Success story: Hachette UK

Hachette UK is the UK’s leading publishers made up of several publishing companies and imprints including Hodder & Stoughton. It is owned by Hachette Livre, the world’s second largest trade and  educational publisher.

• The previous system was difficult to use - logging in was hard
• The previous absence management system wasn't intuitive or user-friendly
• Sickness reporting was impossible and the data wasn't reliable
• The HR team spent too much time dealing with queries

As the HR director of a small human resources team within Hachette, Mary Redmond found that the existing absence system the company had in place wasn’t fit for purpose.

“We had a HR payroll database that we also used to help book holidays and sickness. But it wasn’t intuitive, we needed something that was more fit for purpose,” says Mary Redmond, HR Director at Hachette UK.

“There were many things about the system that were not as straight-forward and we were finding that there were a lot of queries for simple things like logging in. It was a really complicated process which created more work for the HR team,” continues Mary.

Not only was it difficult to use, but reporting on sickness was impossible – there wasn’t a lot of data to monitor sickness patterns or trends within the organisation.

“We just couldn’t report on any of this so we made do with any information we had and I was doubtful of its accuracy,” says Mary.

With no real ‘flagging’ of potential issues, Mary wasn’t able to see what types of absences there were within the company. It was difficult to complete referrals for staff too, with the lack of detail in Excel to see what types of absences were being taken.

“Everything was very manual; having to physically type it out wasn’t a good use of time.”

Find out more about how to manage absence in the workplace, and the benefits for your business.

• Hachette tested 3 absence management software, including Access TeamSeer
• Compared them on functionality, usability, and cost to determine the best fit for the business and HR team

With all these issues on her mind, Mary started to investigate other software that was being used across different departments within the Hachette group.

Due to acquisitions, there were already a few departments within the group that were using Access TeamSeer.

“We investigated other software providers in place within other divisions to see which the ‘best fit’ was for the company. This included TeamSeer, WhosOff and BambooHR. I was looking at the functionality of the software, what usability it offered and the most important factor, cost,” explains Mary.

Instant results

Hachette noticed the benefits of having Access TeamSeer in place almost immediately. On the first day, just before Access TeamSeer was rolled out to the whole company, Hachette experienced a water pump failure which meant they had to close the building for health and safety reasons.

“Due to this happening just after the Christmas holiday, one of the mangers asked me if there was a really quick way of seeing who might be in as she didn’t want to bother those who were still on holiday. Within two minutes, I was able to see who was in her
team, who had holiday booked and who was supposed to be in that day. This allowed us to be more responsive to something that happened quickly,” recalls Mary.

Reporting made easy

Since implementing Access TeamSeer, one of the biggest benefits has been the monthly trigger reports which are sent out to all of the HR team plus the relevant line managers.

“This has been really helpful, especially when someone hits one of our triggers. Whether that’s to do with long amounts of sick leave, when someone might be close to exhausting their sick pay or if they hit what Hachette deem to be a high level of sickness in a certain period,” explains Mary.

“This has been reassuring to have because we don’t have to actively check ourselves; we are prompted instead and it allows us to be consistent across the company. Plus, this is helpful to the employee too, especially if they have a high level of sickness. They may need support and it allows to us to see advice from our occupational health on how to help them and be more proactive,” says Mary. 

Access TeamSeer has helped us to focus more on our organisation

“What Access TeamSeer does really well is that it allows everyone within the company to see exactly how their holidays are calculated and gives our staff greater visibility, clarity and consistency. It also means that the HR team isn’t spending time explaining this and can actually get on with what they need to do; provide support to our employees as and when they need it,” says Mary.

“And whilst it might not have changed people’s lives, it has eliminated
complexity that wasn’t needed and has helped us to reduce some of the ‘distraction’ that was caused by a very clunky absence management system,” says Mary. 

Recommending The Access Group

“I have a really good relationship with the whole Access People team, from our consultant to our account manager. I have found them to be extremely responsive and concerned about key issues that affected Hachette as a business. They were really clear about what they can and can’t change which means we, as a company, knew exactly where we stood with The Access Group and the software,” concludes Mary.

Book a demo to see our absence management software in action.

The Access Group's HCM division, Access People, offer an unrivalled suite of solutions for businesses, including HR and Payroll, Absence Management, Workforce Management, Compliance, Recruitment, Talent, Learning, Employee Benefits and Engagement, Health & Safety, all of which are underpinned by the powerful Access Workspace platform. 

The Access Group is one of the leading providers of business management software to small and mid-sized organisations in the UK, Ireland, and Asia Pacific. We help over 100,000 customers across commercial and not-for-profit sectors become more productive and efficient.