Reflex invests in new HR system to accommodate future growth

Reflex Group has invested in a new HR system aimed at modernising its people processes to facilitate its future growth strategy.

The Nottinghamshire-based company, which employs more than 700 staff across 18 sites in the UK and has an annual turnover of over £100m, is currently in the process of implementing the cloud-based iTrent system from supplier MHR, also based in Nottinghamshire.

Reflex will use iTrent to streamline and automate its core HR and payroll functions to drive efficiencies, enhance compliance and amplify critical workforce insight across the organisation.

The transition to the system will also see the firm embrace MHR’s Talent Check-In module, which allows organisations to replace annual appraisals with more frequent on-demand conversations about performance, job satisfaction and personal wellbeing.

Additionally, MHR’s Survey Builder module will provide the business with the flexibility to create customised questionnaires to gain real-time insight and feedback from employees to continually drive employee engagement.

Reflex Group HR and compliance director Paul Pollard said the group had outgrown its current payroll system due to its rapid growth in recent years.

“It has become increasingly clear that to meet our future business needs replacing the manual paper-based systems we have in place for the HR function was essential,” he said.

Chief executive Ian Kendall added: “This system is a great way of communicating with our staff, it’s an internal marketing tool and it does all of the payroll – it sorts everything out. It’s very impressive and streets ahead of everything else that we looked at. And MHR is local to where we are in Nottingham and is privately owned so it ticked a lot of boxes for us.

“With the best will in the world managers can’t always do everything that they should do with their team, so this system acts as a prompt and ensures that the things that should be being done are being done. And it’s a two-way thing as it allows the employees to have a portal into the business.

“This will also take care of a lot of the compliance issues that we have to do, for example it will notify individuals that their manual handling training needs to be done within a certain timeframe.

“Or if we have an employee that’s running their own vehicle but we’re paying the mileage, it will prompt them to send the latest insurance certificate, or to say their service is due.

“It’s across all areas – I think bringing it all into one place is the way that everybody has got to go.”

Earlier this year Reflex, which specialises in labels and flexible packaging, introduced a Company Share Option Plan (CSOP) for its employees. This followed its January acquisition of Grimsby-based Kingsway Printers.

In 2017 the business acquired in-mould specialist West Yorkshire Printing Company (WyPrint) and invested upwards of £9m on kit upgrades across its label division.