replies. Managers would come in not really knowing who was actually turning up.”
— Freddie Andrews, Recruitment Coordinator
This regularly led to confusion and short-staffed shifts.
Recruitment spread across sites
Each venue was responsible for its own hiring. Job adverts were posted separately, interviews were arranged manually, and candidate progress was tracked in different ways.
Head Office had little visibility over recruitment activity, spend, or where candidates were in the process.
Moving to a Centralised Platform
Urban Playground introduced Harri in October, shortly before the busy Christmas period.
Changing systems at a peak time was a challenge, but the team were able to set up the main recruitment and rota processes quickly enough to support seasonal hiring and daily operations.
Freddie found the recruitment setup straightforward, from posting roles through to sending offers, which helped remove much of the manual admin.
How Harri Was Used – Clear, controlled shift management
Shift swaps and communication were moved into Harri Engage.
- All changes now go through manager approval
- There is a clear record of what’s been agreed
- Fewer disputes and missed shifts
If a shift isn’t approved in the system, it remains the employee’s responsibility.
Managing staff across roles and sites
Many team members work in more than one department and sometimes across locations.
With Harri, managers can:
- Move staff between roles using drag-and-drop rotas
- Automatically track labour costs by department
- Avoid manual spreadsheet tracking
This made workforce planning more accurate and quicker.
Bringing recruitment into one place
Recruitment was centralised with clear candidate stages for every role.
This meant:
- Better visibility of who was in the process and where
- Automatic prompts to book interviews
- Less back-and-forth messaging
Right to Work checks were also automated, helping keep seasonal hiring compliant.
The Results
Since centralising workforce management with Harri, Urban Playground has seen:
- Better visibility across all sites from Head Office
- More consistent recruitment processes
- Reduced admin for managers and HR
- Clearer accountability for shift changes
The time saved on recruitment admin has allowed Freddie to take on payroll responsibilities alongside hiring.
What’s Next
Urban Playground is planning to open a site in Chicago in 2026.
With Harri already supporting both UK and US operations, the team expect to roll out new locations using the same systems and processes already in place.
“It feels like we’re just adding another location and running it the same way,” said Freddie.
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