The Nashville Predators skate towards victory

From outside of the bustling Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee, you can hear the chants of thousands of fans roaring for the Nashville Predators, the official ice hockey team of Nashville and a force to be reckoned with.  

But hockey isn’t the only thing the Nashville Predators are known for. With a strong commitment to community, the Bridgestone Arena hosts concerts, sports, family shows, and much more, making it one of the busiest buildings in the world. 

“We're not just a hockey team. We are so much more than what's on the ice. We are so involved in the fabric of the city of Nashville, and we're so thankful for this community,” says Courtni Mosley, Senior Vice President of Human Resources. 

Today, the company oversees four entities encompassing sports and entertainment. And at the heart of these operations are over 1,000 staff members who are just as committed to serving their community.

Navigating a complex environment  

The Nashville Predators have a unique organizational structure and an agile workforce where employees perform different work assignments across multiple facilities and entities. Managing a workforce this complex can be challenging, and technology is crucial to maintaining operational order and efficiency.  

Before having a single employee record to consolidate each employee’s work assignments, schedules, pay rates, and other important information, employee data was scattered and required tedious reconciliation.  

“Before Dayforce, everything was clunky. We had multiple systems, things housed in different places, and not one solitary place to go to find information,” says Mosley.  

Navigating disparate employee records was also creating challenges for the payroll team, who had to manually track dual-entity employee schedules and pay rates, opening the door for errors.   

“Before Dayforce, our processes were very manual. We found that our payroll department was spending a lot of time doing things that should have been automated by the system,” says Heidi Bundren, Chief Legal Officer for the Nashville Predators and Bridgestone Arena.  

Plus, with fierce competition for talent, it was becoming critical to enhance the employee experience. “One of our biggest challenges being in Nashville is that the city is booming. We’re competing for talent, not just against other sports teams – it's beyond that,” says Mosley. 

The Nashville Predators needed a robust HCM solution that could consolidate workforce data and help reduce payroll complexities. That’s when the company turned to Dayforce.

Forming a power play with Dayforce   

After researching different HCM solutions, the Nashville Predators decided to partner with Dayforce in 2019. Today, the company uses Dayforce for HR, Benefits, Payroll, Time and Attendance, Recruiting, Onboarding, Performance, and Analytics.

A key differentiator between Dayforce and other systems is its capability to create a single employee record across multiple entities.  

“Dayforce was the only platform that could handle the complexity of a single employee record out of the competitors we looked at,” says Bundren.  

Today, with unified data access across the entire organization, the Nashville Predators have complete visibility and can be more efficient with reporting and strategic decisions.   

“Since Dayforce is a single system in the cloud, we're able to maintain all our data in one platform. This gives us quicker processing, and all different facets of the system really speak to each other very well and very quickly,” says Meredith Durbin, Senior Director of HRIS and Payroll.

Consolidating employee data  

Up until now, managing disconnected employee records was inefficient and time-consuming for the HR team. In the Nashville Predators' previous system, a separate employee record had to be created and managed under each legal entity the employee worked for. Today, workforce data is consolidated and connected across the entire organization, which has been a game changer. Now, all work activity is updated in real time and housed in a single record.  

“The benefit of having a single employee record is that we're able to maintain one record for every employee, regardless of how many entities they might be working in. So, we’re not having to rehire somebody into a different entity every time. We’re able to manage this cohesively in a single record, which allows us to maintain accurate information very easily,” says Durbin.  

The company has also seen improvements in scheduling, as managers are no longer burdened with so many manual processes.  

“We have people who work many different shifts under different entities. So Dayforce really helps us maintain that schedule of people ahead of time and ensure that their shifts are correct,” says Durbin. 

With centralized scheduling, managers can share employees across locations and roles. And with self-service features, workers can define their default availability and shift-trade directly from the Dayforce mobile app. This all adds up to streamlined scheduling processes and enhanced manager productivity.  

“Our managers are able to get up to 30% of their time back in a given week due to the automated processes within Dayforce,” says Durbin.

Scoring with unified pay and time 

With five different pay groups and both weekly and bi-weekly processing schedules, the Nashville Predators operate a complex payroll. But with a single platform that connects pay and time, the company has increased payroll efficiency, cutting down processing times from a few days to a few hours.   

“Dayforce has really helped us with our efficiency and overall payroll processing by allowing us to track our information very easily. We're able to calculate our payroll items in real time, so everything is continually updating, and we can easily import information if needed,” says Durbin. “In Dayforce, the timesheets flow directly over to payroll, so as long as everything is correct, we're able to very quickly fix any potential issues with payroll as well as process our normal weekly information.”  

