Square One

About Square One…

Square One Resources is a specialist recruitment agency based in Moorgate, London. Working across local and global industries, the Square One team has over 25 years of success in matching incredible talent to innovative employers and roles.

We spoke with Jen Greaves, Head of HR at Square One Resources, about the difference Employment Hero has made since they adopted the platform.

Challenges…

Outdated platforms that aren’t keeping up

The Square One team already had an HRIS platform in place but after almost a decade, its old school features just weren’t delivering in the way that a modern team needs.

“We had our old platform for over 10 years,” says Jen. “And it was a bit of a dinosaur. It was not aesthetically pleasing.”

While it had served them to a point, the old system left a lot to be desired when it came to look, feel and features. With more advanced and innovative systems available, the team decided to seek a better system.

“It served its purpose, and there was nothing really wrong with it. But we just needed to bring it into the 21st century.”

A lack of centralised features

HR is an essential part of any organisation, and the Square One team identified a need for more features to create a better experience for everyone. They knew there were more elements out there that could go beyond the simple tasks and deliver employee engagement, feedback, streamlined onboarding and more.

“We wanted it to be more of a platform that included loads of different elements,” says Jen.

This future-thinking and culture-driven mindset led them to look for a system that “would just make it more of an experience, rather than people just logging on, booking a day’s holiday and logging off again.”

Manual onboarding

Manual onboarding is something that takes up a lot of time for many businesses, including the Square One team. Before implementing Employment Hero, the HR team would have to spend an employee’s first day manually entering all of their details.

“Our offer process used to be when we had new staff, they would give us all of their paperwork,” says Jen. “And on the first day, we sit and we manually put all of the information in.”

Solutions…

Everything in one place

When you make the investment in HR software, you want to know that you’re getting a great value platform with lots of helpful features. The team at Square One found that Employment Hero exactly fit the bill during their search.

“It included things like one to one meetings, appraisals, the little news feed, things like that – that would just make it more of an experience,” says Jen.

“It included loads of different aspects in one place.”

Engagement made easy

This sense of experience also covered employee engagement, and the Square One team has had a great response to the new platform.

“It’s nice to share things on there now. And people use more things like the Happiness Surveys,” says Jen. “We can use the platform for feedback from our employees, which is really important. 

“We did many training sessions company wide to get everyone ready for the change. And it’s been pretty seamless to be honest, in terms of onboarding people on to it. It’s very user friendly.”

Rapid onboarding and easy-to-access information

Sick of the time-consuming onboarding process, the Square One team now enjoys a streamlined experience with Employment Hero. While the old process saw the manual admin pile up, now new team members have most of the onboarding out of the way by day one.

“Now we have a new starter, they receive a link from Employment Hero, and they can basically onboard themselves before they’ve even started.”

Once the new person has been onboarded, Employment Hero continues to be a centralised place for employee information that can be referenced at any time.

“We can upload all of their documentation, their contracts, things like that. So we have all of that stored in the HR database, and it’s good for employees to have access to all of their things that they may need. So if they’re promoted, they’ve got their promotion letters. If there’s any changes to their contract, they have access to that, which is really useful.” 

“And also they can see all their benefits. So if we’re investing a lot in employees, and we’re offering them all of these benefits, it’s nice to kind of condense it into one area where they can view it all. And they can see what I think is really important.”

Speedy support

Using a brand new system isn’t always smooth sailing, but anything can be made easy if you have the right support.

Employment Hero’s support teams provide themselves on providing a great experience, with fast response times and effective advice.

“If we were ever struggling with anything, or things weren’t working as we thought they would be, we would drop you guys an email, and then always get a response relatively quick,” says Jen. “The support is always good.”

A platform with great features, and looks to match

We’re thrilled to hear that Square One has been able to utilise so many of our features to transform their HR for the better. What’s more, we’re so glad that they love our aesthetic!

“With Employment Hero, I think the thing that really sold us was obviously visually it was great,” says Jen. “It was very user friendly.”

It’s all about providing the best experience for your business and your team. We believe that HR and Payroll platforms need to be able to do it all, and look great doing it.

If you’d like to learn more about how Employment Hero can transform your business’s employee experience – speak to one of our business specialists today.