Affinity Education

Affinity Education Case Study

THE CHALLENGE

As a dedicated provider of early childhood learning, Affinity Education operates over 150 education centres across Australia. Their team of learning professionals fuel the minds of 15,000 little stars in the making. The organisation’s brand promise is to inspire and nurture individuals to reach their full potential: and they pride themselves on bringing the indikiduality into everything they do.

The Affinity Education HR team needed to create greater efficiencies in their day-to-day recruitment and onboarding processes. Early childhood learning is a unique sector – comprising of full time staff and a casual talent pool of people who step in and fill last minute staffing gaps. It’s imperative to have a seamless recruitment and candidate nurture process which is user-friendly for everyone – from candidates and casuals to hiring managers and area managers.   

Linda Carroll, Head of People and Culture and her team were looking for a holistic system, where everything could be housed in one place. “We wanted a system that could provide our customers, centre managers and area managers with transparency of where we were at with recruitment processes, that could also take the place of the onboarding system we had at the time,” she said.

The team set themselves a goal: to find a provider who would work with them to implement a recruitment and onboarding system within tight timeframes and meeting their key requirements.

“We wanted a system that could provide our customers, centre managers and area managers with transparency of where we were at with recruitment processes, that could also take the place of the  onboarding system we had at the time.”

– Linda Carroll, Head of People and Culture
Affinity Education

THE FOCUS

Aside from increased transparency and a seamless experience, the team were looking to remove manual processes from their day-to-day recruitment and onboarding. The organisation’s existing tech stack had recruitment, onboarding and reference checking in three separate systems: which meant a highly manual experience for administrators and users. “New people coming into the business had to access three different systems, and we used to get several phone calls and emails from centres to see where their recruitment was up to,” said Kate McShane, Employee Relations Manager. “We were looking to increase efficiencies in recruitment, so that we no longer had to deal with system issues when candidates and users were trying to login from different platforms,” she said.

“We were looking to increase efficiencies in recruitment, so that we no longer had to deal with system issues when candidates and users were trying to login from different platforms.”

– Kate McShane, Employee Relations Manager
Affinity Education

THE SOLUTION

The team chose PageUp to help streamline its recruitment and onboarding processes. “We selected PageUp simply because they were the best provider we could find in the market for our needs,” said Carroll.

Affinity’s implementation team were impressed with PageUp’s ability to successfully deliver a system within the organisation’s tight timeframes. “Implementation was quick and seamless. We had six weeks to implement whilst also managing our full time roles. Any minor challenges were easily fixed – the PageUp team were really helpful,” said Renee Ransfield, Recruitment Manager.

“We selected PageUp simply because they were the best provider we could find in the market for our needs.”

– Linda Carroll, Head of People and Culture
Affinity Education

Implementing PageUp has delivered greater efficiency and a better experience for all users, and the system has integrated seamlessly with Affinity’s current business processes. “Being able to make changes quickly has been great from both a recruitment and a management perspective,” said McShane.

“Implementation was quick and seamless. We had six weeks to implement whilst also managing our full time roles. Any minor challenges were easily fixed – the PageUp team were really helpful.”

– Renee Ransfield, Recruitment Manager
Affinity Education

From a recruitment perspective, the team feel they can perform their roles better because they have access to accurate reporting and analytics dashboards. “We’ve had a lot of success being able to accurately report with PageUp. We can now download and manipulate the data as we need to, which we haven’t had the ability to do previously,” said McShane.

Affinity Education is also seeing real savings on their bottom line. “The savings we’ve achieved by implementing PageUp have been both economical – considering we’ve been able to successfully combine three systems into one: which has been great from a business value perspective – but also from a customer satisfaction perspective,” said McShane.

Post-implementation, the team are full of praise for the great support they receive from the PageUp team. “We use live chat regularly. We love that it is instant – someone from PageUp is there to instantly assist with queries you have. If something needs further investigation, the PageUp team get back to us within 24 hours.”

Now that PageUp is fully implemented, managers have complete transparency of the recruitment process, which allows them to identify what’s working and pinpoint areas for improvement. “There’s a lot of feedback around the efficiency of the system, the quicker time it’s taking to fill these roles, transparency and the ease of use,” said Carroll. 

“There’s a lot of feedback around the efficiency of the system, the quicker time it’s taking to fill these roles, transparency and the ease of use.”

