Hotelcare are the UK’s leading providers of outsourced housekeeping services. With over 30 years’ experience within the hospitality industry they provide the best in class services and staff from Room Attendants and Housekeepers through to Public Area Cleaners, Linen Porters and more.

Hotelcare pride themselves on providing consistently high-quality services and being the supplier of choice for top hotel chains, independently owned sites, and franchises across the UK. Servicing over 200 hotels their team of over 4,000 employees clean more than 30,000 rooms per day.

Requirement

As part of their commitment to delivering consistently reliable services, Hotelcare were looking to implement a new Time and Attendance (T&A) system across each of the site’s they service. Providing real time management visibility, the system needed to record the start and finish time of each worker to provide accurate time reporting and to streamline and support efficient payroll processes.

To achieve this, direct integration with Hotelcare’s core HR and Payroll was required. With staff working remotely, the system needed to be robust and accurate, providing individual authentication of clock in’s and clock outs as occasionally requested by Hotelcare’s clients. The accurate reporting data would also be required to highlight any areas for process and efficiency improvements as part of their ongoing commitment to raising standards and service levels.

Solution

Hotelcare required a future-proof and scalable solution, turning to T&A specialists TouchStar ATC to manage the process, from design and planning, through to training, initial installation, and support.  

TouchStar ATC implemented a full T&A system comprising of TouchStar’s in-house manufactured “Nohmad” hardware and “Fastlane” back office system. The Nohmad, which utilises biometric fingerprint technology, was selected to provide the most accurate authentication of each workers credentials across more than 200 sites. With each device connecting in real time to the TouchStar’s Fastlane back office, standardised API integration with Hotelcare’s core HR and Payroll systems would ensure accurate data reporting and management.

TouchStar worked closely with key training personnel at Hotelcare throughout the initial installations, this covered all areas including initial site survey, checking signal strength, identifying correct wall types through to the actual installation of the hardware. From this, TouchStar equipped Hotelcare with the expertise to undertake their own installations and help them overcome any challenges they may experience, such as tackling areas where signal strength may be weak.  

Results and Benefits

Hotelcare have now been using TouchStar’s T&A system for over 6 years. The scalability of the system has allowed them to easily add on and manage their hardware estate as their sites and clients continue to increase.

Hotelcare is a clear success story of how organisations are benefiting from biometrics in the T&A world.

Nicola Dimond, Director Compliance, Information & People comments, “The system has been hugely successful; it is simple to use and quick to deploy. Thanks to TouchStar, we have key members of our team that are fully trained and experienced in both installing and relocating hardware across all the sites we service, a simple process that only takes 30 minutes per device. The user friendliness of our system means we have the buy in of all team members and as a result we have seen both cost and efficiency benefits for both our HR and Payroll functions. With access to key data, we have confidence in the processes we have in place and have access to real time management data for both our portfolio of clients and to enable further process improvements.”

Since the installation, TouchStar T&A systems have continued to evolve, with the availability of “GeoConnectMe”, the in-house developed mobile phone app for remote locations. Further growth and development of both Fastlane and the portfolio of TouchStar T&A solutions has ensured that Hotelcare will continue to invest in a solution that will meet their needs both now and into the future.