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Payroll software built for tradies: Direct Drains’ success story
At a glance
Company
Direct Drains
Location
Auckland, New Zealand
Employees
17
Product
EH Payroll
Explore this case study if:
- You’re in trades or construction, and your payroll processes are clogged with manual work.
- You need better flow between timesheets, payroll, and job costing.
- You want a self-service solution that empowers your crew and saves you admin time.
About Direct Drains
For almost 8 years, Direct Drains has been keeping Auckland’s underground infrastructure flowing smoothly. Specialising in drainage and civil works, the company services the wider Auckland region, tackling everything from large-scale civil construction projects to complex drainage networks. As a business that has grown to 17 team members, the team needed help ensuring their HR admin could keep pace with their growth
HR, Safety, and Finance Manager Lisa Gray oversees it all. With a dual focus on protecting people and balancing the books, Lisa’s role is as multifaceted as the business itself.
As the company grew over the last couple of years, so too did the complexity of managing people. From payroll to timesheets to legal compliance, Lisa found herself buried under manual processes. It was time to find a solution that could support growth, ensure compliance, and bring clarity to chaos.
Why payroll was going down the drain
When she first joined the company, the business was using an outdated payroll platform that struggled to keep up with the flexible, fast-paced nature of life onsite.
“Our workers do different hours every week – 50 one week, 45 the next – and the old platform didn’t track that properly. Annual leave just wasn’t accurate,” she explains.
On top of that, their time sheet tracking system was stuck in the dark ages.
“We were using Excel spreadsheets. Manually checking all the details, adding things up, and cross-referencing. It was painful,” says Lisa.
Their existing system simply couldn’t support the way they worked. That all changed when a connection introduced them to us.
Taking payroll from hours to minutes
The impact of switching to Employment Hero was immediate. What had once been a time-consuming, error-prone payroll process became seamless.
“With the varied hours per week for employees, our previous system didn’t track this correctly for their Annual leave,” says Lisa. “Employment Hero payroll helped us audit, wipe the slate clean, and now everything is spot-on.”
“With the varied hours per week for employees, our previous system didn’t track this correctly for their Annual leave,” says Lisa. “Employment Hero payroll helped us audit, wipe the slate clean, and now everything is spot-on.”
“Payroll used to take a couple of hours a week. Now I just approve the timesheets and the system does the rest in a few minutes,” she adds.
Employment Hero has not only sped up payroll but also enhanced data management, giving Lisa’s team greater visibility into labour costs and job performance. They can now track machinery and break down labour costs by project.
“We used to be running blind. Now we can compare what we quoted with actual costs, which has helped us quote more accurately and understand job performance in real time,” Lisa explains.
“Our people love it”
With staff always on the go, having access to key information through the Employment Hero App has made a world of difference. By centralising leave balances, key policies, and procedures in one place, Lisa has saved hours that would have been spent answering questions from her staff.
“They aren’t coming to me asking how much leave they have anymore – it’s all right there on the app,” Lisa says.
When asked how her team took to the introduction of the Employment Hero App, Lisa said:
“Construction can be a tough industry to introduce change, but now our people love it. They all say it’s so much easier to use.”
“It’s 100% worth it”
Lisa’s thoughts on the impact of Employment Hero on her team are clear:
“We were in the dark about staff costs before. Now, everything is transparent. We’re providing more accurate quotes, saving admin time, and I’m no longer chasing people for information.”
When considering the platform’s cost, Lisa is quick to point out the long-term savings — the cost of Employment Hero has paid for itself many times over.
“For what you get out of it, the cost is amazing. You think something like this is going to cost a lot, but it doesn’t. It’s helped us fix issues we didn’t even know we had. It’s 100% worth it,” she said.
By streamlining administrative tasks, Lisa can now devote more time to more strategic tasks. From quoting and managing finances to ensuring employee safety, she is now able to concentrate on the core aspects of her role that she originally set out to do.
Want to experience Employment Hero for yourself?
Employment Hero is your 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 you can spend less time on processes and more time scaling your business.
Want to see how companies like Waterware are transforming their HR operations and driving real business impact? Book a demo with our business specialists today.
