How Morgan Motor Company consolidated seven systems into one and got back to what they do best

About the business

Morgan Motor Company has been handcrafting sports cars in Malvern, Worcestershire, since 1909. Every car is built to order. Bodies shaped by hand, panels worked with hammers, interiors sewn by craftsmen and women who have spent entire careers mastering their trade. It’s a business where the skills of its people are, quite literally, the product.

That heritage creates a distinctive challenge for HR. With over 200 employees spread across a production floor and office functions and some team members who have been with Morgan for over 50 years, the people operation is as much about preserving something extraordinary as running it efficiently.

“Morgan to me is just a special place. It’s a place where the most skilled craftsmen and women work and create wonderful, beautiful cars.” — Carley-Rose Brookes, HR Manager

The challenge

When HR Manager Carley joined Morgan two years ago, she inherited seven separate HR systems. None of them talked to each other.

Clocking in was done with a key fob. Holiday requests meant tracking down a line manager, filling in a paper slip and waiting for confirmation. Production staff had no access to Teams or a work email, meaning messages that should have taken seconds could end up taking all day. And across all seven platforms, there was no way to produce a clean, consolidated view of the workforce.

“We were using about seven different systems and they were all separate systems that didn’t talk to one another. So it was quite a tedious process.” — Carley-Rose Brookes, HR Manager

Carley spent her first 12 months working within those systems deliberately, understanding exactly where the time was being lost, before building the business case to consolidate.

The solution

After talking to multiple providers, Employment Hero stood out for one reason above all others: it did everything, in one place, from the very first conversation.

“From the introductory call to the onboarding to the implementation, it was just really quite seamless for us. The platform did everything we wanted it to do and it allowed us to consolidate the entire employee journey into one place.” — Carley-Rose Brookes, HR Manager

For Jonathan, Chief Design Officer, the decision also reflected something central to how Morgan operates. A company that builds cars by hand on a lean manufacturing model, needed a people platform that supported collaboration, not added to the noise.

“For a small company like Morgan, it’s very easy to get drowned in systems and processes. When we’ve made decisions to move to central systems that cover all these different areas, it’s certainly made life a lot easier.” — Jonathan Wells, Chief Design Officer

Implementation: support from the start

Employment Hero provided a scripted timeline with a comprehensive scoping document that forced a full data cleanse before go-live. Coming from seven disconnected systems, that process was significant. But Lucy, the implementation specialist, supported them closely throughout.

“Our knowledge around systems probably wasn’t where it needed to be beforehand. That’s where Lucy really stepped in. Knowledgeable, on hand, readily available and just supported us through the process.” — Carley-Rose Brookes, HR Manager

Clocking in: from fob queues to geofencing

The shift in time and attendance alone was immediately visible. Before Employment Hero, clocking in meant queuing at a fob reader. On days when someone left their fob at home or took a different car, the process broke down entirely.

Now, staff clock in via the app as they walk through the gate. Geofencing registers the clock-in automatically. Kiosks are available on the production floor for anyone who prefers them or has left their phone at home.

“Since we’ve been using Employment Hero, clocking in is seamless. You can just get your phone out of your pocket and clock in, make a cup of tea and get started with your day.” — Scott Millwood, Line Leader, Assembly Shop

Work Chat: connecting a factory floor that email couldn’t reach

Production staff at Morgan don’t have work email accounts or access to Teams. Before the chat function launched in Employment Hero, the only way to get a message to someone on the factory floor was to physically find them, across two sites. For Clare, the recently appointed ESG Manager, Work Chat has become a practical tool for engaging a workforce she couldn’t otherwise reach from her desk.

“There wasn’t really any other way of communicating other than going and trying to find someone in-person. Having the chat function to reach people is great. You know that they’ll be able to see the message and respond.” — Clare Fenwick-Hyde, ESG Manager

Recruitment: 20 hours saved per vacancy

Previously, Morgan was posting vacancies manually across platforms. Now, one advert entered into Employment Hero’s ATS goes out to various job boards at once. The hours saved for each open vacancy means Carley can focus on what’s important – hiring the right people for her team. 

“We put one advert in one place and it goes out everywhere we need it to go. It’s easy to track, easy to communicate with candidates and a lot less clunky, which means the candidate experience is definitely a lot better now.” — Carley-Rose Brookes, HR Manager

The ROI

• 7 systems consolidated into 1, giving the HR team a single source of truth for all people data for the first time.
• 20 hours saved per vacancy, freed up from the manual process of advertising, tracking and communicating across separate platforms.
• 90% completion rate on Morgan’s first ever company-wide 360 review process. A huge success considering most team members are on the factory floor.
• Zero fob queues: production staff clock in via the app or on-site kiosk as they walk through the gate, with geofencing handling the rest.
• Factory floor connected for the first time: Chat gives 200+ employees a direct line to each other and to management, without needing a work email or Teams access.
• Pulse survey results consistently positive since launch, with strong engagement across both office and production staff.

“It’s a one stop shop for everything that they just didn’t have before. And for us, that’s what we wanted.” — Carley-Rose Brookes, HR Manager

Why it matters

For a workforce where more than half of employees have no work email, Employment Hero gave people a way to be seen. The shout-out feature tells the story well. Scott used it to recognise a new team member who had mastered a notoriously complex bonnet build in record time. The post drew comments from the Managing Director and Head of Quality and resulted in a Hero of the Month nomination. That kind of moment, a factory floor worker getting visible recognition from senior leadership in real time, simply wasn’t possible before.

“We want the focus to be on bringing joy to our customers and ultimately feeling joy ourselves, to not be drowned in process. To have a simple solution to just manage those important, everyday aspects is so powerful for a company like us.” — Jonathan Wells, Chief Design Officer