Barnfather

Barnfather Wire, the UK’s largest independent wire production company, produces a broad range of specialist drawn wire products to the highest possible standards. From its state-of-the art plant in the West Midlands, Barnfather Wire can provide product from stock and manufacture bespoke to customers’ individual requirements.  One of the company’s most notable achievements was to supply the wire used to create the stems of the 888,264 poppies for the stunning ‘Blood Swept Lands and ‘Seas of Red’ Armistice displays at the Tower of London in 2014.

Ever-expanding company requires agile technology

Since starting out in 2007, Barnfather Wire’s friendly, professional service, quick turnaround and honest approach have created a flourishing business that today has a loyal client following from blue chip companies supplying some of the world’s biggest brands to small and medium British manufacturers.  Success is down to just 46 individuals who combine extensive hands-on industry experience with innovative technology across all parts of the business as Dean Horton, Works Director at Barnfather Wire explains:

“We have already achieved incredible things with a relatively small number of talented people but we are a growing business that requires sophisticated technology to support us and take us to the next level. Earlier this year, we took the decision to focus on improving the efficiency and accuracy of some of our most critical workforce management processes and set about searching the marketplace for an innovative, fully automated solution.”

Wages are top priority
Barnfather Wire has recently invested in AUTOTIME’s cloud-based Biometric Time & Attendance system Vanquish to replace the company’s existing clocking in-and-out system that was extremely difficult to use and failed to deliver accurate readings of employee attendances and absences.  This had a hugely negative impact especially when it came to calculating the staff’s weekly wages.  Dean continued:

“Before Vanquish, every Monday morning would be spent working with a colleague from the accounts department to finalise everyone’s pay packet.  The old clocking system was highly ineffectual because it regularly over-clocked and you couldn’t even read the cards very well.  Now, thanks to the simplicity of the Vanquish solution, the whole payroll process is so much quicker, down from half a day to just half an hour.  Even better, I can do it by myself and have it all done and dusted before 9.30am in the morning.”

Real-time information all in one place
Barnfather Wire selected AUTOTIME primarily for the ease of use of the Vanquish system.  Staff use it to clock in and out by simply placing their hand over the Vanquish biometric hand reader terminals when they start and finish work.  Then, Dean and his two colleagues from the accounts team use the single, integrated solution to capture and store all information relating to employees, their shift patterns and pay details.

Dean added, “Having information all in one place is one of the major benefits of deploying the Vanquish solution.  It’s fast and gives us vital, real-time information on shifts and pay along with critical absence data such as holidays and sickness. We can even add our own comments and attach important records such as disciplinary notes to build a living virtual library and valuable audit trail. At the click of a button, we have a clear view of our end-to-end time and attendance activities.”

Scheduling up for efficiency
For example, when it comes to scheduling Barnfather Wire’s employees, Dean can log into the cloud-based system from anywhere to allocate shifts quickly and efficiently, track the number of hours each staff member has actually worked and reconcile them against the original planned schedules.  If an employee does not turn up on the day, is sick or on holiday, he is able to move people around and deploy them to areas that need extra support, versatility which Dean believes is invaluable to keeping the company agile and dynamic at all times.

Spotting trends for improved decision-making and faster results
The ability to record and monitor accurately the number of hours worked along with absences like sickness or holidays makes it easy to identify trends that aid improved decision-making.  For example, the Vanquish system will automatically alert Dean to recurring incidents out of the ordinary such as if an employee regularly calls in sick on Mondays or Fridays or leaves early. Being forearmed with this type of information means Barnfather Wire can proactively assess the situation, take remedial action, if necessary, or provide the additional support that staff need before employee morale or efficiency levels suffer.

“Introducing automation into our organisation has yielded impressive results.  Just four months after going live with the new Vanquish system, we feel in complete control of our time and attendance activities, have made tangible time savings and improved payroll accuracy beyond our expectations.  The AUTOTIME team have been fantastic.  They even configured the solution with our four main shift patterns to ensure we were up and running in no time. There’s still a lot to learn but the success of the implementation so far is a real motivating factor.  Who knows what more we can achieve in another six months?”

About Barnfather Wire

Barnfather Wire is the UK’s largest independent wire production company.  From its West Midlands plant, it manufactures a broad range of drawn wire products to the highest possible standards. It provides products from stock or bespoke to customers’ individual requirements.

One of Barnfather Wire’s most notable achievements was to supply the wire used to create the stems of the 888,264 poppies for the ‘Blood Swept Lands’ and ‘Seas of Red’ Armistice displays at the Tower of London in 2014.

