What It's Like Being Inside A Company That Runs On Innovation

Sportsbet runs on innovation. Our company values empower us to innovate because unlike almost everywhere else I’ve worked, these values aren’t just touted by the HR department and plastered on the walls in common areas. They’re part of the Sportsbet vernacular. 
 
 “Customer First and Last”, “Our Fun, Their Fun”, “Stay Curious”, “License to Drive”, “Reflect Learn Improve”, and “We’ve Got Your Back” – these are the core elements of our company culture that inspire us all to get creative and continuously improve not just our products and customer experiences, but our internal processes too. 
 
Getting the creativity flowing with our ‘hack days’ 
 
Hack days are a fantastic opportunity for people from across the business to come together and work on new ideas. It’s not just about customer-facing or new product ideas – we also look at how we can improve the way we work internally. Sportsbet pays a lot of attention to its people – making things as smooth as possible for us and helping us to work smarter is a constant focus. 
 
It’s been a little more challenging running these while working from home, but it hasn’t stopped us – there’s actually a hack event underway as I write this. It’s just a great way for people all over the business to share their knowledge and skills, and even flex some new ones! 
 
All the teams at Sportsbet also regularly have RLI (Reflect, Learn, Improve) sessions. Again, embodying our values, not just talking about them. These sessions allow us to keep asking ourselves, “What if?” And we all feel free to take risks because we know that leadership has our backs! 
 
 Watching ideas come to life 
 
One of the most rewarding parts of innovating at Sportsbet is watching my team work together to bring an idea to life. This often involves learning new skills, challenging each other and many times moving outside of our comfort zones. As a manager, there’s nothing l love seeing more! And at Sportsbet we love to have fun and reward hard work – so it’s also a great excuse for a team lunch or drinks (even if it is over Zoom!). 
 
One of our current projects is looking at how we can automate a lot of our processes and reporting, especially the more manual, repetitive tasks. We’ve grown over the past year and we would rather spend that time working more closely with our stakeholders on projects where we can really add value. 
 
Right now we’re in the middle of automating some of our fortnightly reporting and providing our stakeholders with access to a reporting dashboard where they can drill down into the information that matters to them. It’s been super interesting and a big learning curve for the team as we’ve all had to upskill on SharePoint and Power BI.  
 
I’m lucky enough to manage a team of exceptionally smart, switched on and really passionate individuals – and collectively we’re always looking at what we do and how we can do it better, faster, smarter. I’m not directly involved with developing new products myself, but as Portfolio and Programs manager, the approach my team takes to our work definitely contributes to the overall level of innovation throughout the company.