How Spectrum Consulting saved 20 hrs a week on HR with Employment Hero

About Spectrum Consulting

Based in the heart of Auckland, Spectrum Consulting is a boutique IT consultancy with enterprise-sized impact. Known for delivering tailored tech solutions, including infrastructure design, cybersecurity frameworks, cloud networking, and bespoke engineering projects, Spectrum is the behind-the-scenes powerhouse keeping some of New Zealand’s top businesses running securely and efficiently.

Their 20+ person team spans engineering, service delivery, and sales, and while everyone wears multiple hats, Lorraine Bryant, Head of People and Culture, is the glue. But behind this nimble, hardworking culture was an HR system that just wasn’t keeping up.

Fragmented tools and firefighting

Before Employment Hero, Spectrum’s HR processes were tangled across half a dozen different platforms.

“We were using a different tool for 360 reviews, leave applications, policies, timesheets, reporting… and none of them spoke to each other,” Lorraine says.

This patchwork setup meant simple tasks, like approving leave, checking compliance, or tracking time in lieu of, required hopping between apps, manually consolidating data, and lots of copy-paste. 

“It was all over the show,” Lorraine laughs. “There was no single source of truth.”

One platform to rule them all

Enter Employment Hero. A one-stop shop for everything to do with HR and payroll. And the benefits were immediate.

“Employment Hero pulled everything into one platform. One login. Everyone knows where everything is now,” Lorraine said. 

Policies, employment contracts, leave requests, and timesheets were now housed in the same place. This centralisation brought peace of mind. 

Lorraine recalls, “When someone logs in, they’re immediately prompted to acknowledge policies. There’s a timestamp, so you know they’ve read it. It’s brilliant from a compliance and risk perspective.”

HR admin, streamlined and supercharged

With Employment Hero, Spectrum’s engineers log their overtime via the platform’s timesheets portal, which then syncs with payroll as time-in-lieu.

“It gets approved by their manager, and we can track what was done, when, and why. It’s added accountability with less admin.”

Leave management is now refreshingly effortless. With a clear, visual calendar view, it’s easy to spot who’s off and when – no more guesswork or last-minute surprises. Even better, the system sends smart alerts when too many team members are away at once, helping the business stay on top of coverage and keep things running smoothly.

The platform’s approval workflows and automation have also removed the need for sticky notes and memory jogging. 

“It’s killed wasted time,” Lorraine says. “In a business like ours, time is money. We charge for it. We can’t afford to waste it.”

Room to grow, time to breathe

The shift to Employment Hero has saved Spectrum approximately 20 hours a week across HR and admin. 

“That’s not just me – think of everyone who used to hunt for docs or track leave manually,” Lorraine says.

With those hours reclaimed, she’s focused on higher-impact work.

 “We can actually grow the business. I’m not putting out fires all day. I’m working on strategy, culture, recruitment.”

Would she recommend it?

“Absolutely,” Lorraine says. “Employment Hero consolidates the generalist areas of HR every business needs. It’s served us very well – and it can scale with us.”

Want to experience Employment Hero for yourself?

Employment Hero helped Spectrum Consulting replace a messy network of disconnected tools with one intuitive platform. The result? Less admin. More visibility. Happier people. And most importantly, more time to focus on building a brilliant business.

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.