Wellington Phoenix FC

Wellington Phoenix FC has come a long way since it was founded in 2007. Today, it’s Aotearoa New Zealand’s most prominent professional football club, with A-League Men’s and Women’s teams and League leading Academy program that has developed over 150 New Zealand Internationals.

But while the club was making big moves on the field, its internal operations were still playing catch-up. We sat down with Lily Alfed, Community & Culture Officer and Tom Shaw, Head of Commercial to get to the bottom of the change.

“When I joined four years ago, we had about 40 staff and very manual systems,” says Tom. “There was no real consistency across departments, and onboarding in particular was quite ad hoc.”

As the club grew, so did the complexity of its people operations. Coaching teams, contractors, administrators and new starters were all being brought into the club, but without a unified system and it wasn’t reflective of the world leading approach we have to all things on and off the field.

“We really didn’t have a centralised HR function,” adds Lily. “Each department managed onboarding differently, and that meant the experience varied a lot. We wanted something more professional and consistent.”

That’s when the club turned to ELMO.

One of the first wins for Wellington Phoenix was onboarding. “Now everyone who joins the club has a clean, professional onboarding experience,” says Lily. “They feel welcomed and thought about, before they even step foot in the office.”

That kind of structure and consistency was missing before ELMO. “Having a consistent system for onboarding has set the tone early,” says Tom. “We can embed our culture and purpose right from the start.”

That same consistency now flows through to the way staff access policies and documents. “It sounds simple, but it’s been a huge win,” Lily explains. “We used to have policies scattered across folders and drives. Now, everyone knows exactly where to go.

Wellington Phoenix FCs admin has also experienced a dramatic reduction and simplification. “Even something seemingly simple like collecting apparel sizes for department kits used to be a manual, time-consuming job,” Lily laughs. “Now we send out a form in ELMO and it’s done in minutes. No more chasing people one by one.”

Most importantly for Wellington Phoenix FC, ELMO is helping the club tangibly live its values. “We talk a lot about being bold, world-leading, and connected,” says Tom. “That doesn’t stop with our players on the field, it needs to be present in all facets of the Wellington Phoenix FC”.

“Honestly, we wish we’d done this sooner,” Tom says. “ELMO has helped bring our people operations up to the same world-class standard we expect from everything else in the club.”