How Garsons Garden Centre are Blossoming Efficiency…
Branching out communications with Read & Sign
Garsons, an award-winning garden centre, farm shop and restaurant, faced challenges in managing document compliance and capturing staff acknowledgement efficiently.
Operating in Esher, Surrey and Titchfield, Hampshire, Garsons has 200 staff on individual timetables, and manages over 150 different documents.
How did Garsons Communicate before?
Garsons previously used software to publish company documents, but it was an additional feature which wasn’t designed for compliance purposes.
Documents and signatures were distributed and obtained manually and proved to be laboursome for the administrative team, consuming up to 16 staff-hours a week.
What were Garsons’ challenges?
With a diverse workforce of 200 staff members and over 150 different documents to manage, the process became challenging to administer.
Additionally, Garsons faced difficulties in accurately tracking who had signed which documents and when, hindering their compliance efforts.
Resource constraints also meant they were unable to deploy a means to test employee understanding before acknowledging documents. This made the activity feel more like a box-ticking exercise rather than an accountability and compliance exercise, according to Chris Tourell, the Operations Development Manager for Garsons.
Distribute notices and ensure your staff are always up to date with the latest information.
Implementation: Why Read & Sign?
Garsons chose Read & Sign as a replacement for the previous process, bringing the whole operation into one purpose-built platform.
The decision to adopt Read & Sign was influenced by a few factors.
Speaking to Chris Tourell, he said that Read & Sign “specifically dealt with document compliance in the way that we envisaged.”
“Major plus for us is the ability to devolve responsibility to Group Leaders to chase their staff and manage their compliance.”
Read & Sign allows you to spread the workload with different role profiles and privileged based access. This means managers can take ownership of their teams and ensure compliance on a departmental / group level.
As Garsons required a solution for all staff across all departments and levels, this enables them to manage their documents and compliance more effectively.
At least 30-40% time savings
Chris Tourell | Garsons Operations Development Manager
How successful was Read & Sign?
Since implementing Read & Sign, Garsons has experienced significant improvements in their document compliance and overall operational efficiency.
Over the course of 6 months, the software has been adopted by every member of staff. Used for Health and Safety documents, as well as policies and procedures, information is now appropriately distributed to groups of staff on a calendared basis, for timely delivery and acknowledgement.
Reduced admin costs by 50%
Chris Tourell | Garsons Operations Development Manager
“Registration was straightforward for most people and all staff registered as required. Admin dashboard is a very useful feature with recent improvements making information even easier to access”, says Chris.
Talking about their success, Chris estimated a massive 50% reduction in admin costs and 30-40% time saving.
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