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 went to market looking for a replacement.
After shortlisting three providers and running demos with each using employee and manager test profiles, Sherry FitzGerald chose the one most closely aligned to its needs. In addition to providing a strong feature set for the HR team, Grouper offered a personalised service to manage migrating data from the old system.
Sorcha Doyle, the HR Generalist who led the project, values the personal relationship that Grouper established with the HR team from the very start. "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 Excel sheets that needed to be populated for different parts of the HR system, covering holidays, salary details, and job responsibilities. They walked the team through what the system could do, including new elements the firm could not record before, such as tracking salary history and consolidating holiday management.
"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," Sorcha says.
She recalls one example: a query about sick leave was answered by Grouper 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 for the system, ensuring employees see certain parts of their information while managers have visibility of more detail. Grouper also provided staff training on the HR system, which is important because employees access their own information through a mobile 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 considerably more productive compared to their previous dispersed processes. That is especially important given the highly distributed nature of the business, with more than 100 offices across Ireland.
"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," Sorcha says.
The performance management module lets managers set goals, carry out reviews, and track performance all within the system. Running reports and accessing data is also much easier, compared to the firm's previous system which required more technical skills to generate reports.
A new capability the firm did not 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," Sorcha says.
That approach 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.