Now with smooth data integration, the Nashville Predators use Dayforce to analyze time entered to help ensure employees are paid no matter where they punch in from. 

“Dayforce allows us to ensure employees are being paid at the correct rate, at the correct level, and allows us to track that very easily to ensure that their pay transfer is correct as well,” says Durbin.  

Plus, with continuous calculations and real-time data audits, the team can immediately address errors and minimize rework.   

“We're able to continuously calculate payroll at any given time. This has allowed us to manage any potential payroll errors, which we can fix immediately. It just really makes the overall processing period much smoother and faster,” says Durbin.

Tackling compliance 

As a professional sports team, players and staff are subject to local taxation in any state or county they visit, which requires diligent oversight. With access to a flexible and configurable rules engine that can help calculate pay and taxes across multiple jurisdictions, the company feels more confident about managing its compliance requirements.  

“Dayforce is able to give us peace of mind knowing that the system is able to help us easily track the correct taxation for all employees, as well as other legal compliance factors that go along with being a professional sports team,” says Durbin.  

Dayforce has also helped the Nashville Predators stay on top of labor laws by helping precisely track overtime for dual-entity employees, giving the payroll team valuable time back to keep the puck moving.  

“We can track overtime and do it accurately across our entities. So, compliance is no longer a worry. It's no longer keeping us up at night like it was pre-Dayforce,” says Mosley.

Building a winning team  

With a centralized solution in place, the Nashville Predators can focus on drafting the best talent. With Dayforce for Recruiting and Onboarding, the company is creating an engaging experience for new hires to help them feel connected more quickly.  

By eliminating tedious paperwork, new hires can conveniently complete onboarding forms and submit required information online, giving them more time to create connections.  

“Onboarding can be, for an employee, one of the most difficult times because it's just information overload. And the last thing we want to do is overload employees with paperwork,” says Mosley. “We get that all out of the way before the employee even walks in the door because it's done through Dayforce. So, when they come to see us, we can have a real, meaningful conversation with them instead of spending time walking them through paperwork step-by-step.” 

Plus, with AI-assisted tools, the company is reducing its time to hire. Now, applicant data is automatically screened and processed in the background. And with all candidate information in one place, it’s easier to make informed decisions.   

“Since implementing Dayforce, particularly the recruiting and onboarding modules, our onboarding time for employees has been reduced by approximately 75%,” says Mosley.

Skating the extra lap for employees  

When searching for new HCM technology, empowering employees with a tool to manage work-life balance was a key factor for the Nashville Predators.  

With the Dayforce mobile app, employees can manage time off, view schedules, and access earning statements at the touch of a button, reducing their dependency on the HR and payroll teams.  

“Changing systems is never easy, but our employees were excited about the mobile features Dayforce offers. It's so user-friendly, so easy to use. Instead of going to our HR department or payroll department and asking for information like with our prior system, employees can easily go into the Dayforce mobile app or log in to Dayforce on their desktop to find that information themselves,” says Bundren. 

The Dayforce mobile app has also been a hit with managers who can address employee requests faster with on-the-go technology. Now, managers can approve time off and authorize timesheets directly from their mobile devices, giving them valuable time back in their day.  

“Managers like it because it's easy to schedule and approve time off. Administrative tasks can be done easily from the mobile app – they don't have to sit at their desktop. We've just had tremendously positive feedback from our employees,” says Bundren.  

Plus, with built-in time capture features, employees can conveniently use the Dayforce mobile app on their phones to clock in and out and transfer to the correct role.  

“They're not waiting in line at a time clock. They're not sitting down, logging in to their computers, and having to wait until their computer is up and running to clock in and out. They do that all through their mobile app, which is right in their hands,” says Mosley.

Playing the long game  

With a modern HCM solution, the Nashville Predators are winning on and off the ice. After a successful implementation in just under three months, Bundren believes that Dayforce's expertise in professional sports and its ability to handle employee record management was the reason behind the success. 

“I would recommend Dayforce to colleagues, especially in professional sports. Dayforce has all the features that we need to run our organization. The single employee record is really critical. Its ease of use for our employees also is a game changer. We trust our partners at Dayforce, and it's been a successful partnership. Without hesitation, I would recommend Dayforce,” says Bundren. 

Mosley adds that winning valuable time back to focus on the business was what sold her on the platform. 

“We found the biggest return on investment with Dayforce to be in our ability to redistribute our time and resources elsewhere to focus on bigger projects,” says Mosley.  

As the organization looks ahead, it can continue to bring sports and entertainment to all corners of Nashville, knowing that Dayforce is cheering from the sidelines as a trusted partner.