Prioritising people availability
Redstone Search Group (Redstone Commodity Search // Redstone Private Banking Search) provides executive search solutions for the global commodities and private banking markets, helping companies in specialist sectors including energy, metals, wealth management, asset management and agriculture to recruit the right talent.
While its head office is based in St. Albans, Hertfordshire, Redstone works with companies all over the world, so it’s important for the firm to know the schedules of its 16-strong team, in order to maintain strong, consistent client service levels.
Up until 2019, Redstone had recorded staff holiday bookings via a spreadsheet, but as the company and its client roster grew, this became increasingly difficult to manage.
"Keeping track of holidays ourselves was inefficient, and we kept making mistakes,” admits Director, Jordan Lewis. “We needed an alternative system that would be easy-to-use and speed up the approval process"Redstone approached WhosOff to help them migrate to online leave management software, and we got them up and running with the new system in just two weeks.
"WhosOff has a great support team, who were quick to respond to our questions" Jordan shares.Increasing the speed and accuracy of holiday bookings
The benefits of an online holiday planner were recognised immediately by Redstone, whose team was quick to embrace the new way of logging annual leave.
"Our old system was a mess, so they took no convincing!" Jordan explains.With WhosOff, staff could take greater control over managing their leave entitlement, submitting online requests direct to their manager to speed up approvals, rather than relying on an administration person to coordinate the process.
"Our team looks at WhosOff to see when their colleagues are away, so we can prevent shortages on the desk without managers having to get involved,” adds Jordan. “We probably save a few hours a week, just from having greater visibility over what team members are doing."Taking the middle person out of the equation has also increased the accuracy of Redstone’s holiday record, as confirmed requests are logged directly onto the system, altering employees’ remaining leave entitlement based on how many days they have successfully booked off.
Staff can log onto the system at any point in time and see exactly how many days they have left to take, while managers can quickly identify if people aren’t using their allowance, encouraging employees to take time off so they come back refreshed and more productive.
Gaining a clearer picture of who’s in and who’s off
By moving to WhosOff, Redstone is able to track other types of absence alongside annual leave, for a comprehensive picture of exactly where the team is at any point in time.
The company now records sick leave through the WhosOff platform, while staff can also note if they are working from home or they’re out of the office at an external meeting – something that happens often in the world of recruitment.
"Our staff can access WhosOff via its mobile app, so they can update their movements even when they’re not physically in the office,” Jordan explains. “It’s really easy to add new employees to the app, so we can track holiday and other types of leave effectively as our company grows."In addition to making internal communications smoother, recording all external commitments through a central system makes it easier for staff to locate key people if clients have urgent requests or queries.
An instant success with future potential
From the moment WhosOff launched, it has been a roaring success within Redstone Search Group, and the company believes the platform can grow and evolve with its business.
"WhosOff is so much better than recording holiday on a spreadsheet, shown by fact thatour staff picked up the system instantly,” Jordan concludes. “If you’re a company thinkingof moving to an online holiday planner like WhosOff, I’d advise you to do it sooner ratherthan later!"Feedback provided by: Jordan Lewis (Director)
https://www.redstonecommoditysearch.com
https://www.redstoneprivatebanking.com
Date: 17th March 2020
