HR Admin Sliced by Slimline Process Personnel Today, 26th July 2005 The organisation High-street food outlet Pret a Manger opened its first shop in London in 1986, selling handmade, preservative-free sandwiches. The company is made up of groups of 10 shops, called Pret Estates, which are headed by 'imaginative' and 'passionate' leaders. Pret a Manger now has 128 shops in the UK and employs 2,800 staff. It also has a growing presence in New York and Hong Kong. The aim The company wanted to give greater responsibility to line and regional managers, and take payroll and other departments out of the loop to make HR processes more streamlined. With a steadily growing workforce, it needed an easy-to-use system to keep track of staff at its shops and London headquarters. In particular, line managers needed access to team records to update timesheets, manage absence and input new salary details direct from the shopfloor. The supplier Snowdrop Systems, founded in 1991 by IT and HR specialists, is an HR and payroll software provider. Its technologies aim to help HR professionals spend more time on strategic issues and less time on admin. The approach Snowdrop originally implemented its Evergreen (personnel records), Fountain (training), Spring (recruitment) and U-Access (self-service HR) modules. Upgrading to its latest system, version 5.2, brought Pret a Manger's HR function in line with new legislation and business changes from head office. The solution The updated system transmits all employee information between shops and departments, reducing the paper trail and time taken chasing information. An enhanced time sheet module allows line managers to record details of Pret a Manger's incentive schemes. When a mystery shopper awards an employee an 'outstanding' card (a £50 retail voucher) in recognition of exceptional service, it is added to their details directly from the shopfloor. Previously, it had to go via payroll.Line managers can now automatically adjust rates of pay if employees work bank holidays, which was formerly a manual process. With the introduction of the Disability Discrimination Act 2004, the company needed to record and track information about staff with disabilities, so the working environment could be adapted to enable them to work more effectively. These details are now available to line managers on the shopfloor, so changes can be made immediately. For example, Pret a Manger's coffee jugs have different coloured discs to distinguish between full fat and skimmed milk. But in shops where a colour-blind barista (the person who makes the coffee) is employed, clear labels are used instead. It also rebranded its self-service module, U-Access, as Pret People, so that it utilised its distinctive brand and felt familiar to all employees. The bottom line Data is now more accurate and can be used at both shop and head-office level to make informed decisions about current and future business activity. With new holiday calculations from head office, managers have instant access to each employee's entitlement. They can also view their team's holiday allowance as a whole, rather than individually, so that rotas and holidays can be better planned. This saves an average of one hour per shop per week. Abbie Akinfenwa, business systems manager at Pret a Manger, believes the updated HR system is key to improving productivity at shop level. "Upgrading our current system means HR administration is simpler and quicker to complete," she says. "If line managers can update employee details without having to involve payroll or head office, tasks get done in half the time so staff can focus on customer service," Akinfenwa adds. |