CHESTERTONS

Residential property specialist

CloserStill

THE PROJECT

A new People Director at Chestertons identified the need for a new HR system; the existing system no longer met their needs, and the required quoted development work was not financially viable.

We formed a project team with HR, Finance, Payroll, and IT to define the operating criteria for a new system. Early on, we decided that the new system had to be integrated with HR and Payroll.

A long list of 100s was whittled down, and an exhaustive selection process of demonstrations, deep-dive questioning, and further clarifications was undertaken. With our scoring process and support, PeopleXD from The Access Group emerged as the top choice.

ReThink HR was then retained to work on the implementation with the team.

Our ReThink project manager helped to keep each element manageable for the Chestertons team, who were very busy with their day job alongside their contributions. We were able to ensure that decisions could be made quickly when required and deadlines were met.

Keeping on track was essential as the timeline was short and fixed before the incumbent HR/Payroll system contract ended.

The project was successfully delivered on time. The first live payroll was processed for employees, and HR was instantly able to see the wider team using the new system to access payslips. Our team training, coaching and user guides ensured that engagement was high from day one.

AT A GLANCE

WEBSITE

www.chestertons.co.uk

INDUSTRY

Property lettings and sales

EMPLOYEE COUNT

500 employees based in 40 branches across London

 

PROJECT STAGES

Selection
Implementation

CHALLENGES

  • A new system had to fit within budget constraints.
  • The project had a very short timeline with no room for flexibility, as the incumbent HR/Payroll system contract was nearing its end.
  • The project team members were already occupied with their day-to-day responsibilities. Managing their workload and ensuring their availability for project tasks was essential.

SYSTEM

PROJECT  OUTCOMES

The core HR and Payroll system is configured for the team’s needs, reflecting their accurate corporate structure, and able to be maintained on an ongoing basis.

Self-service rolled out for all employees to allow greater automation of data sharing and reporting.

Accurate and easy reporting for HR, Payroll and other departments.

PROJECT  OUTCOMES

The core HR and Payroll system is configured for the team’s needs, reflecting their accurate corporate structure, and able to be maintained on an ongoing basis.
Self-service rolled out for all employees to allow greater automation of data sharing and reporting
Accurate and easy reporting for HR, Payroll and other departments

“The key value that the ReThink team added was their knowledge of the stages of the project and making sure that we were ready for each one.
They allowed us to focus on the priority tasks at any point, rather than the overall project, which can be overwhelming at times.”

Sean Thomas, Head of People

TESTIMONIAL

“I am delighted we instructed ReThink HR to help and support Chestertons to select and implement a new HR system. Having first worked with us to identify the needs that we had for our business, the ReThink HR team were able to shortlist potential vendors down from the 100s to a manageable shortlist, which we were then able to see demonstrations for. Along with ensuring that the systems we were considering had the functionality we needed, ReThink also provided support for the demonstrations themselves so that we asked consistent questions of each vendor. They oversaw the collation of RFP responses and the indicative costings, so that we could make comparisons across each area.

Once we had selected our system, Access Group’s PeopleXD product, we retained the support of the ReThink HR team to project manage and provide hands-on implementation support from kickoff until we rolled out self-service to the teams, including supporting the parallel run process as we moved payroll provider to Access as well. The key value that the ReThink team added was their knowledge of the stages of the project and making sure that we were ready for each one. They allowed us to focus on the priority tasks at any point, rather than the overall project, which can be overwhelming at times.

Overall, we were really pleased with the support that ReThink HR provided in this project, they made the whole process less painful for all involved and I would not hesitate to recommend them to others who are looking for a new HR system or about to commence an implementation project.”

Sean Thomas, Head of People