Success story:
Livv Housing Group

Livv Housing Group is an independent housing association, providing affordable, quality homes for around 25,000 people, through over 13,000 homes across Liverpool City Region and the Northwest.

With over 480 employees, Livv Housing provides apprenticeships, training, health, and local projects to build flourishing communities.

In 2020, Livv Housing won the Best Employee Engagement Strategy at the HR Excellence Awards.

Livv Housing had been with its previous HR and payroll software provider for several years which still required manual and timely intervention from employees across the company.

The limited flexibility and self-serve capabilities with the previous software proved challenging with Livv Housing’s variety workforce, and the 40% of staff who worked remotely in customer’s homes.

“Our previous system didn’t meet these requirements, or our needs, and there was still a lot of manual and paper processing. The self-service capability was outdated, not intuitive and had a poor user experience,” says Guy Corbett, Director of Business Improvement at Livv Housing Group.

The manual processes that the HR team were still needing to do day-to-day were causing delays, which wasn’t ideal with the ever-changing world of work.

Livv Housing went through a tender process with the incumbent vendor, another software provider, and Access PeopleXD to discover which HR and payroll solution would best meet the needs of the business, based on key criteria.

The main driver for this project was to reduce the labour-intensive tasks that the HR team were undertaking, so they could re-prioritise their time to spend on value-add activities.

To achieve this, Livv Housing sought a HR and payroll solution that could:

• Automate HR and payroll tasks to make processes quicker and more efficient,
• Bring its functions together to provide one source of truth for all HR data and analytics, as previously this information was held in a variety of discrete systems,
• Enable employees with self-serve capabilities available on any device to cater for inhouse and remote staff, whilst limiting the manual intervention from the HR department.

In June 2021, Livv Housing thoroughly vetted three different vendors, including the incumbent and Access PeopleXD, in a lengthy tender process.

As part of their research, the HR team recognised that Access PeopleXD could be used to develop workflows and automate a significant number of HR and payroll processes.

“Access PeopleXD immediately stood out to us. The software had capabilities that we liked, which the other solutions couldn’t offer. We also liked that there are a wide range of modules within PeopleXD, so we can develop a clear roadmap to potentially take on more capability in the future,” says Guy.

Access PeopleXD was selected as the HR software of choice, as it met all of Livv Housing’s key criteria, as well as provides opportunities for growth, scalability and flexibility to adapt to its business’ needs and requirements.

“One of the deciding factors was the Access PeopleXD mobile app. It was more advanced in comparison to the others. It’s user friendly, has a great interface, and we knew instantly that rolling out the mobile app out across the business would be hugely successful,” says Guy.

The Access PeopleXD mobile app allows employees to access and update their own HR data and request leave, etc – functionality that the previous software couldn’t offer. This allows the ~40% of remote employees working in customer homes with the ability to carry out HR activities on the go from wherever they may be.

Livv Housing went live with the Access PeopleXD People Management and Payroll modules in March/April 2022. The Expense module went live in November 2022.

Since implementing Access PeopleXD, Livv Housing has been able to automate a significant amount of HR and payroll processes, such as booking annual leave, and absence notifications.

Prior to using Access PeopleXD, employees would have a leave card, which was completed, sent to their manager, authorised and then added to the system manually. The HR team then had to manually check all leave requests were up to date at the end of each month.

Now, the request-approval is automatically updated in Access PeopleXD. All absences are in one place and in real time, creating seamless functionality.

“Since using Access PeopleXD, we’ve been able to unlock our team’s potential, as well as future-proof the organisation. We’ve reduced the administrative burden on the HR team, so their time can be freed up and dedicated to more strategic and meaningful HR activity to help the business meet our longer-term goals,” says Guy.

Access PeopleXD provides employees with a greater user experience and interface to empower self-service capabilities. Employees can now access their HR and payroll data, request holidays, view policies, edit their details, etc – all at any time, from any location, on any device via the Access PeopleXD mobile app.

From a business perspective, this HR self-service capability has reduced queries and admin tasks within the HR department, to allow the team to refocus their time on more meaningful activities.

The HR team can also store all their employee and HR information on one, intuitive and accessible unified platform. This has provided managers with better, real-time data and insight from a single source of truth to ensure Livv Housing can respond quickly to industry challenges and any changes in employment.

“Since our initial interaction, Access PeopleXD met – and has continued to meet and exceed – all our business’ needs and expectations, which is why we have further invested in Access People’s technology,” says Guy.

Livv Housing selected Access PeopleXD’s cloud-based, in-house Payroll module to:   

• Automate payroll to save time and mitigate risk,
• Improve payroll accuracy and efficiency,
• Empower employees to access their online payslips whenever and wherever they like,
• Provide the HR team with access to intelligent payroll reports,
• Avoid potential overpayments in periods of sickness and absence,
• Ensure data safety and compliance with GDPR reporting.

As the Payroll module integrates with the wider Access PeopleXD suite, Livv Housing are no longer required to manually input data multiple times, which avoids data duplication to achieve a single source of truth.

With the Payroll automation, Livv Housing can now automate task notifications, schedule reminders and configurable personal tasks, like reminders to generate P45s.

“The Expenses module has enabled our ~150 remote employees, and ~100 who claim semi-regular expenses, to self-serve. Expenses are easier and quicker to upload receipts and submit in PeopleXD. As a business, we have a real-time overview of the overtime submitted to enable us to track and control spending,” says Guy.

Via the mobile app, employees can:

• Complete and submit all types of expenses, including fuel card related expenses for those remote employees,
• Capture paper and e-receipts digitally for quick and easy paperless processing,
• Review up to date spend with fast and automated payment reporting and analytics.

More recently, Livv Housing revisited how its brand was perceived externally from a potential future employer perspective. The HR team also looked at the employee experience during the recruitment and onboarding process.

“The recruitment and onboarding process is vital in ensuring we are represented in the best way, as this is the introduction that potential future employees have to our brand as an employer. We can tailor Access PeopleXD’s Recruitment module to look and feel part of Livv Housing,” says Guy.

With Access PeopleXD Recruitment software, Livv Housing can create a bespoke web presence for candidates with a career’s website and portal to help identify, attract, and hire top talent.

“We’ve automated numerous labour-intensive tasks and created a seamless and streamlined process. We have also been able to move away from paper-based documents and lengthy email chains to flourish in the digital space,” concludes Guy.

Livv Housing is in project with the Recruitment module, expected to go live in Spring 2023.

The Access Group's HCM division, Access People, offer an unrivalled suite of solutions for businesses, including HR and Payroll, Absence Management, Workforce Management, Compliance, Recruitment, Talent, Learning, Employee Benefits and Engagement, Health & Safety, all of which are underpinned by the powerful Access Workspace platform. 

The Access Group is one of the leading providers of business management software to small and mid-sized organisations in the UK, Ireland, and Asia Pacific. We help over 100,000 customers across commercial and not-for-profit sectors become more productive and efficient.