Success story: The Wallich
It always gives us great pleasure to work with organisations dedicated to a worthy cause. So we were delighted when the leading homeless charity in Wales, The Wallich, chose us to help them transform their HR and payroll systems.
Business size
<1,000 employees
Industry
Not for profit
In the video below, Director of People and Talent, Tom Hall talks through why they selected Access, and the outcomes they’ve experienced since implementing the following Access People modules: HR, Payroll, Talent Management, Learning, Recruitment, and Screening, all within our single sign-on Workspace platform.
About The Wallich
Established in 1978, The Wallich provides a wide range of support services to more than 7,000 people across Wales each year. Its ethos is that everyone deserves the right to a home, that everyone deserves the right to feel safe, and to feel valued, and to feel positive about their future. Its core objectives are getting people off the streets, keeping them off the streets, and creating opportunities for people.
Its vision is for a Wales where people stand together to provide hope, support, and solutions to end homelessness.
Why The Wallich chose Access
At the end of a contract block with their existing supplier, The Wallich felt it had outgrown the systems they had been working with for the last 10 years, and could likely get more value from a new solution.
"We developed a detailed spec, and we sent it to 15 different providers," Tom explains. "We saw demonstrations from 6 or 7 of them, if not more!" So what was it that separated Access from the pack? "We went into the process knowing we wanted to achieve as much as we could. Access gave us the must-have essentials, the really-would-like elements, and a lot of the wouldn’t-they-be-nice functions too. It struck us just how many of these we could hit, and without overcomplicating things".
Your challenge, our solution
In 2013, The Wallich implemented a number of new software solutions. But in the subsequent years, the organisation grew, and their systems were no longer fit for purpose.
"We'd gotten to the point where the value we were getting from the system didn’t match the value we could get from a similar spend elsewhere." So, having thoroughly explored the market with those 15 providers, here's a detailed look at the solution we implemented:
Scalable HR with PeopleXD
Access PeopleXD is a mobile-first, end-to-end HR solution designed to help you transform your people strategy, and to scale with your growing business. It provides a fully integrated suite of payroll, people management, workforce management, talent management, digital learning, recruitment, and analytics software, all accessible on the Workspace platform.
The Wallich’s challenge was to find a joined-up solution that could offer one version of the truth and save time. PeopleXD delivered this solution as well as a host of other benefits, including:
Payroll
Our HMRC recognised payroll software is a cloud-based solution which offers time saving tools, and absolute confidence in your data. Because everything is online, you’ll know your payroll is future-proofed with the very latest technology.
"Now we've combined our HR and payroll systems, I know that when I'm talking to our Finance Director from an HR perspective, we’ve got more confidence in the data. The process is tighter and we have data that we previously didn’t have." Tom says.
Recruitment and Talent Management
From attracting and securing the best candidates, to onboarding, to developing and retaining talent, our Recruitment and Talent management software allows you to create a winning people experience every step of the way. Our suite of tools can be tailored to organisations of all sizes and complexity.
Boost your learning
Learning management software is essential for organisations that want to deliver effective online training.
Our LMS has delivered the solution The Wallich needed by working in tandem with our talent management software to empower and engage, elevate performance, and track compliance.
With Personalised Learning, The Wallich employees now have access to bespoke learning pathways, using our extensive collection of eLearning courses to support effective and engaging online learning.
Our premier customer success plan
Businesses have different wants and needs when it comes to a support plan, so Access offers 3 different options to cater to your preferences. Our essential plan is designed for those who mainly want to self-guide, but also want online technical support. Our standard plan offers phone and live chat options, as well as periodic check-ins. And the Premier Plan The Wallich chose helps you to maximise the return on your investment with a designated Customer Success Manager who aligns with you on your business goals, plus access to a Lead Technical Support Engineer.
Find more information about our customer success plans.
Benefits and impact
"One of the biggest benefits for us is that we’ve been able to bring all our functions together, which were previously separate,” Tom explains. “And on a day-to-day basis, one of the things that’s really made a difference is the speed of our processes now. Take sick pay for example: Previously that involved 2-3 days of manual calculations. It was very much open to interpretation and error.
Another main benefit is the ease of access to our data. We have 20 local authorities and multiple other external funders we need to satisfy with reporting requirements. And they all want to see the information in slightly different ways. There used to be a lot of manual intervention required to achieve that. Now we have automation, it’s so easy for us to manipulate the data to achieve the same outcome. It’s taken away a huge amount of work."
Tom Hall, Director of People and Talent
What's next for The Wallich and Access?
"The big thing for us now is to learn how to utilise more of the functionality that exists in the system, so that’s what we’re starting to do now. And now that we’ve put a lot of information into the system, we want to look further into what that can tell us, so we can start to make better informed decisions around our day-to-day work practices. I’m really looking forward to that."
Words of wisdom
Before we let him go, we asked Tom if he had any advice he'd like to share with someone tasked with a similar project. "The implementation team at Access were always very clear we needed to dedicate plenty of time to user acceptance testing. And I think on reflection I’d increase the amount of time I allowed. You need to clear your diary. If you tack testing onto the end of your day, it’s not going to work out as well as it could. But if you put in the time, you’ll reap the rewards well into the future."
We hope this customer success story has given you plenty to think about. If you’d like to explore what we could achieve together, please get in touch. Our experts are always on-hand to talk with you.
Every solution, in one place, for your people
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.