The Budd Group delivers on demand payroll

We learned through the COVID-19 pandemic how much our society relies on essential workers. Frontline heroes in healthcare, retail, and transit kept us healthy, fed, and moving safely throughout lockdowns. But we often overlook the people who clean and maintain our offices, schools, and outdoor spaces. Many of these unsung heroes took on additional risks and responsibilities during the pandemic to help keep our environments free from the virus.

The Budd Group employs many of these behind-the-scenes essential workers. The family-owned facilities services company delivers high-quality janitorial, maintenance, and landscaping services to clients in ten southeastern U.S. states.

When the pandemic began, the Budd Group’s employees had to learn new protocols and provide quick-turnaround services to keep schools safe and help businesses reopen.

Providing high-quality services in a competitive market

The Budd Group was founded over 60 years ago in historic Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and grew to employ 5,000 people. Most employees are hourly full- and part-time frontline staff, while the rest are salaried managers and corporate office workers. The company has eight brick-and-mortar locations but, in an average week, its workforce is spread out at client locations across its footprint.

“The Budd Group strives to be a God-honoring, preferred employer. We're looking for employees who can work for us long-term,” says Justine Bowker, Director of Project Management. “We’re committed to employee development that helps people move up and become supervisors and managers. It's really important to us that we help our employees grow and prosper.”

While The Budd Group strives to do the best it can for employees, a highly competitive job market makes recruiting and employee retention challenging. The company competes for talent with the fast food and retail sectors and is always looking for ways to stand out. During the pandemic, The Budd Group paid close attention to how the lives of its employees changed, the new challenges they face, and the support they need.

Putting workforce management on center stage

Adopting Dayforce has been an important step in The Budd Group’s employee retention and engagement efforts. The company implemented the platform in 2019 to support a growth goal to double in size over seven years.

“We decided to partner with Dayforce in 2019 after an extensive search,” says Nancy Criscoe, Vice President of Organisational Development. “Before, we worked in several disparate systems, and we were doing a lot of manual duplicate and triplicate entries. Dayforce allowed us to move to one workforce management system, and operate from A to Z, from recruiting to a paycheck, in one system.”

The Budd Group is currently using Dayforce for payroll, benefits, workforce management, recruiting, onboarding, and learning. Implementing the platform helped centralise workforce data, eliminate time-consuming manual entries, and streamline HR functions.

The system has been a benefit to employees and managers, too. Before Dayforce, employees had to go to an office location to gain access to their data. The Dayforce mobile app gives them access to their employee data, schedules, time off requests and other information in the palm of their hands.

“I believe the greatest benefit of a cloud-based single solution like Dayforce is that it gives our employees the ability to control their data and their experience,” says Criscoe.

Specialty Service Manager Jasper Thomas says Dayforce is essential to him in his role. “It gives me the opportunity to track my employees’ schedules and what job they’re on, as well as their hours and earnings,” he says. “Dayforce makes my job extremely easy because it gives me the opportunity to have everything that I need right in front of me.”

An on demand payroll solution for today’s world

With Dayforce now supporting The Budd Group’s growth goals and employee engagement efforts, the company began to look for new ways to augment recruiting and employee retention.

The company knew some of its employees were constrained financially, especially when a surprise expense came along. Some employees would request payroll advances, which were inefficient to administer. Others relied on costly payday loans. The Budd Group was determined to find a better solution to this crucial challenge – enter Dayforce Wallet.

“When we first heard about Dayforce Wallet, it seemed too good to be true,” says Criscoe. “But as we researched, we saw that it was an easy way for us to add another layer of benefit for our great employees.”

Dayforce Wallet is a flexible pay solution for the modern workforce. The app allows employees to access the pay they’ve earned in real time, without adding complexity to payroll processing.

Dayforce Wallet was exactly the solution The Budd Group had been looking for. The company began by testing it at one location first in early 2021, and then continued the rollout to the rest of the workforce from there. “The implementation was quick and easy. Print a flyer, set up your payrolls, and rip the band-aid off,” describes Bowker. Employees also found it easy to set up and use. “As soon as we rolled it out, employees started processing on-demand payments.”

Nine months into using Dayforce Wallet, the company has more than 2,000 registered users and has funded $3.2 million in on demand payroll requests through almost 60,000 transactions.

“You might think that adopting Dayforce Wallet would impact our payroll process, but it simply hasn't. It is business as usual, with a new added benefit,” says Criscoe. “Through implementation, we were able to customise the tool to meet our needs and our employees' needs. And it has been adopted by our employees at a rate that I would never have projected.”

Dayforce Wallet has directly impacted The Budd Group’s recruiting and employee retention efforts. Since implementing Dayforce Wallet, the company’s 90-day attrition rate has decreased by 12%, and its time to hire has decreased by 31%.

The app has helped the payroll team, too: Employees are more mindful of punching in and out each day in order to gain access to their earned wages.

Dayforce Wallet makes the everyday easier

The Budd Group received overwhelmingly positive employee feedback on Dayforce Wallet. The company’s data shows that the most common use of the app and the Dayforce Prepaid Mastercard^® is for everyday purchases like groceries and gas. Dayforce Wallet provides employees with a financially smart, no-interest alternative to payday loans and high-interest credit cards. Accessing funds is as easy as a few taps – a transaction can be completed while standing in line at the grocery store.

“We live in a world where we expect ‘right now’. And Dayforce Wallet is ‘right now’,” says Thomas. “The speed of life is so fast today. We can do everything on our phone. Why wouldn't we be able to access our pay as soon as we clock out of work?”

The company says the product has already increased employee loyalty. One of the data points it’s now tracking is whether people who participate in the Dayforce Wallet program are more likely to stay with the company longer.

“You know you've done something right when your valued employees call you, email you, text you, take the time to thank you for giving them something that is so meaningful to them in their lives,” says Bowker.

Dayforce Wallet is also helping The Budd Group differentiate itself in an increasingly competitive recruiting environment by demonstrating commitment to values. “We advertise that we have daily pay [in our recruitment ads], and it’s something we're discussing with all of our new candidates,” says Bowker.

Powered for growth

As The Budd Group continues its growth trajectory, the company’s leaders are confident they have the tools to attract and retain top talent. In partnership with Dayforce, the company has the support and technology it needs to tackle many of the needs that may arise.

“If I had a crystal ball and knew what the future of payroll would look like, I think that it would look much like Dayforce Wallet. I believe that giving employee's access to their earnings when they need it, as they need it, is the future of payroll,” says Criscoe. “I've always admired Dayforce because they are progressive and many times are ahead of what the world is doing, through innovative solutions. We are fortunate that we get to take advantage of their solutions.”

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This Prepaid Mastercard® is issued by Prepaid Financial Services Limited pursuant to a license from Mastercard International Incorporated. Prepaid Financial Services Limited is authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority under the Electronic Money Regulations 2011, firm reference number 900036, for the issuance of electronic money and provision of payment services. Registered Office: 4th Floor, 35 Great St Helen’s, London, EC3A 6AP. Company Registration number: 06337638.