Bedford Group

Tim Wilson recalls how fragmented Bedford’s old HR processes were, telling us that “we used JobAdder for recruitment with a spreadsheet that went with it. Employment contracts were just Word documents. They were all manual. It was a huge drain on the business and our average time to hire was around eight weeks.”

At the same time, Bedford faced unique workforce complexities. With close to 900 supported employees with disabilities, line managers needed additional support and clarity.

As Tim explains, “helping managers look after a workforce of about a thousand people with a disability is tough. That is not a usual supervisor or manager gig, right? It’s a lot harder. You really do need some help and some upskilling.” Tim tells us he was looking to ELMO to relieve this managerial pressure.

Then there were the substantial cost pressures, which were recently exacerbated when the Bedford Group narrowly escaped insolvency with a state government fund injection. Creating a lean operation became paramount.

“We knew we had to get the cost out of the business and we now have a much leaner HR and admin team as well, Tim explains. “But in terms of making sure you still support the business, you have to do that in a responsible way. We felt we were in a much better position having ELMO than not having it.”

Tim tells us that the transition from manual to system driven processes has been a serious relief. “The feedback has all been really positive from everyone who uses it. It’s so much easier,” he says.

The numbers tell the story. Recruitment times have halved, and the business has maintained HR capacity despite seven team members leaving.

Thankfully, busy managers are also finding the system intuitive. As Tim explains, “It’s extremely easy to navigate. I know what I need to do when I get in there. It has all been very good.”

Reliable data has also been critical for NDIS compliance. Making sure information is accessible and auditable was essential.

“We needed more rigorous and reliable data”, Tim explains. “With ELMO we can look at why one area can hire in 28 days while another takes 56. We also needed clarity over education and compliance with NDIS regulations. The Learning Management system also helps us with certification because we can see exactly who did what courses and when.”

Looking ahead, Bedford plans to expand its use of ELMO across onboarding and reward and recognition. Tim also offered advice for other not-for-profits embarking on a similar journey.

“If you’re in the market and you are coming from a position where you don’t have anything or you have disparate ad hoc systems, ELMO is a really good step. It’s very user friendly, not just for end users but also for the back end. That’s more than half the battle.