From Scheduling to Decision-Making: How Sona Helps Every Site Run Like Your Best GM, with Ben Dixon, Co-Founder Sona

Workforce is still the biggest lever (and constraint) in hospitality. Labour costs keep rising, guest expectations keep rising, and “just work harder” isn’t a strategy.

In this episode, Ben Dixon — Co-founder and CTO at Sona — breaks down why Sona is approaching workforce management differently: not as another scheduling tool, but as a way to scale great operator decision-making across every site.

We get into forecasting and demand (and why outlier days matter more than averages), how to build trust with managers, what “nudging” looks like in real life, and where agentic AI is heading over the next 12–18 months — including the idea of an AI “chief of staff” for GMs.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why “people” is the #1 limiter to growth for many operators

• The “best GM in the worst site” thought experiment — and what it proves

• How Sona encodes great decision-making across staffing, onboarding, and coaching

• Forecasting done bottom-up: why each location behaves differently

• Building trust: showing the “why” behind forecasts and recommendations

• Why agentic AI is more than dashboards — it’s prioritisation and action

• Realistic ROI: where savings can show up quickly (and what it depends on)

• Vibe coding vs SaaS: what vendors must prove going forward

• Scaling globally: labour compliance rules engines with AI + human validation

Guest: Ben Dixon, Co-founder & CTO, Sona
Website: getsona.com

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