Design Bundles | Next-gen HR for a rapidly scaling startup

Design Bundles’s story

The low down

Design Bundles, a UK-based digital design marketplace for crafters and designers, quickly expanded into a fully remote team of 62. With customers at the forefront, they required an HR system that could empower their team to deliver exceptional service. We sat down with Vanessa Ryan, their HR Manager, to hear more about how implementing our platform has helped her establish a robust HR system that supports their overall business growth.

How it started – life before Employment Hero

As Design Bundles scaled, the need for a more robust HR solution became clear. Managing a growing remote team required a system that could provide visibility and support, ensuring that everyone—from new hires to long-time employees—felt connected and valued, even from a distance.

But before partnering with us, Design Bundles struggled with an HR system that just couldn’t keep up.

“It didn’t give me the reports that I needed, it wasn’t very consistent… Employment Hero just blew me away with all of the things it offers.”

How it’s going – how we’ve supported Design Bundle to scale up

Managing remote teams for success

When you’re running a remote-first company, it can be difficult to keep track of your team. While flexibility is a massive benefit that will certainly attract top talent and help you retain staff, having visibility over where everyone is – such as who is in or out of the office – is vital.

That’s where we come in.

Our platform facilitated seamless remote team management and centralisation of HR processes. This not only simplified operations but also enhanced visibility and accessibility for Vanessa and her team, enabling them to manage tasks efficiently from anywhere.

Vanessa shared how crucial it is for their team to have visibility over everyone’s availability, especially when it comes to customer-facing roles.

“Having that visibility while reporting on where all of our team members are, it’s crucial to parts of our business. If they’re on holiday, who’s in, that type of thing. That really helps our team.” 

Our platform brought everything under one roof so that employees can now access everything they need – from timesheets to policies – from their fingertips, making work life a lot easier for everyone.

Connecting the dots

With our integrated platform, juggling multiple systems is a thing of the past. By centralising all HR functions—whether it’s onboarding, performance reviews or leave management—we freed up Vanessa’s time to focus on what truly matters: supporting her team and driving the business forward.

Vanessa described our platform as a one-stop shop that also helps Design Bundles “empower our employees by seeing what support they need from us, but also looking at their performance and acknowledging what they’re doing well and seeing where we can help them. It’s just wonderful,” she says. “It’s really going to help us grow as a business.” 

The right tools to boost happiness and performance

With our performance management tools, Design Bundles has also been able to keep their team strategically aligned and motivated, contributing to a strong, positive company culture. Vanessa has had heaps of testimonials that employee happiness has improved and is looking forward to putting out Design Bundle’s first happiness survey to quantify just how much progress has been made.

“Just everybody seems to be working closer as teams and supporting each other. That’s always been there, but it just means that people are happier and the team are happier.” 

This significant improvement in team morale and cohesion is reflected in glowing Glassdoor reviews as their team bonds and get to know one another better. This is why Vanessa says that our platform has been “priceless to keeping everybody happy.”

“By using one to one reviews and having that connection with the line manager, it makes all the difference. It means that our employees feel seen and heard… So it’s definitely helping us grow as a business. Not just successfully growing as an organisation, but also growing within the teams and building relationships. So I think that’s equally as important to the overall success of the business.”

Support from startup to success

Our goal at Employment Hero is to make work easy. We’re delighted that we can help Design Bundles scale their business and keep their employees happy as they transition from a startup to a thriving company.

Vanessa sums it up perfectly:

“It’s really going to help us on our journey from moving from a startup company into the corporate world and we’re just going to grow and be wonderful with Employment Hero behind us.”

Ready to transform your HR?

If you’d like to learn more about how our next generation of Employment Hero can support your business as you scale – speak to one of our business specialists today.

Want to learn more about our products? 

Our next gen platform has arrived. Our all-in-one HR, hiring and payroll solution is built to flex with your business. From recruiting top talent and streamlining onboarding to automating complex payroll processes and boosting employee engagement—all supported by our dedicated UK-based team. Spend less time on admin and more time on what matters: your people.