Rococo Chocolates

About Rococo Chocolates

Rococo Chocolates is an iconic British brand established in 1983 by Chantal Coady, OBE, who set up their first store on Kings Road in Chelsea. Now, their delicious chocolates can be found in London’s prestigious department stores including Selfridges, Harvey Nichols, and Harrods.

They’ve been bought (June 2022) by the Prestat Group (part of Gruppo Illy), who are famous for having a Royal Warrant granted by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

Since 2021, Rococo Chocolates have been enjoying the benefits of Employment Hero’s HRIS system to manage their payroll and HR system needs for their diverse workforce which comprises of staff from the shop floor to offices.

We spoke with Jenny Ryan, Head of HR at Rococo Chocolates about how Employment Hero has been helping them prepare for their merger and transform the way they manage their HR and payroll in-house.

Challenges…

Onboarding staff successfully: from the shop floor to the office

To set up your staff for success, your onboarding process should align with the different expectations each colleague needs to understand depending on whether they’re based on the shop floor or the office.

This can be a headache-inducing activity when you have to consider the different criteria each role fulfils. But it’s important to keep things succinct so that it does not take away from the excitement of starting a new job.

“Our customers feel really passionate about what we do, and we want our team to feel this too. One of the key things that everyone needs to learn is what’s in our range of chocolates,” says Jenny.

This adds a layer of complexity to onboarding, but it’s an important part of getting new team members ready for the role. “We send all that information out ahead of time and it gets people really excited about what it is that they’re going to do.”

Everything everywhere, on different platforms

It can be tempting to sign up for a variety of systems, especially when you’re trying to figure out what is best for your business. But this can be demotivating if they are not really meeting your needs.

With everything everywhere, it can be hard to stay on top of what platform is being used for what – and visibility starts depleting fast if you lose track of who to go to for HR or Payroll.

Having to set up HR and Payroll on separate platforms not only means having different passwords for each one, but different points of contact you have to liaise with too, whenever you want to get something sorted such as a new plugin, or to better understand a certain functionality.

Conflicts with annual leave from lack of visibility

With employees from the retail team working across multiple locations and the production team working from one place – it can be challenging to stay on top of who goes on holiday.

When rosters have to be organised, and any live projects have to be kept track of, it is hard to keep track of things and make sure everyone gets a chance to go on holiday without worrying about any clashes.

“Each site and location has a slightly different setup in terms of how they check in and how they check out. And also in terms of how they’re set up on rosters,” says Jenny.

Solutions…

Onboarding and offboarding, simplified

Employment Hero makes onboarding easier by cutting down your HR admin time so that you can focus on the things that matter most, and get the excitement back of welcoming a new member of the team. You can also design checklists for your new team member or for someone exiting.

“It’s a fast business and we react quickly to things. I don’t want the systems or the admin part of their job to be the difficult part,” says Jenny.

“Employment Hero has helped make basic administrative jobs really simple. Whether it’s onboarding someone that has to be super immediate so you can get them onto the shop floor, or offboarding where you have to make sure that you get company items back like keys and laptops, it’s taken away the thinking and potential for mistakes to happen.”

Get time back to focus on the things that matter

People underestimate how much time goes into HR admin. Hours can go by when things are housed in different places between all the paperwork systems and having to switch context when looking for information across different platforms.

“Employment Hero has shifted where I spend my time. Rather than doing it in terms of business as usual or admin paperwork systems, chasing things – everything is now accessible so I can spend the time having meaningful conversations to allow for growth and strategic conversations to be the focus,” says Jenny. “That just didn’t happen before because our previous systems were manual.” 

Take that well deserved time off without worrying about clashes

Employment Hero creates visibility across all departments so that everyone in your business can see who is taking time off, when. This means that managers can instead spend time making sure that shifts are covered, and points of contact are established so that your team member can take that well deserved break.

“Booking holidays is super important to everyone. Everyone needs time away from the business and your system. It shouldn’t be about work. It should be about what’s good for your people and how they want to run their lives.” 

“One of the key benefits that the team have conveyed is the amount of information visible to them,” says Jenny. “So instead of asking how many holidays I have left, or where their contract is – they all have the ability to do that on their phones.” 

“I used to receive a lot of email requests on how much leave people had, and all of that went away. They could look at a leave calendar and make a conscious decision to put that leave in which made things simpler and faster for our team.”

Some solutions came as a surprise, too

Did you know Employment Hero helps you create reports and templates efficiently?

When asked whether or not there were any unintended benefits that Jenny wasn’t expecting to come from the platform her reply was pretty instantaneous.

“I’m noticing how fast it is, and how frequently I can pull order reports and things like that. I feel that we’re able to give a more well rounded experience, and are able to do our job better because it’s easier for me to get the information to make sure it’s reviewed regularly.” 

Get time back to focus on the things that really matter

Instead of telling yourself that you will get round to that important project you’ve been meaning to do when you have the time – take matters into your own hands by getting that time back today.

We’re thrilled that Employment Hero has been able to help Rococo Chocolates focus on their growth plans instead of wasting valuable time chasing people to read those important policies and organising leave.

We’re especially proud of the unintentional benefits we’ve brought Jenny and Rococo Chocolates, too. “I found the service and experience that I have had setting up Employment Hero incredible and super supportive. Every part of that process has been really easy. It was almost as if someone internally in the company was working with me.”

If you’d like to learn more about how Employment Hero can help you house your HR and payroll solutions under one roof– speak to one of our business specialists today.