At a glance
Explore this case study if:
- Need to rapidly onboard new employees during busy periods
- Want to say goodbye to paper contracts and policies, and make the switch to digital
- Need to be across visa management requirements for your team
- Want to spend less time on HR admin tasks
Good Spirits Hospitality are a group of nine pub venues operating across New Zealand. Their goal is to bring people together, serve up exceptional food, provide memorable experiences, and create connected communities.
We spoke to Kate Hope-Ede, Head of Employee Experience & Safety at Good Spirits Hospitality to understand how Employment Hero’s Platinum HR software has transformed the way they manage their team as they continue with ongoing lockdowns.
The challenge
Due to the Covid-19 restrictions New Zealand has been experiencing, Good Spirits Hospitality has been unable to operate as normal. With over 150 staff to manage during lockdowns, this was a challenging time for their entire team. On top of this, the hospitality industry has been facing a recruitment and staffing crisis, causing their team to become overworked and regularly having to pick up extra shifts.
When restrictions began to lift, Kate needed to be able to issue contracts to new hires and have them signed quickly. They didn’t want the team to be printing contracts and running around to get them signed.
It wasn’t just the impact of the lockdown and the need for rapid onboarding that had Kate and her team looking for a digital solution. Their entire HR function was manual, with most communications done through Microsoft mail merge documents. As they began to scale and grow, it presented a range of problems and the workload for the HR team increased tenfold.
The solution
Onboarding made simple
With the goal for Good Spirits Hospitality to scale up, they knew they had to automate their HR processes. Like with any business growth, Kate was aware that HR admin would begin to increase and take up even more of her and her team’s time.
Prior to Employment Hero, their onboarding process was manual, time-consuming and paper-based. It involved the manager printing out the document, contacting the new starter to come in and pick it up, having them return it, then sending the document to head office, before it finally gets given to the payroll team for onboarding.
“For the manager, they needed to print it out, get the new starters to come in and pick it up, somehow get it from site location to head office, then it gets given to payroll for onboarding…”
The burden of these processes wasn’t felt so much by Kate and the back office team, but more so by the managers of each venue. Employment Hero’s paperless onboarding puts the onus back on the employee to provide their employee data, so Good Spirits’ managers have more time to dedicate to their venues. “When one of our managers who was working late nights proudly told us ‘I can do all of it from my bed!’, we knew we were on to a winner.”
With Employment Hero, their entire onboarding process has become seamless and they can now onboard employees in a matter of minutes, instead of days or weeks. They don’t have to add additional headcount to help with onboarding, and new hires are ready to hit the ground running the moment they digitally sign the paperwork.
“Ease of issuing contracts has been a huge timesaver for HR dept and managers themselves. Instead of needing to print it out, they can do it all on their phones and the employee has an instant copy as well. That in itself is hugely beneficial.”
Employee self-service
Kate and her team use Employment Hero for general HR communications (such as policy changes), as well as important company updates. The platform also allows employees to update their personal information and acknowledge any new or updated policies.
“At the moment, its main purpose is us having to roll out temporary wage agreements as government restrictions change. Often when there’s a period of uncertainty, our staff want to review their original agreements. Usually, they don’t need to see it, but when they do want to review it, they can easily look it up themselves.”
Employee visas managed with ease
The hospitality industry attracts lots of employees on visas, and this is no different for Kate’s workforce. She knew that making the switch to Employment Hero could make managing her team and their visa statuses a breeze.
During the onboarding process, employees are asked to input their visa details, including expiration dates. From here, they would get sent reminders of team members with visa expiration date coming up, as well as any outstanding compliance-related documents, such as policies or mandatory training modules. Now, they know exactly what’s coming up in the future, instead of waiting to find out that things are out of place.
“We’ve found Employment Hero great because we have lots of people on visas. When they put their visa details in, we get sent notification reminders. A lot of our team are surprised when we know it’s about to expire!”
Reporting made easy
On top of worker eligibility, compliance reporting also allows Kate and her team to keep track of all the relevant certifications the Good Spirits Hospitality team need to work. “We find the compliance report really good; it’s easy to see what’s outstanding. I love being able to focus on what I need to do, instead of waiting to find things that are out of place.”
The ultimate time-saver
Employment Hero is designed to help New Zealand small and medium-sized businesses stop focusing on time-consuming admin, and get back to the meaningful work that they love. In this case, Kate and her team have saved countless hours through digital onboarding, policy acknowledgement and visa management alone.
“I’m sure there are lots of businesses doing these manual processes that don’t realise how much time and money they’ll save with a simple system that their staff can access at any time. It’s overwhelming to think how often we were dredging through records for things and now we’re busy doing other things and can move ahead.”
The future of HR at Good Spirits Hospitality is exciting
As New Zealand continues with lockdowns, Kate and her team can’t wait to have everyone back together and utilising the many features Employment Hero offers. Whether it’s reward and recognition, birthday shoutouts, or the applicant tracking system (ATS), they’re excited to get stuck in.
Digital HR made simple with Employment Hero
We make the time-consuming, complex and confusing parts of managing your HR function a breeze. If you’d like to learn more about how Employment Hero can make your business more efficient in your day-to-day, just like we did for Kate and the team at Good Spirits Hospitality, reach out to one of our business specialists today.