– Linda Carroll, Head of People and Culture
 Affinity Education

The Affinity team set out to achieve seamless integration between recruitment and onboarding systems as well transparency to all end users: and they have met their goals. “We feel we’ve been able to do all of those things with PageUp,” said Carroll. 

Delivering recruitment transparency with Affinity Education

“Our team uses the live support function quite regularly, and we love that it’s instant in terms of responses. You log on, someone is there to instantly assist you with the query you have.”

Renee Ransfield,
Recruitment Manager, Affinity Education

Affinity Education are early childhood education providers who help fuel the minds of 15,000 children across Australia. When they were looking for an integrated talent management system, they wanted something that was both holistic and transparent. They were also looking for a solution that could take the place of their previous recruitment and onboarding systems. “What we set out to achieve when we first looked at PageUp as our solution was a much more seamless integration between recruitment and onboarding systems as well as a much more efficient system which would provide transparency to all end users. We believe we’ve been able to do all of those things with PageUp,” says Linda Carroll, Head of People and Culture.

Highly configurable

The team are now enjoying the benefits of PageUp’s highly configurable system. “Since implementing PageUp, we’ve experienced a lot of differences. We have the ability to control the system, to set it up they way we’ve wanted it to and for it to fit in with our business processes,” says Kate McShane, Employee Relations Manager. Being empowered to make changes on a daily basis has also been highly beneficial for the team. “From a recruitment and management perspective, we’ve been able to make changes quickly and as required rather than lodge tickets and wait for slow processes which is what we’ve experienced in the past,” said McShane.

Awesome service

The team are raving fans of the support and service they receive from the PageUp team.
“Our team uses the live support function quite regularly, and we love that it’s instant in terms of responses. You log on, someone is there to instantly assist you with the query you have. If anything needs further investigation, it takes about 24 hours for a response to come through so we really appreciate that, as time-poor recruitment officers,” says Renee Ransfield, Recruitment Manager. Ransfield is also a regular user of the PageUp Knowledge Portal and has the reassurance that it’s there as a backup to answer her questions.

Greater visibility of metrics

Now that the team have fully implemented PageUp, they’re able to measure key metrics around performance indicators and recruitment metrics including average days to fill a role. “Our area managers and centre managers can have complete visibility where we’re at in the recruitment process. That not only has improved the communication between ourselves and our centre managers, but has also given them a lot of insight into what we do on a day-to-day basis to fill a position and to onboard new employees,” said Carroll.

Achieving ROI from recruiting with Affinity Education

“We’re getting a lot of feedback into the efficiency, transparency, and the ease of use of the system.”

Linda Carroll,
Head of People and Culture, Affinity Education

When Affinity Education chose PageUp as its talent management provider, seeing ROI and greater transparency was top of the agenda for its HR team. “The biggest difference we’ve found with PageUp is that our customers (who are our centre managers and our area managers) have much greater visibility and transparency about the work we’re doing in our centralised recruitment function. This has made a huge difference in the way we communicate and satisfy the needs of our customers,” says Linda Carroll, Head of People and Culture.

Full visibility of recruitment

Kate McShane, Employee Relations Manager is full of praise about how the PageUp system gives her team increased visibility of the entire recruitment process. “The most important ROI accomplishment since implementing PageUp is our transparency. Our managers really wanted to understand recruitment processes, understand where it was at and engage with their new hires, even before day one. PageUp has allowed us to achieve that,” she said.

Time-saving functionality

Prior to PageUp, the team were fielding a lot of unnecessary phone calls and emails from its centres. By implementing PageUp, the system has empowered centre managers to self-serve. “They’re able to log in and access the system and look at where the recruitment process is at and even the last action the recruiter took,” says McShane. This has freed up McShane and her team to focus on recruiting as many people into the business as quickly as possible. Post-implementation, the team are reporting greater functionality and positive results overall. “We’re getting a lot of feedback into the efficiency, transparency, and the ease of use of the system,” says Carroll.

Reporting business impact with Affinity Education

“From an HR and recruitment perspective, the reporting functionality has been a really big win for us. We’ve been able to get a lot of data which we’ve been able to use to be more strategic in how we manage our recruitment.”

Kate McShane,
Employee Relations Manager, Affinity Education

Reporting and analytics play a crucial part of an organisation’s overall strategy. When Affinity Education streamlined its overall talent management, they found the PageUp Analytics and reporting dashboards to be user-friendly and helpful.

