The Drum, an award-winning media and marketing company, is improving the efficiency of its people processes with the help of online solution Cezanne HR.
The company provides a wide range of products and services for brand marketers, marketing agencies, media owners and marketing industry suppliers.
The business is growing significantly, with a workforce split between Glasgow and London, as well as an expanding international presence.
HR Manager Viola Lambert joined The Drum last summer to set up the HR function, and inherited an outdated and ‘clunky’ HR system which wasn’t fulfilling the company’s needs. She had used Cezanne HR to good effect in a previous role and recommended it was brought into the business to streamline HR processes and make managing the growing workforce easier.
“HR information was being held in different folders on different parts of the server, in email folders or in hard copy format, which was inefficient and frustrating in the digital age,” she explains.
“What we needed was a more straightforward and efficient way of working – which I knew the Cezanne HR system would provide”.
The business is already using the core Cezanne HR module, together with the absence and performance management, and is looking to make use of system’s training and development functionality and recruitment module later this year.
After some refresher training, Viola was able to set up the system herself and train employees in how to use the self-service element, which enables staff to keep their personal details up to date, check holiday entitlements and request time off or register sick leave.
Performance management is one area where the business stands to benefit from centralised data and process automation. Voila explains:
“It was all very ad hoc before with different departments managing appraisals in different ways – so I’ve worked with Cezanne to set up an appraisal form that reflects what we want to achieve. We are trialling it with one department before going live later this month”.
Feedback from staff has been positive and Voila adds that she is looking forward to being able to take full advantage of the reporting and analytics function.
She says:
“Once we’ve built up enough data, I will be able to look at absence trends, retention rates and diversity statistics – so I will really be able to see the full picture and report back to the business”.
Amie Filcher is an editorial assistant at HRreview.