For more information, visit www.barnfatherwire.co.uk or Contact us

 

 

 

HFX partners with Wagestream

Innovative ‘earned income’ payroll provider teams up with HFX’s established workforce management solutions to provide staff with flexible, financial benefits

HFX, market leading provider of cloud-based SaaS flexitime and workforce management solutions, has announced a partnership with Wagestream, the first Get-Paid-As-You-Go provider accredited by the FCA. Wagestream allows workers to access their ‘earned income’ at any time during the monthly pay cycle and can be implemented by companies without impacting cash-flow, payroll or timekeeping processes. Experienced in workforce management for over 40 years, HFX’s solutions complement Wagestream’s platform by providing the tools to manage staff working hours efficiently to administer pay as you go payments.

Nicola Smart, COO of HFX said; “Our collaboration with Wagestream perfectly complements HFX’s focus on playing a key role in the new world of work, combining efficient workforce management with wellbeing and staff benefits.  By deploying our solutions companies can benefit from improved productivity, more motivated staff and higher retention as well as cost savings and improved profits.”

Andrew Fenwick, Enterprise Partnership Director at Wagestream said; “Our new pay concept enables companies to offer employees a benefit of remunerating them their ‘pay’ for short periods worked, whether for overtime or even a few days’ work, instead of waiting until the end of the month or taking out expensive loans.

“It is already popular in companies with high turnovers of lower skilled staff, where employee retention levels increase because they value having quicker access to their salary when they need it. Our vision is aligned with that of HFX’s in this new world of work – we will be able  to offer companies a true holistic workforce management solution where the efficient recording of hours is directly related to remuneration, enabling staff to take control of and manage their finances and working hours.”

Wagestream’s service benefits employers which operate large numbers of shift and temporary workers, in sectors such as hospitality, security, retail and manufacturing. HFX’s workforce management solutions have an established pedigree of providing solutions to manage working hours, shifts and rosters to meet legislation and ensure staff wellbeing.

About Wagestream

Wagestream allows all employees, both salaried and hourly, to have complete control over when they get paid. It effectively ends the stress caused by monthly pay cycles and prevents millions of UK workers suffering overdraft charges, credit card debt, or worst case, entering cycles of poverty caused by payday loans.

Wagestream is a social impact, charity backed platform, that has proven and significant retention, productivity and recruitment benefits for employers.

Find out more here https://wagestream.co.uk/ or Contact Us

Drayton Manor

Drayton Manor Theme Park in Staffordshire welcomes over a million visitors every year and is home to a variety of exciting attractions with roller coasters, a 15-acre zoo and Thomas Land.  Considered by many to be the ‘ultimate family day out’, Drayton Manor has received numerous awards that recognise the company’s inclusivity such as ‘Best Attraction for Children’ and ‘Access for All’ along with Certificates of Excellence from TripAdvisor in four consecutive years.  There is also an on-site hotel.  The four-star 150 bedroom Drayton Manor Hotel features executive rooms, presidential suites and 15 Thomas & Friends™ rooms, as well as two bars, two restaurants plus The Grill Inn, adjacent to the hotel.

Complex requirements need a reliable and robust solution

The scale and diversity of Drayton Manor requires a large number of staff to provide an excellent visitor experience and operate other complementary on-site services such as conferences and events and a popular education programme.  The theme park’s 750 staff – regularly reaching 800 during the peak summer season – are employed in a broad range of roles from front-line guest services at ticket points, at catering and retail outlets and in the hotel to maintaining buildings, grounds and keeping the rides safe and attending to behind the scenes administration and marketing.  Managing them all and ensuring they are paid correctly, on time, and in line with National Pay and European Work Time Directives is a critical success factor.

Clare Beasley, Director of People at Drayton Manor takes up the story, “Running a theme park of this magnitude is a complex business and requires sophisticated technology to simplify the whole process of knowing how many people you have on-site at any one time and then reconciling this information to payroll quickly, accurately and efficiently.”

Fast, comprehensive real-time information from a solution that is easy to use

Drayton Manor first turned to AUTOTIME, a division of HFX over eight years ago in 2010 and has recently re-invested in the company’s real-time Biometric Time & Attendance system Vanquish.  Clare continues: “As Drayton Manor grew and more staff were employed, we considered different ways of managing our employees but nothing matched the automated approach to scheduling that Vanquish offers.  The software is so easy to use both for our team leaders and for our people on the ground.  It’s fast, gives us vital, real-time information on holidays, time off in lieu and other absences, allows us to create and download valuable reports in an instant and we also benefit from AUTOTIME’s constant innovation in the product. In a nutshell, all this so why would we want to change?”

