Migrating from an old system to a new one can be fraught with challenges, and an often overlooked part of the decision making process is not just product features but a good fit with the provider. This was the situation facing Sherry FitzGerald, Ireland’s largest property and financial services advisory firm. In 2021, when its legacy HR management system was reaching the end of its life, the company drew up a list of features it wanted in a new system, and went to the market looking for a new provider with a product to meet its needs, and to implement and support it.
After shortlisting three providers, running demos with each one using employee and manager test profiles, Sherry FitzGerald chose the one that was closest aligned to its needs: in addition to providing a strong set of features the HR team could use, it offered a personalised service to manage migrating data over from the old system. “Grouper suited us best, and once we made the decision to go with them, they worked with us on the data migration,” says Sorcha Doyle, HR Generalist with Sherry FitzGerald. “This was a big piece of work, across compliance, managing the transition from Excel, and handling all the data appropriately.”
Hands-on, personalised support
Sorcha values the personal relationship that Grouper established with the HR team from the very start of the project. “We’ve always dealt with a personal point of contact at Grouper, who was very hands-on, especially in the early stages,” she says.
“Grouper sent us the Excel sheets they had that needed to be populated for different parts of the HR system, such as holidays, salary details, and job responsibilities. They brought us through what the system could do, and new elements that we couldn’t record before, like tracking salary history, holidays all in one place,” Sorcha adds.
“Grouper is very responsive and our contact has great knowledge, and is able to give us ideas and show us how to utilise the system even more. The service has been very smooth: it’s a big change, but Grouper has been very responsive and also good at sharing information,” she says.
Rapid response to customer queries
Sorcha shares an experience when she had a query about sick leave on the system: she contacted Grouper and got a reply within the same working day. “That level of responsiveness is important, especially at the start, when we’re rolling out the system. The implementation was a really important part of the project.”
Grouper was also instrumental in setting up the correct access levels to the system, because employees see certain parts of their information and managers are able to see more details. Grouper also provided staff training on the HR system, which is important because employees are able to access their own information through an app, which they can use to apply for holidays or submit a sick leave day.
Having all employee information centralised in one user-friendly system has made Sherry FitzGerald’s HR team more productive compared to their previous disparate processes and systems. That’s especially important given the highly dispersed nature of Sherry FitzGerald’s business.
Productivity gains for HR team
Sorcha appreciates the productivity improvements since implementing the new system. “It makes our HR team a lot more efficient. You have easy access to the information, you can easily see if someone will be on leave. The data is at your fingertips,” she says.
The performance management module lets managers set goals, carry out reviews, and track performance all within the system. It’s also much easier to run reports and access data, compared to the firm’s previous system which required more technical skills to generate reports.
The HR system also has a mobile app that lets employees access their information and to submit requests for time off by themselves.
A new capability the firm didn’t have before is to manage the hiring and onboarding process fully through the HR system, rather than relying on manual, email-based processes. “That tool has been really good for us because we can email the candidate through the system, and my HR colleagues can see that someone has been in contact with them. Going through CVs manually took time, and in the past we would have had to send them physically to the right department. I definitely think the system makes us more efficient from that admin side and it looks more professional when taking someone on, rather than them getting paper forms.”
That follows through to when a recruit joins the company. “You can send out a new hire pack and contract through the system. It looks good and it’s more efficient.”
Grouper also enabled Sherry FitzGerald to add new features to record employee benefits such as whether they are part of the company pension scheme. “Grouper’s team built what we were looking for, and how we could record it.”
