About Impact Research
Impact Research Ltd was founded in 2010, and is a full-service, qualitative and quantitative market research consultancy with extensive expertise in the consumer, utilities, services and healthcare sectors.
Impact provides research and consultancy on behaviour change, innovation, brand management, service improvement, prioritisation, pricing strategy and more.
What challenges made Impact Research want to seek out HR software?
Impact Research was keen to invest in HR software as relying on numerous discrete solutions and manual workaround methods - such as password-protected Microsoft Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, Dropbox, LeavePlanner, etc - to perform HR tasks and processes was disjointed, time-consuming and often caused accessibility issues.
For example, the time taken to manually complete a personal development plan (PDP) was an issue, as various Word documents would need to be printed in advance, completed, scanned-in, and sent to relevant members of the team via email.
Therefore, Impact Research sought to modernise and bring all of their HR processes together with a fully-comprehensive platform in a central, secure cloud-based human resource information system (HRIS).
Impact Research also recognised the need to:
- Reduce the time that the team spent on manual HR admin;
- Empower their employees with the ability to self-serve and manage their holiday and sickness requests, as well as conduct simple HR tasks, by themselves;
- Streamline their PDP process to continue driving continuous performance and productivity;
- Improve visibility of employee’s data with access to detailed reports and analytics.
Why Impact Research selected Access PeopleHR?
In 2019, Impact Research went to market to research different HR software providers that could meet their needs and requirements, based on key criteria. After narrowing the search down to 4-5 providers, Access PeopleHR was selected as the HR software of choice.
“We selected PeopleHR as it wasn’t expensive and it met all of our key criteria. We also knew that it’s capabilities would streamline our processes and reduce time-consuming HR tasks, so that we could support the team in working more efficiently in their day-to-day roles,” says Darryl Swift, CEO at Impact Research.
Automated alerts and reminders, which can be set within Access PeopleHR, have also helped with efficiency by reducing the time spent on admin tasks.
“We have also saved time with holiday and absence requests. Before PeopleHR, any staff or manager who wanted time off would need to seek approval by email and wait for a response. The process is now seamless, and we have visibility of all absences in the PeopleHR Planner,” explains Darryl.
“Additionally, employee’s performance and key company documents, such as contracts and bonus letters are all within PeopleHR, which has removed the reliance on spreadsheets and paper files. This has helped us with cost-savings, accessibility, data recovery, and environmental factors – which are all very important to us,” continues Darryl.
The potential compliance risks associated with sending sensitive data using less-secure methods, such as password-protected documents and spreadsheets, has also been removed. Access PeopleHR stores data securely, encrypting it to ensure that Impact Research remains GDPR compliant and meets UK and EU legislative requirements, including ISO 27001.
Impact Research’s favourite thing about Access PeopleHR
“The personal development plans were the most complicated, difficult and time-consuming task, so our favourite thing about PeopleHR has to be how much the software has helped to improve and streamline this process,” says Darryl.
The Access PeopleHR Performance module enables Impact Research to:
- Access previous feedback and notes quickly and easily;
- Create and update customisable review templates for different user groups, to tailor scoring and criteria;
- Complete an online review conveniently, adding any necessary notes and objective updates;
- Gain 360 feedback via an email invitation from the wider team quickly and easily, which is anonymous and only visible to managers and admin users;
- Set and plot employee’s goals on a visual graph to help with prioritisation;
- Produce sophisticated reporting for performance analytics.
“We find it beneficial to be able to add and update the personal development plan objectives in PeopleHR. This helps us to identify any areas of improvement, perhaps in terms of an individual’s skills or knowledge, so that we can set corresponding goals to support individual’s progression and growth,” explains Dr David Pearman, Director of Advanced Methods at Impact Research.
With Access PeopleHR’s Performance module, Impact Research no longer need to rely on printed documents, meetings and taking handwritten notes, as all past and current PDPs are easily accessible and available on Access PeopleHR. This has meant that the team can focus their efforts on continuing to enhance employee performance and motivation.
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What benefits has Impact Research seen since using Access PeopleHR?
Access PeopleHR has provided Impact Research with a robust structure to their HR processes, making tasks seamless and less time-consuming.
“We have experienced a number of benefits since using PeopleHR, as we now have a clear structure to our HR processes. Unfortunately, we didn’t have this before as our data and documents were stored separately, so it was all a bit disjointed and not working efficiently together,” says David.
Since using the software, the team can easily access and search for necessary HR documents and data. All HR processes are now streamlined, so the team can spend their time working on more strategic HR projects.
“The self-service feature has also been another huge benefit to us, not just for the managers, but also the wider team. This functionality has given everybody the ability to carry out basic HR tasks themselves, such as managing holiday, which has saved time and unnecessary HR admin,” says Darryl.
The Reporting module provides the team with access to insightful data and reports, which track key metrics. This is particularly beneficial to benchmark Impact Research’s performance against other companies within the professional services industry, to ensure they remain competitive as an employer.
Has Impact Research felt well supported by Access PeopleHR?
“We have always felt well supported by PeopleHR. In the initial phases when we needed support, the PeopleHR team always responded to queries quickly and kept us up-to-date on any progress as it happened”, says Darryl.
“The software is really easy to use, but if we find that we need support now, we typically head over to the Help Centre to search and read the relevant articles and guidance”, concludes David.