Renee Ransfield, Recruitment Manager is a frequent user of the system and part of her role involves regular reporting. “As recruitment manager, I am responsible for reporting on recruitment KPIs and this is what I’ve found to be helpful and easy to access with PageUp,” she said.

Accurate reporting

When the team need access to reports, they know they can rely on PageUp. “We’ve had a lot of success being able to accurately report with PageUp. The reporting function has also enabled the team to stay on top of their recruitment. “From an HR and recruitment perspective, the reporting functionality has been a really big win for us. We’ve been able to get a lot of data which we’ve been able to use to be more strategic in how we manage our recruitment,” says Kate McShane, Employee Relations Manager.

Strategising recruitment

The team now feel more control over their recruitment processes – and can rely on metrics to make informed decisions. “From a casual pool perspective, we can see where our recruitment needs are and look at how we are able to advertise and better recruit in those areas based on past hiring history and other business metrics, which has been great,” said McShane.

Engaging technology with Affinity Education

“We have access to a great dashboard, so we can easily understand where we are at with our roles, and the fact that PageUp has automated a lot of our recruitment for us.”

Renee Ransfield,
Recruitment Manager, Affinity Education

The team at Affinity Education set out on a mission to find a recruitment system that covered all parts of the recruitment process – full visibility of roles, bulk communications functionality, and a user-friendly dashboard. Working closely with PageUp, the team realised that the PageUp system delivered everything they were looking for – all from the convenience of one, fully integrated platform. “From a customer perspective, our hiring managers are able to have full visibility of their roles, and this was a pain point with our previous recruitment system,” says Renee Ransfield, Recruitment Manager.

Easy to use dashboard

The team are full of praise for the recruitment dashboard that allows them greater visibility of the overall recruitment process. “We have access to a great dashboard, so we can easily understand where we are at with our roles, and the fact that PageUp has automated a lot of our recruitment for us. The system sends out communications to our hiring managers which was highly manual previously,” says Ransfield.

Increased transparency

The Affinity team now report greater transparency over the entire recruitment process using PageUp. “From a centre manager perspective, we’ve had a lot of transparency with the PageUp system, which we didn’t have previously. So they’re able to get in and access the system, find out where the jobs are at, look at the candidates and their profiles and information. And even as simple as looking at and downloading their onboarding information when they’re ready to be set up. From a centre perspective, it’s been a good change,” says Kate McShane, Employee Relations Manager.                                                                                         

Overall user confidence

Hiring managers love the PageUp system. They were kept in the loop in terms of what was being implemented and when the system was going to be rolled out – so everyone was aware of what to expect. “We provided enough training for them so they felt really confident using the system. They love that they have full visibility across their roles and the fact that they can log in, view a job and see where an applicant’s at. What we also love is that they can download all employee documentation using the compile and send function, which has been a hit with our hiring managers, they’ve been able to create an employee file on their first day,” said Ransfield.

Express implementation with Affinity Education

It was great to work with a company that was willing to meet our tight time frames and work with us in our schedule.

Kate McShane,
Employee Relations Manager, Affinity Education

Early childhood providers, Affinity Education engaged PageUp to deliver a seamless and fully integrated system to align its overall talent management function. As an organisation, they had tight timeframes to implement a solution.

“Our implementation was six weeks, which was quite quick, but it was really great to work with a company that was really willing to meet our tight timeframes and work with us to our schedule. My colleague and I did the implementation that our business required to be turned around quite quickly. That meant relying on PageUp to support us – and it was really great,” says Kate McShane, Employee Relations Manager.

A close working partnership

To fully understand the Affinity team’s requirements, key members of the PageUp implementation team worked alongside Affinity’s HR teams to ensure everyone was aligned and working towards the same outcomes. “We worked really closely with the implementation team. They travelled to work with us and held training workshops with us. Everything was very quick, seamless and transparent. Timelines were clear and it’s been a very good experience with the PageUp team,” said Renee Ransfield, Recruitment Manager.

Business outcomes and strategies

Linda Carroll, Head of People and Culture found getting her best talent to assist with the implementation worked very well for the Affinity team. As people that are using the system every day, she found it important to get feedback from end users. “I’d suggest getting as much stakeholder input as you can into the solution that you’re designing, listening to the experts, testing out various solutions and thinking about what outcomes you want to deliver to your stakeholders and customers,” said Carroll.