Saving 6 hours a week in admin for Fonua’s hard working HR team
TLWR? Here’s a summary:
• Fonua’s previous HR system was not being used by its employees, due to a cumbersome user interface which employees and managers didn’t trust.
• Cezanne’s HRIS solution aided tangible levels of engagement that supported and improved the company’s HR processes. So much so, that Fonua’s HR team has been saved on average 6 hours a week administration time.
• The level of adaptability from Cezanne has also been a big hit with Fonua, with the platform offering levels of configurations rare for an HRIS platform at Cezanne’s price point.
With over 20 years’ experience in offering specialist supply chain solutions to the mobile phone industry, Fonua are an established business on the rise.
Nestled in the historic city of Dublin, the business of 150 people has grown to incorporate offices across Ireland and in the UK. Their procurement and supply chain solutions has earned them relationships with some huge brands: including Vodafone, EE, Virgin Media O2, and Tesco Mobile. And, their hard work certainly hasn’t gone unnoticed by their peers, either! The business has won the prestigious Best Mobile Accessory Distributor Award for two years running.
With the business evolving at a rapid rate of knots, they needed more dedicated support to manage their growing people operations – and that’s where the Cezanne HRIS came in. We sat down for a chat with Sirina McKeogh, Fonua’s HR Manager, to learn more about their journey with Cezanne, and the positive effects the powerful HRIS has had on their people operations.
Hi Sirina, tell us a little about yourself and your role with Fonua
I’m Fonua’s HR Manager and I run a small team here in Ireland of three people – it includes an HR Administrator & Recruiter and an HR Generalist. Along with our main head office in Ireland, we also have three other locations, with one being in the UK and the other two across Dublin.
What are your and your HR team’s biggest challenges?
Probably the management of different locations and ensuring that each employee feels supported across all four. That is a massive focus for us!
Especially in the UK, as we manage the HR operations for them here from Ireland. We always want to ensure every employee feels included, avails of the same benefits and experiences being part of our culture, no matter where they are based.
What were the issues your business was experiencing before Cezanne?
Before Cezanne, we were in a challenging place… employee interaction with the HR system was low and we faced many glitches and disappearances of information – especially from a performance perspective. We felt that employees and managers alike were not engaging in and recording performance reviews on the system as necessary, as entering the information did not always guarantee that it would save in place.
Some of the time, managers were sending us Excel files of what they wanted on the system, and then we would have to sit down and put it in manually because they were so wary about not hitting the right button or the information just vanishing if you didn’t save it correctly.
What’s been the biggest impact the Cezanne system has had on your people operations?
I’d say our performance management processes have seen the biggest difference. The interaction that we now have [with our performance processes], and the ease of popping into the system to check on someone’s goals and seeing how they’re progressing… it’s great.
Virtually every single person is now doing what they’re supposed to be doing… I can actually see that the staff are using it and it’s not just, you know, they go on at once a year to book their holidays or something like that. There’s real engagement with the system from our workforce, so that’s a huge return on investment for us, and we love our new Kudos feature.
How has the system complemented your performance management processes?
I think the biggest thing for us is the time savings the Performance Management module has delivered. It’s definitely saved us at least 6 hours a week of administration when it comes to cross-checking employee records and performance processes. The simplicity of the system means that everything now just works, which is brilliant for us.
How have you found editing the system to work your way?
There’s so many settings you can use! Sometimes it can be a little overwhelming as there’s so much you can change; but whenever I’ve had a question, the support team have always come back to me and helped.
I’ve found it’s very, very rare for an HRIS system to have this level of user configuration. I’m like, “Can I change this field to say this?” or “Can I get this screen to look like this?” And it’s really good – there’s so many options. There’s always a way of changing things, and the fact we don’t need a developer to do so is even better!
How have you found the support from the Account Management team at Cezanne?
The support team at Cezanne has been amazing. They’re so quick to come back when we ask a question, and that for us is just the best. Also, if the query goes over two or three emails and we’re still really not grasping it, a member of the team will contact you directly to talk you through the issue, or sort it for you instead. The whole team is really helpful.
Based on your experiences, is there any advice you’d give to someone who’s just started looking for a new HRIS system?
Apart from telling them to get Cezanne?! I think I’d give them a steer on being aware of budgets and be aware what changes can be made to the system before taking the plunge.
Most other systems we looked at in Cezanne’s price point were ‘stuck’ – you got what you were given, it’s built the way it is, and that’s it! So, I’d probably give the advice of look beyond the window sticker price of the system.
Before Cezanne, we looked at another popular HRIS system, but it was much more expensive and there was very little we could change. There were a lot of features which looked great, but they were very much ‘set’ and there was little in the way of user configuration that wouldn’t involve additional costs. The costs we were seeing were often just ‘window stickers’, and many features were often at extra cost.
And finally, would you recommend the Cezanne system to others?
Oh absolutely! The entire management team have commented on the excellence and ease of use of the Cezanne System including the Managing Director. It is fantastic to see all of them engaging with and using the system on a regular day-to-day basis. We rarely receive any queries now, and when we do it’s always an easy fix!