Access Hospitality, a division of the Access Group, has brought a new software product to market to help address the challenge of staff retention within the hospitality sector. Access EarlyPay is a mobile app that changes the way hospitality staff receive their wages, giving them greater flexibility to draw down from pay they’ve accrued on demand, without impacting on normal business payroll processes.
Access EarlyPay integrates with time and attendance and payroll systems, showing employees what they’ve earned and how much they can draw, taking account of any necessary deductions. Limits can be set on drawings to help employees manage their own finances responsibly, but more effectively.
“We know that the hospitality sector faces a constant challenge in staff recruitment and retention, with a high turnover rate of three in ten workers leaving their role within a year” explained Henry Seddon, Managing Director of Access Hospitality. “This is double the UK average, with the situation predicted to worsen once the UK has left the European Union.
“Access Hospitality conducted a survey last year which highlighted that employee churn was a key concern for 26% of hospitality operators and two of the most common tactics they were using to minimise staff turnover were offering above minimum wage salaries (55%) and more shift flexibility (40%). The primary benefit of Access EarlyPay is that staff know they can get paid when they need it and that, if they take advantage of the flexibility to work additional hours, they’ll be able to take their earnings straight away.”
Access EarlyPay can be fully integrated with Access People for Hospitality, a simple end to end solution that covers all HR requirements through a self-service portal. It incorporates all HR requirements without the need to use separate systems and can be delivered through Access Workspace for Hospitality, with a single sign-on and intuitive dashboards that can be personalised to individual needs.
“The need to provide more flexibility in working arrangements continues to grow and the shrewdest operators will recognise that giving staff more autonomy over their experience at work will improve retention rates” added Seddon. “Providing them with the mobile tools to stay informed and manage their input in the way they want to, when they want to, is more engaging and fulfilling as well as effective. Access EarlyPay has been developed to empower staff to take more ownership of their own role, but for hospitality operators it can drive motivation and loyalty to help recruitment and retention of the best staff available and consequently improve trading results through a more productive workforce.”
The employee life-cycle in any business consists of six key stages – recruitment, onboarding, reward and benefits, performance, development and exit and Access People for Hospitality provides modules to manage all aspects of the employee experience simply and effectively. For recruitment, multi-site operations can stay ahead of needs and skills shortages by building their own talent pool, with a skills assessment optimising staff potential across different sites to fill competency gaps where required. Once appointed, the HR and Workforce Management solutions, including the new Access EarlyPay, ensure that an employee enjoys a seamless and satisfying work experience, with the tools to manage their work their way.
For more information and a demonstration of Access EarlyPay, please call 0845 345 3300 or visit https://www.theaccessgroup.com/earlypay/employers/
