Stephensons and Access EarlyPay Case Study
Stephensons is an award-winning, highly respected and nationally recognised law firm providing individuals, businesses and government organisations with a wide range of first-class legal services. Their philosophy is built around putting the lives and wellbeing of their clients and employees at the heart of their services.
SelectPay
EarlyPay
Why EarlyPay?
Already an esteemed customer of The Access Group using SelectPay for their payroll management, Stephensons started their on-demand pay journey when the EarlyPay team reached out to offer them the add-on module which integrates with their payroll product. The Finance Director was on board and so the journey began!
Companies offering on-demand pay are likely to see an increase in both staff retention, and recruitment as employees are keen to have access to their accrued pay before their scheduled payroll date. The current economic crisis is only increasing the interest in on-demand pay.
It was a huge win for Stephensons to be able to offer a financial wellbeing product seamlessly to their employees, with the information automatically pulled through their payroll.
“With us already using SelectPay, Access EarlyPay had access to all of the employee data automatically. No manual work required.” Carrie Smith - Payroll Executive, Stephensons
Onboarding success!
Software projects can take a toll on businesses and those who are training how to use them. The great news is that Stephensons needed only a couple of hours with the EarlyPay onboarding team, to learn how to use the system and support portal. Access EarlyPay supplied them with editable templated communications to send to their employees to announce the availability of on-demand pay.
“We used the templated communications the EarlyPay team set up for us to send to our employees. We did change them a little bit, but the templates were great, it was all very straightforward. We were pleasantly surprised at the time at just how straightforward it was because it was a new product and we were expecting to have teething problems, but it was actually really smooth.” Carrie Smith - Payroll Executive, Stephensons
No time? No problem!
Not only was Access EarlyPay easy to set up, but it also requires very little continual admin, especially for those using integrated products such as SelectPay. When asked how much time is spent in the admin side of EarlyPay, Stephensons said they spend around an hour a month making amendments and checking everything is working correctly.
“Basically, I’m just going in and inviting new starters. We have a policy that if somebody is on long term sick, we would suspend them until they’re back in work. And we’ll temporarily suspend anyone who goes on maternity leave. That’s it really, I would guess it totals around an hour a month.“ Carrie Smith - Payroll Executive, Stephensons
Find out how on-demand pay can help you engage employees, boost productivity and improve retention
Hearing from Stephensons employees
We asked Stephensons whether they had any issues reported back from their employees who have been using EarlyPay. The only issue raised is a lost invitation, which happens in today’s packed email inboxes! This is simply a case of the admin/HR/payroll team member going into EarlyPay admin and re-sending an invitation to the employee.
Other feedback from their employees included:
- Super easy to use app
- Great that we can access pay 24 hours a day, no matter what*
- Great experience using the app. Recommended to colleagues
*With the exception of cutting off prior to the payroll date, which Stephensons communicate to their employees ahead of time, allowing any last minute drawdowns for those unexpected end-of-the-month bills.
Usage at Stephensons is really positive, with average drawdowns of £82, and only 2 average drawdowns per month per user, further fueling the need to offer this for those who need a top-up towards the end of the month.
Advocating on-demand pay
Being an early adopter to new technology can be daunting. With YouGov stating that over 40% of the UKs working population are a single paycheque away from severe financial difficulty, on-demand pay is becoming a go-to for employers to aid their workforce through financially difficult times, now more than ever.
When asked if they would recommend Access EarlyPay as an on-demand pay provider, Carrie Smith said:
“I would recommend Access EarlyPay. Especially if you’ve got an integrated payroll system that will feed straight through to it.”
Finally, when speaking with Louise Darlington, we asked for a summary of on-demand pay for Stephensons:
“Access EarlyPay allows 24 hour access to accrued salaries of our workforce, but with minimal administrative impacts on the business.“ Louise Darlington - Payroll Manager, Stephensons
