Hill Dickinson LLP

International law firm Hill Dickinson LLP was founded in 1810 in Liverpool as a leading maritime law firm. Over the decades, the firm has continued to distinguish itself and has grown to be recognised for its expertise in 4 main areas of practice: insurance, corporate, health and marine.

The story

Hill Dickinson LLP has offices in Liverpool, Manchester, London, Chester, Sheffield, Piraeus and Singapore. The current practice has evolved with a series of mergers and now employs over 1,400 people with over 170 partners. 

Industry	Law practice
Geographic	International
Employees	1400+
Solution	SelectHR
Modules	Appraisals Training Health & Safety Earnie payroll

"We are an ambitious law firm, and our people are the key to achieving our goals," says Andrew Rushworth, director of human resources. "It's the mix of skills, experience and perspective they bring that drives the firm forward." 

With this in mind, Hill Dickinson has made human resources a cornerstone of their business philosophy and managing its employees is paramount to its success. In addition to Andrew, the current HR set up includes a learning and development team, a recruitment team and a generalist HR team - 20 people in total.

The challenge

Hill Dickinson wanted to record and monitor personnel data in a more efficient and cost-effective way. Records were held on spreadsheets and within a small database, but there was little or no reporting available. This made collating information on staff difficult and unreliable. Hill Dickinson invited three companies to demonstrate their solutions to the IT and HR teams. 

"We chose SelectHR for its ability to create bespoke reports easily, and because it could automate our work processes," says Jane Walker, HR systems and benefits analyst. "Pricing was also crucial to us, and SelectHR offered the best product at the best price."

"We chose SelectHR because of the many work processes we could automate and the ability to create bespoke reports easily and quickly, giving real-time information that was accurate," says Jane. "Pricing was also crucial to us and SelectHR offered the best product at the best price!"

The results

"SelectHR certainly makes the service our HR department provides much better," says Jane.

Online appraisals reduces admin burden

Managing paper appraisals for over 1,400 employees was challenging for the firm's HR department. "All the appraisals had to be returned and filed. We would receive some, and then months later more were sent in," says Jane. "Before SelectHR, it used to take longer to complete the appraisals. Now everything is done online, so it's easier to manage the admin side of it."

Because SelectHR is fully configurable, Jane is able to adjust and change their appraisal's format. This functionality has allowed the HR department to customise its appraisals for the different groups of staff.

"The appraisals are then saved in the system. Staff can access their appraisal form throughout the year to see what their objectives are and what they're aiming for," she said.

Replaces spreadsheets, reduces errors

With the workflow functionality in SelectHR, Hill Dickinson has been able to automate its HR processes. "We've set up automatic emails as reminders instead of storing information on spreadsheets," says Jane. "It tidies up the way we process things, and storing the data in SelectHR has made a positive impact on our business."

For example, Jane created a process to monitor employees' proof of eligibility to work in the UK. She simply added a field to the employee screen to list a person's passport expiry date. She then setup a workflow to email the HR department three months before the expiry date.

"SelectHR removed the human error of missing things and eliminated the need to keep checking a spreadsheet," says Jane.

Hill Dickinson can store and access a variety of HR-related information in SelectHR. "We know if employees are on a Hill Dickinson course, or if they're attending an employer-funded college course once a week," she explains. "Our health and safety team have access to that particular section on the system, which makes it quite useful because our employee data is centrally stored."

Easier to choose how information is presented

As Jane explains, it's easier to capture information specific to the law firm with SelectHR.

"By moving stuff around and creating separate tabs under the employee screen, we can record information as we want it," she said. "Having the ability to quickly add a new field in, and then run a report on it is amazing."

Quick and easy reporting

Using the system's report writer, Jane is able to run turnover reports by business groups within the company and then by staff categories.

"I can tweak the reports to make them fit what the business requires. We've set up a generic suite of reports so people can look there, run the report and send them off to the other parts of the business. It's simple; we can publish reports whenever we want," says Jane.

The strong reporting functionality allowed the firm to be more effective with its business continuity report. This report is particularly important to Hill Dickinson as it uses this information in case of an emergency over the weekend.

"The report lists all our staff and their contact details. We run the report every Friday, export it to Excel and send it to our relevant people," says Jane. "I can instantly get the information I need. I used to have several different reports, but SelectHR brings it all together in one."

The future

Access' consultants recently customised an absence management workflow, which automates all absences, returns to work and absence review meetings for the HR department.

"We were spending so much time inputting information in a spreadsheet and the system," says Jane. "This workflow will take a massive burden off the person who currently processes this. Our absence management will definitely improve."

Hill Dickinson has plans to automate reviews for new starters and training solicitors. "At the moment, they're paper based, and we're interested in getting them online like an appraisal," she said.

Summary

"SelectHR has certainly improved our ability to help the business in terms of providing information, accurate reporting and up to date data about appraisals completed and managers requesting holiday," says Jane.

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