The History

The Parramatta Leagues club is a well-known Western Sydney establishment and home of the Parramatta Eels National Rugby League team. The Club serves as a pillar to the community, a place where locals and visitors have enjoyed excellent dining and entertainment for over 58 years. Managing over 400 employees, volunteers and contractors in an industry with high turnover can be challenging, especially without an HRIS system you can rely on to keep all of your employee records straight. Providing stellar experiences to members and their guests is bolstered by excellent people management. Parramatta Leagues Club HR Advisor, Nely Moat and Corporate Services Manager, Damian Dooley, oversee HR processes and adoption of enableHR across the Club and the Parramatta Eels. At one time, they manage services for over 400 employees, contractors and volunteers at the Eels and the Leagues. As such, the company takes great care in ensuring that all HR processes and documentation for each category of staff member is compliant. Delivering a high standard of hospitality and entertainment to members and their guests requires efficient systems to recruit and manage staff. Before implementing enableHR in November 2015, Parramatta Leagues had a very manual and labour intensive system for managing their HR programs and processes. This meant that on-boarding and regular day-to-day HR administrative duties were taking up more time than necessary.

The Challenge

Lengthy On-boarding

On-boarding a new employee could be a lengthy process. Sending paperwork back and forward between people, printing and scanning documents could add precious time onto the recruitment and on-boarding process. If the CEO or hiring manager was travelling or out of town, start dates could be delayed.

Inconsistent HR processes

Various managers across the Leagues Club and the Eels meant that HR processes were not always consistent. Without an HRIS system that includes easily accessed, best practice workflows, ensuring compliance across management was an added burden on HR.

Conflicting Approvals

One of the biggest problems for Damian was streamlining the approval process across the businesses. The Parramatta Leagues Club provides all the Corporate Services, including the HR functions for the Parramatta Eels Club. Despite being separate business entities, all paperwork for Eels employees, contractors and volunteers is managed by the Leagues Club. Sometimes, the Eels would hire a new employee or intern, and start them before notifying the Leagues Club. This presented compliance risks for both companies.

The Solution

The switch to enableHR

The Parramatta Leagues Club has a long standing relationship with FCB Group, the parent company to enableHR. After a time-established relationship of receiving expert legal advice from FCB Workplace Law, switching to an HRIS that included workflows, documentation and advice crafted from IP contributed by FCB lawyers was a logical decision. “We were looking to switch to an HRIS with workflows and advice consistent with the best-practice legal advice from FCB Workplace Law and industry best-practice more generally. At the same time we also wanted a system which empowered all of management to take responsibility for HR functions – HR begins always and sits primarily with line management.

Customised workflows

The implementation process included creating customised workflows to meet the compliance needs of the Leagues Club. According to Nely, “We customised a lot of our workflows, due to our industry being hospitality, there are various compliance requirements that required fulfilment such as uploading RSAs (Responsible Service of Alcohol certification) and RCGs (Responsible Gambling certification) and police checks in some cases”. This was crucial to Parramatta Leagues Club to ensure that their Managers were following a standardised and industry-compliant process.

Streamlined On-boarding

Parramatta Leagues Club launched enableHR during a high recruitment period. Therefore, the pre-employment module was the first aspect of enableHR used by the Club. The customised workflows on the enableHR platform ensure that managers follow all the required steps to successfully and compliantly on-board new staff, from hiring approval through to onboarding. enableHR’s cloud-based platform allows new recruits to update their own files with relevant training documents and personal information themselves and from any device. According to Nely, this is a huge time saver for the Club, “not having the papers flying back and forth, I like that, because then you can just get on with it. We have saved a lot of time”. In addition, Parramatta Leagues Club now has complete control over the on-boarding process across the Leagues Club and the Eels. “The biggest thing would be now all approvals go through the system, it has brought discipline into the hiring process” says Damian. “Now, anytime the Club wants to start someone they have to go through the system.” All in all, the streamlined, paperless on-boarding process has saved Parramatta Leagues Club lots of time and enabled the club to successfully recruit and start the volume of employees needed to maintain their high standard of services to members and the community.

Comprehensive People Management

“Compared to other human resource information systems, enableHR is unique in that it covers areas that other systems don’t,” explains Damian. “It’s a bit unique in that it’s a one-stop-shop and that’s a strength”

Damian Dooley, Corporate Services Manager

Using the one platform Parramatta Leagues Club manages performance reviews, work health and safety requirements, recruitment and salary reviews with ease. This allows them to focus on delivering exceptional experiences and entertainment to members and their guests. In addition, Parramatta Leagues Club is able to manage all types of staff through enableHR’s Employee, Contractor and Volunteer modules. Having worked with other HRIS systems without this capability in previous companies, Damian found enableHR’s thorough coverage of all types of workers particularly useful. “This is another facet of the system that has been handy, unlike other businesses we have a lot of volunteers and a lot of contractors, independent contractors, casual contractors, a lot of casual staff so it’s great to have all the different categories.”

enable Self-Service (eSS)

Using enable Self-Service, Nely and line managers send alerts and reminders out to staff to update their personal information, upload their training documents, or review the latest work health and safety hazard warnings. “The staff and managers love the instantaneous messages! Managers can send out important notices, which the employees respond to” explains Nely.

“On the platform there are a lot of tasks and reminders to follow up with instead of having to refer back to spreadsheets and it’s a convenient way to directly communicate with staff, this is a huge time saver for managers”

Nely Moat, HR Advisor

Online Performance Reviews

To maintain a high standard of service and people management, Parramatta Leagues Club have just started using the Online Performance Reviews on enableHR. Damian describes the process using enableHR as “intuitive and easy to use”. The convenience of being able to complete them all in the same platform allows managers to monitor performance regularly to ensure that staff are adhering the high levels of hospitality for which the Leagues Club is known.

Centralised Employee Records

To manage employee records and access employee files, Parramatta Leagues Club use enableHR as a centralised database. Damian can access records wherever and whenever using the cloud-based platform. “It’s a centralised database, which eliminates the need to sift through employee folders.” enableHR’s features make keeping track of over 400 employees easier for Parramatta Leagues Club’s senior management.

The Parramatta Leagues Club’s exceptional people management of all types of staff makes their company a great place to work for employees, who are recruited and equipped with the tools to deliver high quality dining and entertainment. Their utilisation of enableHR as their comprehensive HRIS system facilitates the exceptional standard of HR and Corporate Services across the both the Eels and the Leagues Club.