TECHNOLOGY
Pushing boundaries using technology in the hospitality industry
Jon Dawson, chief people officer, Lore Group, explains how the organisation moved its people data systems forward, discussing the positive impacts of this
I n 2023, Lore Group became the first international hotel group globally to consolidate all our people data into one system across the entire ‘hire to retire’ employee journey. This means all of Lore’s 1,300+ employees now have easy access to all people data in one system, no matter which country they operate or work in. The project was fully completed in May 2023 and was both critical and complex, requiring intense planning, execution and co- ordination. In many ways, we’ve been able to create a dream scenario for any chief people officer / chief financial officer by having one source of true data for all our employee information, enabling us to now make more effective business decisions. This article aims to outline the story of how we moved our systems forward and how our initiative has positively impacted our employees, as Lore Group strives to expand and evolve. Here’s the background info… As a bit of background, Lore Group is an international hospitality company which designs, transforms, manages and operates hotel / food and drink concepts in notable cities across Europe and the United States (US). Thoughtful design, intuitive service and our people are at the core of everything the group does. As part of the initiative for implementation, our aim was to move 22 historic different systems across three countries into one
global leading system, all within 18 months! The suite of systems / services we use and moved includes: l human capital management (HCM) l payroll l benefits l time tracking l scheduling l labour optimization l absence management l learning l talent l recruitment l employee engagement. As a relatively new group within the hospitality industry (having begun as a set of independent hotels), in 2018, Lore Group was officially formed with the long-term vision to own, grow and operate individual luxury lifestyle hotels. Historically, as a set of independent hotels, each site would locally select and implement technology systems bespoke to the property and country. However, as the group evolved and increased in size, combined with our future growth aspirations, a wider operational change was necessary. This change was essential for the group to grow further and faster, with a large portion of the change centered around people and people systems. The project was originally initiated in response to the growing need for a streamlined and integrated human resource (HR) and payroll system. The group chief
executive officer, David Taylor and I had the desire to have a ‘best in class’ approach and push the boundaries in both the hospitality and technology spaces. We recognised during Covid that the multiple people and payroll systems in use across the group weren’t equipped to handle the current or future demands of the workplace, nor the projected growth plans we have for the long term. We began the project by seeking feedback and conducting interviews across the group with managers and employees, to establish what was needed from a new system and how this could positively impact operations to allow our teams to be more guest-focussed. A standout response was the desire from our people as part of the initial research to have ‘everything within a single system and accessible within a mobile app’. Following further detailed internal stakeholder analysis and after careful consideration through a comprehensive request for proposal and research process, the decision was made to implement a leading cloud-based platform solution. Once the solution was chosen, a project team was established for the 18-month implementation project. The team was comprised of Andy Simpson (from Team Wheel) who would be the project manager, plus HR, IT, finance and payroll professionals from within Lore Group, who all brought a wealth of knowledge and experience to the project team. This team worked closely with the systems implementation experts to
| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward | April 2024 | Issue 99 48
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