How Experience Gold Coast saved 36 hours a week and $36K a year by streamlining payroll, HR and rostering

A complex operation made simple

When Andrew Murling joined Experience Gold Coast (EGC) as a Payroll Manager, he walked into a familiar but messy scene: five separate companies, no HR system, and a manual payroll process that spanned three days each week.

“They had a time and attendance system for rostering and another system for HR. They asked me if they should throw them all in the bin or try to combine them,” Andrew recalled.

Founded in 2023, EGC was created when five of the city’s major entities merged to become one organisation. It’s made up of two distinct parts:

• EGC’s Broadbeach Office: Home to our Visitor Economy, Marketing, Corporate Relations, Events and Education departments, this part of the business runs major events like Blues on Broadbeach, Cooly Rocks On, Gold Coast Careers Festival, and This is Gold Coast and is responsible for driving the visitor economy. It includes 107 full-time salaried staff, supported by 50–100 casuals during events. 
• HOTA (Home of the Arts): An arts and cultural precinct with 370 staff across an art gallery, cinema complex, performance stages, theatres, restaurants and conferencing. Employment types range from salaried to LGIA, EBA-covered employees and weekly contractors. 

“EGC pays around 100 contractors a week. They come in to perform, set up exhibitions, work in hospitality, you name it. Before Employment Hero, finance handled their invoices separately every fortnight,” said Andrew.

After consulting with the team, Andrew delivered a bold but simple recommendation: unify everything in one platform with Employment Hero. 

“I wrote a project plan that moved everything onto Employment Hero, including HR, payroll, rostering and clock-in/clock-out. I ended up joining the business to implement the plan and we took five separate companies and restructured them into one,” he said.

From three days to three hours

One of the most immediate and visible benefits came through time saved with Employment Hero Payroll. Previously, processing payroll for 350–370 employees took one dedicated staff member three full days every week.

“Payroll used to take three days every week. Our Payroll Officer would start Monday morning and payroll would be finished Wednesday afternoon. Now we start at 10 am on Monday and we’re finished by 1:30 pm. That’s for 370 employees at HOTA. For EGC, we do payroll every fortnight and it takes about two and a half hours.”

The consolidation saved countless hours and freed up the team to focus on more strategic tasks, like rethinking rostering and engagement.

Saving $36,000 annually with integrated rostering

When Andrew joined, EGC was paying $3,000 a month for a rostering platform that didn’t integrate with payroll. Not only was it expensive, it created double-handling.

“We were still entering technical timesheets manually into Employment Hero because the two systems didn’t talk to each other,” Andrew said.

That changed when EGC built its rostering from scratch within Employment Hero.

“We’ve taken 93 staff out of the separate time and attendance system. They now clock in and out, roster and submit timesheets all through Employment Hero. It’s all in one place. No more double-handling. That alone saves us $36,000 a year.”

Building a single source of truth

EGC didn’t stop at payroll and rostering. They are fully committed to Employment Hero as a central hub, bringing together learning and development, performance reviews, benefits and recognition.

“We integrated novated leasing, Hero Points system and GO1 training modules. We’ve already purchased 20,000 Hero Points, and within weeks, staff were using recognition features daily,” said Andrew.

The impact? Better engagement and connection across departments.

“You might get 50 likes and comments on one recognition. Staff feel more connected. Someone who works in the gallery is seeing what’s happening in the performance space and it brings teams all together,” he said. 

Creating transparency and smarter workforce management

When Andrew rolled out clock-in/clock-out features to 200 technical and salaried staff, many of whom had never done it before, there was some initial hesitation.

“Some of them have been here 20 years and never used a digital system. They’d say, ‘Are you Big Brother? Are you watching us?’ But once we explained that it was about looking after them, not monitoring them, it made sense,” Andrew shared.

“We can now see who’s doing overtime. We can step in and say, ‘Let’s chat and ask why you are doing so much overtime?’ It’s helping with wellbeing and budgeting too.”

A solution for every business size

Before joining EGC, Andrew had spent over seven years running his own payroll bureau through KeyPay, managing dozens of clients and building deep expertise in HRIS and payroll systems. Andrew knows the system works for large, complex organisations, but he also believes smaller businesses have just as much to gain.

“My wife works at a small business with 13 employees. I set them up on Employment Hero and now they’re loving it – staff clock in and out, see payslips, access leave, training… the same things we’re doing at EGC. It doesn’t matter if the business has 13 or 600 people – the benefits are there.” 

For Andrew, the power of Employment Hero is simple:

“I’ve never had a platform where HR talks to payroll, to benefits, to training – all in one. Now I do. It’s user-friendly and once people get used to it, they realise how much easier it makes everything,” he said.

Ready to simplify and scale your HR and payroll like Experience Gold Coast? Book a demo with a business specialist today and see what’s possible when everything’s in one place.