Anthem
At a glance
Company
Anthem
Location
Auckland, New Zealand
Employees
16
Product
Platinum HR & Payroll
Explore this case study if:
- You’re looking to implement HR processes that will grow with you
- You want to easily manage employee leave and say goodbye to Excel spreadsheets for good
- Have a single source of truth for your company policies that everyone can easily access
- Streamline your recruitment and onboarding process
About Anthem
Based in Auckland, New Zealand, Anthem is an integrated communications and marketing agency. Their purpose is to help their clients find their most powerful voice and to create meaningful connections within their communities of interest. With a wide range of services from corporate communications, issues management and government relations to consumer marketing, internal communications and digital activations, Anthem’s bread and butter is creating bespoke communications and stakeholder solutions that solve business problems.
With a team of communication experts building the brands and reputations of many of New Zealand’s most loved companies, we wanted to learn how they manage their people. Anna Timu, People and Culture Manager at Anthem shared her experience using Employment Hero and the enormous impact it’s had on their HR and people operations.
The challenges…
Annual leave that was hard to track
Knowing when your employees are taking leave is an important part of managing a team. However, for Anna and the team at Anthem, it was a difficult process to understand and stay across.
Their annual leave was managed in an Excel spreadsheet, meaning that people didn’t have clear visibility about who was taking leave and when – not to mention the potential for human error when calculating different types of leave.
“Our annual leave needed simplification, centralisation and streamlining. Employees didn’t know how to apply for leave. We had a system, but nobody accessed it. Instead, they referred to a spreadsheet to try and keep track of their annual leave.”
Company policies were hard to find
Company policies are the guiding light to creating a safe and happy workplace. However Anna was finding people weren’t reading them, leading to lots of confusion around the company dos and don’ts.
“Our policies weren’t able to be accessed easily and they weren’t often read at all. There was confusion over what a specific policy was and what the right answer should be.”
An inconsistent recruitment process that was different for each candidate
Giving candidates a standout experience during the recruitment process can be the reason they accept your job offer or choose to work elsewhere. Start the process off on the right foot and you’ll leave a lasting impression for all of the right reasons.
The Anthem team was finding that their recruitment process was chopping and changing from candidate to candidate. They were looking to streamline their hiring process so they could confidently give every candidate a standout experience.
“We had an email system before and inconsistent processes. We didn’t provide the same experience for our candidates. So now with Employment Hero, it’s made a massive difference through its end-to-end process”, says Anna.
A lack of HR processes in place
With the Anthem team being so busy in their day-to-day, they found it hard to introduce new HR processes that would work in their business and that everyone would stick to.
“Despite people’s best efforts, we had no systems and processes.”
They were looking for an end-to-end HR system that could help them implement all of the HR processes they needed to enhance and improve operations.
Results…
An easier way to manage employee leave
Leave submissions? It’s now no problem for Anna and the rest of the team.
They now use Employment Hero to enter and track their own annual and sick leave – and it’s all done with ease.
“People can see their leave via Employment Hero on the web or via the Swag app. We’ve gone from 10% of people accessing the system to 100% of employees now entering their own leave and tracking their time off.”
But it’s not just having the visibility or confidence that it’s all calculated correctly that Anna loves, it’s the fact that her team finds it super easy to use. It’s been so easy that she’s been told her team “can access their sick leave application on their phone in their bed while sick.”
Workplace policies are now acknowledged and read by everyone in the team
Workplace policies are the principles that guide company culture and are in place to set employee expectations. Whether it’s leave policies, expectations of computer-use or workplace safety procedures – it’s essential to have everyone on the same page to keep everything operating smoothly.
Now, Anna can easily see who has viewed and digitally acknowledged policies, with all policies being uploaded into Employment Hero.
And the best part? New starters can get all of their employment paperwork issued and policies signed on the dotted line before their very first day.
“We’ve gone from 50% of employees reading policies to 100% of all new employees reading their policies, often even before they start with access to Employment Hero as part of the recruitment process”.
A transformative recruitment process
The most important change Anna has seen is during their recruitment process. Now they’re able to easily view, track and share the candidate with other hiring managers from beginning to end. “This is now streamlined through Employment Hero,” Anna said.
“We now can have multiple employees running the same process together and providing the same experience to each candidate with our pre-written emails. Our process is now in alignment and each step is followed one by one, rather than steps being missed and a different process provided to each candidate that applies. We love Employment Hero.”
But it’s not just the alignment that the team is loving. It’s the time-savings, streamlined processes and great candidate experience they can now confidently give time and time again, whether they’re recruiting for a single open role or multiple.
“We have been in a situation where we are employing multiple employees at the same time. Employment Hero enables us to run the process very quickly and efficiently.”
“We can see the notes in the system, see where we’re at, and therefore we’re running a very efficient recruitment process. We’re also giving a much better experience for every candidate that comes along. They get a reply quickly and if they’re successful, are able to get up and running quickly once they’re employed. So our biggest growth has been through the ability to recruit people quickly and easily.”
Performance reviews – tick!
We all know that setting and achieving goals is one of the best ways to keep your team engaged and motivated at work. That’s why having regular check-ins around performance is so important – whether you choose to hold them monthly, quarterly, bi-annualy or yearly.
By introducing a performance review process, as well as 360 degree feedback, the Anthem team have been able to increase accountability and set goals.
“We’re now doing all of our performance reviews in Employment Hero. We’re about to launch our first ever 360 review in Employment Hero and the ease of use is just making it great”, Anna said.
A spotlight back on employee learning and development
Encouraging your employees to upskill and develop professionally is the secret sauce to a high performing team – and Anna has been able to do just that with access to Employment Hero’s learning and development (L&D) tools. They’ve also seen a significant uptick in employees accessing L&D initiatives, compared to their old system.
“We took a look at our learning and development usage in the old system and found that we had less than 5% of employees accessing their L&D”, Anna said.
“Now, with Employment Hero and Go1, we have over 90% of employees accessing and using learning and development and progressing with what they need to know.”
An easy to use system that everyone loves
Giving businesses and their employees the best possible experience with Employment Hero is our number one priority and something that we’re committed to delivering.
“We can’t sing the praises high enough because everybody in our team is just loving how easy it is to use, and each week we’re adding a new thing in. We can see the changes that are coming through all the time and are really proud to be using the system to its fullest.” Anna says.
Anthem and Employment Hero – a perfect match
We love hearing about the impact Employment Hero has made for the team at Anthem. If you’d like to learn more about how Employment Hero can support your team and transform your HR processes, speak to one of our business specialists today.
Anthem also was a finalist in the 2023 Transformation Awards for the ‘Thrive’ category.
The Transformation Awards were established to recognise the inspiring achievements of our customers from around the world. These annual awards are a great way to showcase and recognise the remarkable efforts of our customers, applauding businesses who’ve transformed their overall employee experience, scaled their business or increased community impact using Employment Hero.
Want to get involved in the 2024 Transformation Awards? Keep an eye out on upcoming editions of the customer newsletter for more or learn more here.
If you’d like to see how much time and money you can save with Employment Hero, take a look at our return on investment (ROI) report.
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