Controlling costs and gaining efficiencies with Rostering

Today, Clare and her team use Vanquish for Time & Attendance and are beginning to roll-out the system for rostering purposes, a move Clare believes will help Drayton Manor to “control costs better and gain efficiencies” by minimising the risk of overpayments.  All staff use Vanquish to clock in and out whether they work in the park, the zoo, in the hotel or in back office functions.  They simply place their hand over one of the 14 Vanquish biometric hand reader terminals when they start and finish work and whenever they leave the premises for breaks or other business reasons.

Around 40 managers rely on Vanquish to view their own teams’ activities and keep track of their weekly hours to make sure staff are not falling below the National minimum wage threshold and comply with European Work Time Directives. For example, they can check absences such as any accrued Time Off In Lieu (TOIL) and make sure it is booked in for the relevant member of staff.  Clare’s team has recently started to expand the Vanquish solution further by exporting data from the hand reader terminals directly into Drayton Manor’s corporate Sage Snowdrop payroll system to accurately track the hours that staff work.

Saving time, increasing accuracy and better Compliance

Clare sums up the benefits: “Deploying Vanquish has released a series of valuable operational and business benefits.  Vanquish gives us good visibility of how many people we have on-site at any one time and shows who hasn’t turned up for work against the planned roster. This helps us spot any gaps that need filling and is invaluable for payroll purposes.  Automation reduces error and saves huge amounts of time.   What is more, the solution offers a robust audit trail, a complete history going back eight years.  This supports our compliance with important industry legislation and demonstrates our commitment to driving best-practice throughout the organisation.”

Automation increases productivity

The automation gained by from the intuitive solution has boosted productivity through tangible time and cost savings while the availability of dynamic, real-time data has improved the accuracy of timesheets to reduce absence, time theft and unnecessary overtime.

Clare concludes, “AUTOTIME offers top-notch technology and support to match.  From initial implementation to day-to-day guidance, we can ask any questions and know we will get answers straight away.  Moreover, the team is 100% focused on innovation and has even tweaked the system quickly and efficiently to suit our needs perfectly.   Quite simply, AUTOTIME is continually looking to push the boundaries of customer service and we really appreciate that.”

To find out more Contact us 

Hfx re-invents the website

hfx welcome to our website2

In 2017, hfx realised that it needed a new website, one which reflected our values, our innovation and our commitment to delivering solutions for the New World of Work.

Nicola Smart (COO, hfx) recalls “Early on we decided that the website should provide visitors with a positive and immersive experience that provided clear and concise information. Too many websites bombard and overwhelm you with pointless information and noise”.

12 months later and hfx releases a completely new design of website, different in almost every respect to traditional websites;

  • No annoying banners asking you to accept cookies. We decided early on that we wouldn’t be “stalking” our visitors and therefore have no need for tracking cookies. If visitors want to contact us, they know where we are.
  • No visitor badgering or callouts to nag the visitor into contacting us. We believe you either want to contact us or you don’t. No amount of badgering is going to make you change your mind – indeed in some cases the annoyance of callouts is enough to make you leave.
  • No bombarding you with information you didn’t ask for. Your time is precious, so we simplify and summarise information into key points. If you need more information you have the option to download a pdf or visit our microsite (www.hfxworkforce.com)
  • No email grabbing. We don’t require your email before you can download documents. The only time we will ask for your email is if you want to contact us via our contact form.
  • No Scroll to Infinity. So many websites insist on the “long scroll” – which is intended to take the visitor on a journey ending up with a call to action. The journey, of course, is predefined and makes to many assumptions about the visitor. Users often end up getting lost, frustrated or confused by having to scroll through the irrelevant to find the relevant. There is a need to simplify and we have achieved that eliminating almost all scrolling.

Naturally, when you buck the trend and go against the rules of website design, it’s never going to be easy.

There are no templates or previous designs to base yours on and you are battling preconceived ideas of how a marketing website should be designed. It had to be conceived and built from the ground up.

A new menu structure and navigation system was designed, redesigned and after that several more times to accommodate the vision we had for the website.

There are also trade-offs to be made; Google search and SEO friendly http://www.hfx.co.uk is not. Nor is it particularly mobile friendly. We also accepted that for many the new site would be like “marmite”; visitors would either love it or hate it, but at least it wouldn’t be another bland corporate design.

Let us know what you think of hfx.co.uk