Linc Cymru Case Study: Working side by side to transform their employee experience

Working side by side to transform Linc Cymru’s employee experience

Case Studies | 1 March 2023

Established in 2004, Linc Cymru is a Housing Association and Care provider headquartered in Wales.

With nine sheltered accommodation sites across Wales, Linc Cymru strives to create an environment for people to flourish. Through its homes and environments, Linc Cymru contributes to improving its clients’ quality of life. Linc Cymru also has three Not for Profit purpose-built nursing homes, working with local authorities and the NHS to address the needs of the UK’s ageing population.

The Challenge

End user dissatisfaction and limitations

The frustrating inadequacies of Linc Cymru’s incumbent Human Resources (HR) and payroll solution escalated its need for a new solution. With approximately 750 system users Linc Cymru recognised that its existing HR solution limited its reporting capability, causing a lack of insight and creating barriers to informed decision-making.

Another frustration arising from the system was that whenever changes or software updates were required, the HR team were unable to do these directly and had to rely on the solution provider to action, which was both time-consuming and costly.

Lastly, the system was not fit for purpose with legacy and avoidable problems being encountered. These included manual spreadsheets, paper holiday submissions, a lack of employee self-service functionality and time-consuming workflows. For example, employees were submitting holiday requests manually via email. As a result, Linc Cymru had experienced unexpected vital staff shortages because of missing holiday requests that lay unread in someone’s inbox for sign-off.

User dissatisfaction with the system was growing and reinforced the urgent need for change.

The Solution

A robust HR solution offering seamless integration across the business

Linc Cymru was looking for a robust HR solution it could mould into something that would work best for the business. Key priorities of the team at Linc Cymru were:

Implement an easy-to-use solution that could grow and adapt with the team
The creation of clean, streamlined processes
Reduce the risk of unnecessary errors
The creation of a solution that would be accessible and empower and engage all 750 employees.

It was also important the solution provided seamless integration with other platforms within the organisation. As existing users of Dynamics 365 CRM, Power Platform and SharePoint, Linc Cymru is focused on the Microsoft stack and therefore the obvious choice was to first explore Dynamics 365 Human Resources (Dynamics 365 HR).

Supporting its People to flourish

The team at Linc Cymru considered the implementation of Dynamics 365 HR as low code/no code and saw it as an opportunity for its own junior developers to build and learn the solution themselves. It was confident that this approach would also support the building of a knowledge base within the team and increase its overall abilities with the solution. However, Linc Cymru also acknowledged that the team needed a great partner to guide and support them throughout the process.

Linc Cymru approached its existing Microsoft partner to explore the Dynamics 365 HR implementation, however it was agreed that the partner’s expertise resided more with Dynamics CRM and Power Platform, and it did not have the right skillset to support the Dynamics 365 HR implementation. Microsoft introduced Linc Cymru to Telefónica Tech and it was immediately impressed with the organisation following initial conversations and response rates.

Incremental, but powerful steps towards go live

The implementation was approached in stages with half-day sessions scheduled throughout the project. Each session had a focus topic with Linc Cymru identifying, in advance, the areas that needed support.

Linc Cymru user feedback sessions helped identify areas where Telefónica Tech’s Dynamics 365 HR Consultant could provide further support and learnings. During these sessions, Telefónica Tech delivered a blend of advanced product training, advice on implementation best-practices, hands-on troubleshooting, as well as training and guidance on making best use of supporting technologies such as Power Apps and Power BI.

Peter Murphy, Senior Technology Manager, Linc Cymru said ”Incremental’s Senior Dynamics Consultant, Pete Rush, was heavily involved in the early discussions of our implementation of Dynamics 365 HR. He was open, transparent and honest about the Telefónica Tech team’s skillset and throughout every stage of our implementation process the level of engagement and the responsiveness from Pete and the entire team at Telefónica Tech was extraordinary”.

Discussing the project, Peter said “Incremental’s Senior Dynamics HR consultant, Pete Rush, is the best consultant we have ever worked with and as a group, Telefónica Tech has been outstanding.”

The Key Results

An exceptional and transformative partnership

Peter Murphy, Senior Technology Manager, Linc Cymru said “Our goal is to use Dynamics 365 Human Resources to develop a single source of human resource management data. We have a highly mobile workforce and with the help of Microsoft and Dynamics 365 Human Resources we can keep our people connected with each other and with the information they need. Manual processes will be automated and streamlined, increasing efficiencies and reducing the risk of human error”.

We are anticipating a very successful go-live of Linc Cymru’s Dynamics 365 HR in mid-2023, however the relationship established between Telefónica Tech and Linc Cymru has been one of the biggest success stories of the project.

Customer Quote

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“From the very first conversation with the team at Telefónica Tech I thought this was going to be a good partnership. I was wrong, this is an exceptional partnership. We look forward to continuing our relationship with future projects.”

Peter Murphy

Senior Technology Manager, Linc Cymru