Patterson Cheney

Before ELMO, HR at Patterson Cheney was almost entirely manual. Reporting came out of payroll and time-and-attendance systems. Everything lived in a multitude of spreadsheets. 

The data existed, but getting anything meaningful from it took hours, and by the time it was ready, it was already out of date. “I never knew what our exact headcount was today, at this very point in time,” Daniel shares.  

For an operation managing 950 people across multiple brands and sites, that lag wasn’t just inconvenient. It made timely, accurate business decisions nearly impossible. 

On top of the reporting problem, there was no standardised way to manage recruitment, onboarding, performance reviews, or learning. Each process was handled differently depending on the brand or site. Managers were buried in admin work and new starters were falling through the cracks.

Once the decision was made, Patterson Cheney moved fast, working alongside StackPilot, ELMO’s implementation partner, who bridged the gap between what Daniel needed and how to build it inside ELMO.  

“StackPilot was a bit of a conduit,” he explains. “I was speaking in normal language, and they translated it into ELMO language. They had the time, expertise and the capability that allowed me to really get across my points and ensure that I could still complete my day-to-day tasks.” 

This three-way partnership enabled Patterson Cheney to go live with ELMO solutions across recruitment, onboarding, HR Core, performance management, learning management, and Insights in just three months. This was significantly quicker than most other providers could have delivered. 

Managers follow automated workflows for everything from job requisitions to new starter onboarding. Every new team member is automatically enrolled in compliance training, with annual refreshers built in and triggered without any manual intervention.

For managers, the shift was immediate. Where they had once been buried in paperwork, they now had a clear, guided process at every step, and a noticeable lift in confidence to match. ‘I feel like a more capable manager with ELMO,’ one told Daniel. It wasn’t an isolated reaction.

On the first day ELMO Insights went live, Daniel typed a simple question: show me the age breakdown of the entire workforce, in ten-year brackets. The answer that used to require an hour of formulas and cross-referencing across multiple spreadsheets came back in three to five seconds. Then he asked a follow up question: now show me for managers.

That was the big ‘oh wow’ moment he understood what had changed. It surfaced something that no amount of manual reporting had ever caught.

With ELMO Insights, he discovered that 27 of them (nearly a third) were between the ages of 50 and 60. It was the first time he’d ever been able to ask that question, let alone see the answer. A simple question, asked purely out of interest, but the answer was significant. 

“Those managers should be thinking about their retirement plans, and that means we should be thinking about their succession plans,” Daniel adds. “Are our 2ICs good enough? Where do we need people now to make sure that when that manager slows down or retires, their people are ready? Are we transferring the knowledge appropriately?”

The ELMO Insights dashboard now gives him a live view of what he needs, all in one place, all in real-time. From headcount, tenure, turnover by department, gender split, recruitment pipeline, time to fill, to overdue appraisals, and learning compliance — the list goes on.

Reporting that used to take hours now takes seconds. And when it comes to presenting that data to leadership, Daniel no longer has to manually create Powerpoint decks. He can skip this step and present it directly from the ELMO platform. “When I get to the graphs, I don’t need to put it into a presentation. I don’t need to copy and paste anymore. I can just click one button and it’s there, ready to go.”

Patterson Cheney is still in its first year with ELMO, but Daniel already has a clear roadmap ahead. 

A part of that roadmap is a structured learning package for new and promoted managers in development, covering compliance, process training, and system onboarding. Police check integrations are in progress.

They have also joined the beta program for ELMO’s new Employment checks feature which is powered by our partner, Referoo. This will enable Daniel and his team to request a range of employment checks like Right to Work, Police and Reference checks directly within ELMO Recruitment, making building a compliant workforce easier and quicker. 

“It’s all about efficiency,” he shares. “The more we can use the system as one whole system, the better. For us, it’s all about one point of truth, and prior to ELMO we didn’t have that.” That philosophy, one platform rather than a patchwork of tools, is what shapes every decision Daniel makes about where to take HR next at Patterson Cheney. 

For HR leaders considering a similar move, Daniel’s advice is straightforward. “Look at providers that are transparent in what they’re doing. Talk to references. Find out what the good, bad, and ugly looks like. And if you’re using Excel for your HR reporting, you need to get rid of it and use Insights. It’s that simple.”