In the world of cloud-based software, there’s a lot of focus on features and functionality – but for many buyers, support and service from the vendor count for a lot. With some software platforms, raising a support ticket generates an automated response. But Brookhaven Healthcare needed closer support as it implemented an online HR system, and found it with Grouper.
Since 2019, Grouper has provided Brookhaven with a HR system that logs all of the staff information for almost 400 team members in a single location, stored in the cloud. As a family-run business that operates five nursing homes across Ireland, providing residential care to more than 2,000 people, Brookhaven is a very lean operation and its HR department plays a hands-on role.
The role of HR is to safeguard staff, and doing this effectively calls for clear communication, repeatable processes, and a system that’s easy to understand and to use. This way, HR can manage everything from staff clock-ins to pay-related information.
The nature of Brookhaven’s business means that the HR manager could be in Galway for a staff meeting, and the next day in Kilkenny or at its operations in Laois. That’s why it’s so valuable to know there is a system where all relevant information is easily accessible from anywhere.
With such a busy HR function, Brookhaven appreciates Grouper’s highly attentive and fast levels of service. Its experiences dealing with Grouper have been positive, and Brookhaven welcomes how it provided a dedicated account manager as an ongoing point of contact. Email responses arrive within an hour. Brookhaven’s HR function values that personal touch which gives confidence that if there’s an issue, Grouper can fix it.
Until 2022, Brookhaven had administrators at each of the five locations who looked after onboarding new staff. In 2022, it decided to move this work internally to the HR department, and Grouper helped it to meet the challenge.
This changed how Brookhaven worked, which meant the company needed good processes and workflows and robust systems. It asked Grouper for assistance and the account manager took the company’s team step by step through how to do this. Now, Brookhaven management can generate any report from information that’s on the system.
This move had a double benefit for Brookhaven. Not only is the system easy to use for a lean HR department, it also allows the company to easily provide comprehensive information to the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA), the regulator that oversees healthcare providers in Ireland.
In healthcare, real-time information, good record keeping, and a way of demonstrating staff files is vital from a compliance point of view. It needs to have certain documents easily accessible in the event of a HIQA inspection. After a discussion with Grouper about how to make information that was already in the system more visible, it created specific folders, each individualised by employee, so the regulator can click what they need to see.
At a time when Brookhaven wanted to modernise how it handled HR admin, Grouper was a help, not a hindrance. The account manager’s knowledge and communication style suited its needs. There’s no endless cycle of support tickets and automated emails: Grouper promises and delivers.
And whenever Brookhaven needed help using a feature in the system, it always felt that its requests were listened to and acted upon – which is why it’s happy to recommend Grouper.