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My Muscle Chef

How My Muscle Chef Cut Onboarding Paperwork by 70% with ELMO’s HR Solutions.

The challenges

Paper-based processes for recruitment, onboarding and leave management.

Labour-intensive requisition and screening methods.

Lengthy and inconsistent onboarding experience for new hires.

Lack of performance management processes to align key priorities.

“Being a very lean team meant that running every piece of paper across management’s desk was too time consuming. We needed help to match our HR capacity with our rapid growth.”
Liz Short
Chief People Officer at My Muscle Chef
My Muscle Chef is all about offering smart nutrition that enables you to feel your best. Since starting in 2013 with the vision of creating fresh high protein ready-made meals for those who want to eat well while leading a busy lifestyle, My Muscle Chef has helped millions hit their fitness goals and feel healthier inside and out.

My Muscle Chef now has around 600 employees with roles spanning across food production, distribution, sales, marketing and operations. The company produces and distributes over 2.2 million meals, snacks, and drinks each month, both directly to consumers and via a network of over 6,000 retail stockists.

But as the young company began to mature and scale up, their operational processes needed to evolve to keep pace.

Liz Short, Chief People Officer at My Muscle Chef, recalls the labour-intensive nature of their manual HR processes and the mountains of paperwork faced by her team.

That paperwork included all people management and requisitions, combined with a recruitment process that saw every job application going to one inbox. The processing time was a huge drain for her HR team, particularly when they had multiple jobs advertised. Liz estimates that it would take days to scour through all of the applications.

“Being a very lean team meant that running every piece of paper across management’s desk was too time consuming,” Liz says. “We needed technology to help match our HR capacity with our rapid growth.”

Another pain point was performance management. “Nobody had KPIs or career plans in place,” says Liz. “It just wasn’t a process that existed.”

In the absence of structure, remuneration decisions weren’t linked to individual performance, and teams lacked the clarity and direction they needed to progress their careers.

As a fast-growing business, it was crucial to introduce a performance management framework and leverage the right technology to streamline the review process.

The solution

Choosing the right HR technology can be a daunting task, especially with many vendors on the market. But Liz says ELMO’s consultative sales process gave her team confidence in their choice.

“Our ELMO consultant was amazing, he took his time to guide us through the demos and discovery process to make sure the system was the right fit for us,” she says. “It gave my team comfort that things would become more efficient.”

ELMO’s HR Core centralised people management for My Muscle Chef’s 600-strong workforce, while Recruitment and Onboarding modules automated the journey for new hires. They also implemented Performance Management, Rostering Time & Attendance, Succession and Analytics, as well as transitioning onto ELMO Payroll.

Reflecting on their implementation experience, Liz praised the project management skills of their Implementation Consultant who ensured the project was on track and on time.

“In our weekly check ins, our consultant would give us clear direction on what we needed to do and by when. That kind of rigour around the implementation was the most helpful aspect to keep us on track.”

The benefits

Introduction of KPIs and regular performance reviews.

70% reduction in time spent on onboarding tasks.

Automated system reminders replaced chasing managers.

Lifted staff motivation with more time for professional skill development.

We are getting positive feedback from managers across the business that people feel they have more direction. They know why they’re turning up, they know what they have to achieve.
Liz Short
Chief People Officer at My Muscle Chef

The introduction of regular performance reviews has been one of the most significant benefits for the My Muscle Chef workforce, embedding a culture of goal setting and feedback that is consistent across all teams and departments.

No longer having to chase up managers, ELMO’s Performance Management module has streamlined the process with automated reminders and an easy-to-use interface.

“The system drives it all for you,” Liz says. “When it’s time for a check-in the system sends out a reminder to both managers and employees. When we’re busy and time-poor, those system reminders really help you stay on track.

“We are getting positive feedback from managers across the business that people feel they have more direction. They know why they’re turning up, they know what they have to achieve.”

Another stand-out area for Liz was the improved functionality the recruitment module gave them, reducing the time involved from days to hours.

“We advertised a logistics coordinator role, and got over 200 applications,” she says. “If we had to go through the inbox and read every single CV and decide who to interview it would have taken two days, but with ELMO, it took about three hours and enabled us to secure talent quicker ”

Liz credits the efficiency to the platform’s filtering options, and the ability to move candidates along the pipeline and create shortlists. The integrated Onboarding module has also reduced the time spent on new hire tasks, as well as providing a better experience for candidates.

Once the modules were implemented, the workload relief was swift.

“If I were going to put a number on it, I would say that using ELMO has resulted in around a 70% reduction in the time spent on admin tasks, particularly onboarding which was heavily paper based”, says Liz.

Automation has significantly reduced the paperwork for Liz and her team, freeing up more time for skill development and learning.

“When you’re stuck doing mostly admin, you’re not learning anything new,” says Liz. “Now I’ve got my staff doing resume screening, the initial phone calls to potential new employees. Learning these new skills will help them become the HR professionals they want to be. They’re more motivated, they’re picking up the new system and running with it, so it’s great.”

For My Muscle Chef, the high functionality and flexibility in the ELMO platforms, and their consultant’s guidance have reshaped major elements of their HR department.

The time banked has opened them to more impactful staff engagement, and for management, bonus time allows them to focus on steering the company into their next growth phase.

Find out how ELMO Software can help transform your HR processes today.

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