Employment Hero helps National Wine Centre Australia save 45 hours a week on HR and Payroll

About the National Wine Centre of Australia

The National Wine Centre of Australia (NWCA) is not your typical venue. As one of Adelaide’s most iconic wine and events destinations, it offers everything from international conferences to casual wine tastings. With over 140 staff, the Centre operates not just as an event space, but also as a restaurant, bar, café, and tourist attraction. 

Leading the charge is Corporate Services Manager Josh Fitzpatrick, whose responsibility spans finance, HR, IT, and legal. It’s a complex operation, and with so much happening under one roof, it takes a highly flexible team – and the right technology – to keep everything running smoothly behind the scenes.

Bottlenecked by paperwork and admin

Before Employment Hero, HR and payroll processes at the NWCA were clunky and time-intensive. Everything from onboarding to contract creation was done manually.

“All contracts were prepared one by one, in-house,” says Josh. “We’d align the diaries of 10 different people just to get everyone to sign their tax file declarations and super forms. It made onboarding new staff really difficult.”

Manual processes aren’t just inefficient – they introduce risk.

“Because we were preparing so many documents manually, they’d often be inconsistent or have errors,” he admits.

The turning point came when the NWCA’s HR officer left. 

“Instead of filling that role immediately, I told our GM that there has to be a better way to do this. That’s when we started looking at platforms.”

One Platform for Everything HR + Payroll

After exploring several systems, Employment Hero stood out as a comprehensive solution. Unlike many platforms that focused solely on HR or payroll, Employment Hero offered an all-in-one solution that could handle both seamlessly, making it the clear choice for NWCA’s needs.

“There were lots of HR platforms and plenty of payroll software out there, but very few that did both well,” Josh recounted.

NWCA went ahead with Employment Hero’s HR platform and later rolled out payroll, finding the dual-module setup worked seamlessly.

“We never backfilled that HR role,” Josh says. “Employment Hero effectively saved us a full-time employee. That alone was huge.”

Seamless onboarding, full-bodied compliance

One of the biggest wins is how Employment Hero transformed employee onboarding, particularly for the casual workforce that NWCA employs. With preset contracts, award configurations already in place, and a clear step-by-step flow, onboarding is now fast, consistent and far less manual. 

“We’re no longer chasing missing documents – staff have to complete each step before moving on,” says Josh.

Employment Hero also helped tighten compliance processes. Policies can be issued and tracked digitally, and Visa Entitlement Verification Online checks, which were once done manually and often missed, are now seamlessly integrated. 

“The system flags when something’s outdated – we never miss anyone,” Josh adds.

45 hours a week, reclaimed

Payroll was another area of massive time savings.

 “It used to take one of my team members a day and a half each week to process payroll. Now it’s done in two hours… if that.”

The result? A reclaimed 45 hours per week across HR and payroll. 

“That’s an entire salary, and a little bit more,” says Josh. “It’s enabled us to focus on other priorities, and even open new outlets without worrying about extra admin load.”

Clarity where it counts

Beyond HR and payroll functionality, Employment Hero has made a huge impact on NWCA’s cost control and operational visibility. Managers now have real-time access to data on penalty rates and overtime, empowering them to make smarter rostering decisions

“We saw a huge improvement in wage percentage as a result. Feedback from managers has been great,” Josh recounted.

Leave management has also been streamlined. Previously reliant on paper forms, the process is now fully digital, making it easy to submit, track, and approve requests while ensuring accurate records across the board.

A toast to better HR and payroll

For Josh, implementing Employment Hero has been a proud career moment.

“When you reached out for a case study, I said yes straight away. Launching Employment Hero is probably the thing I’m proudest of in my five years here. It’s transformed how we work.”

And when we asked Josh if he had any final words to sum up his experience with Employment Hero?

“I couldn’t be happier with how everything went. Changing HR and payroll systems is no small feat, but it was made as easy as it can be by the team… I’m really, really pleased with how we’ve ended up.”

Want to experience Employment Hero for yourself?

Employment Hero is an all-in-one Employment Operating System for HR, payroll, and recruitment built to simplify compliance, automate admin, and empower your people. From onboarding to offboarding, we streamline every step of the employee lifecycle so y

Looking to streamline HR and bring more value to your business, like the National Wine Centre? Book a demo with our business specialists today.