Empowering Squared: How Employment Hero transformed operations and cut costs

Squared’s story

The low down

Squared is a not-for-profit housing association that has been providing affordable housing in Luton and South Bedfordshire since 1962. For over 60 years they’ve been at the heart of the community, continuously finding new ways to provide the support that residents need.

We sat down with Amanda, People Excellence Manager at Squared, to chat about her experience using Employment Hero and how our platform helps keep her employees happy while saving her bags of time (win-win!).

Life before Employment Hero 

Before adopting our platform, Squared used a different HR & Payroll platform and had found themselves frustrated with its limited functionality. Deciding it was time to explore other options, Amanda scheduled a demo of with us and was immediately sold.

“We wanted a centralised platform for all things employment; HR, Payroll and Employee Engagement services – all of these processes were disjointed. Employment Hero pieced all of them together in a really user friendly way. You ticked all of our boxes”.

Next generation employment software for next gen SMEs

As someone obsessed with employee experience, Amanda tries to use as many of our functionalities as possible. In fact, she’s a self-confessed guinea pig, testing new features before they go to market…

“The great thing about Employment Hero is that you can see constant product progress. Functionality is updated all of the time, the team is open about feedback and acts really quickly. This gives me real reassurance, because even if something isn’t available right now, I know it’s just around the corner.”

One of the main challenges SMEs face is of course recruitment. Job advertisement fees are high, and most don’t have internal teams dedicated to sifting through endless CVs. SmartMatch, one of our latest product updates, addresses these challenges by matching business owners with pre-vetted candidates, reducing the time to hire from weeks to days.

As a service and community based business, there are many sides to Squared. This means that they employ a very varied team who are always busy and on the move. It was essential that they found a tech partner that could match that energy.

“Our team aren’t sitting at laptops, they are out for most of the day. We needed to make sure that they could access all things employment on their phones, so we love the accessibility Swag brings. The app is really user friendly – it makes working life far easier.”

Using our superapp, Swag, Squared’s employees can access their timesheets, book holidays, view their payslips, read workplace policies, schedule 1-1 meetings, recognise colleagues and view exclusive benefits – all at their fingertips.

Connecting the dots

One of the most frustrating things about managing employment is having to access multiple systems. This is something Amanda knows all too well.

“Previously, we had separate training, candidate management, payroll and benefits systems. It was really hard to keep on top of and a huge strain on my time. 

By implementing Employment Hero, I have more time to focus on the nicer things, like working on projects or supporting the team with staffing issues.”

85% of our customers report easier employment management. By automating the repetitive, time-consuming tasks, we allow users like Amanda to focus on what really matters.

We’re proud to take care of the entire employment ecosystem, and we really mean it. Our integrated platform ensures that all functions—HR, payroll, engagement, perks, recruitment and onboarding — work seamlessly together, providing a smooth and efficient user experience. It’s truly a game changer.