Melbourne Racing Club (MRC) operates 60 race meetings annually, accounting for almost 50 percent of metropolitan racing in Melbourne, along with numerous functions and events through its commercial operations. The club employs up to 2000 staff during peak racing season, and staff are split between two Tabarets, catering and events operations, and ground staff. A large number of the staff are casual, due to the seasonal nature of the club’s activities.

Searching for a solution

MRC was using a software solution to track staff time and attendance and interpret award conditions, however, it wasn’t interpreting awards accurately, and didn’t provide forecast reporting.  MRC was also using a phone-based rostering system which was time consuming and inefficient.

Another key area MRC needed better management of, was costing of employee hours. As staff were often working multiple combinations of events/departments/venues during the same shift, costing all hours to the appropriate cost centre was vital. MRC also had a short timeframe to implement a new solution as the support license for its current time and attendance provider was soon to expire.

Solution Outcome and Benefits

After a detailed and extensive product evaluation and quality assurance process, involving multiple vendors, RosterLive was selected as the solution suited to MRC’s identified requirements. During initial project meetings, RosterLive and MRC decided to phase the implementation process in several key stages:

1. Install of all biometric terminals
2. Implementation for  2 x Tabaret sites
3. Implementation for Operations (Catering & Events)
4. Implementation of Ground Staff   

This phased approach was carried out successfully at all stages to meet the tight time constraints of MRC. The success of the project was testament to the successful working partnership between RosterLive service delivery staff and the project team at MRC. MRC staff were very accommodating in providing the necessary documentation and assistance to allow for a smooth and timely implementation. The resulting solution provided MRC with the following new functionality and benefits:

• Tailored rostering solutions for each of the three main areas of the business
• Automated time and attendance data capture, and powerful award calculations
• Solution to allow shifts to be costed to multiple cost centres if applicable
• An online employee self service kiosk where staff could advise availability, reply back to offered shifts, view rosters ,view timesheets and update other personal information
• Complete integration of employee information and pre-calculated timesheet data with its payroll systems provider

New Payroll Systems Interface and Future Plans

MRC changed its payroll provider in 2010. RosterLive had originally configured an interface with its previous provider, and has now since successfully gone live with the interface to the new payroll system.

MRC has now taken ownership of a number of hotels and an additional racetrack, which it intends to roll out RosterLive at. This setup and rollout can largely be carried out by MRC, as users have been trained in this administrative capacity, with the assistance of RosterLive staff where necessary. 

Arlene Reid, Manager of Human Resources for Melbourne Racing Club went on to say “during our research for the upgrade of our rostering and time and attendance system, we found that the RosterLive system was the best suited to our business. 

Now, 2 years on, we still believe this to be the case. Whilst implementing any new system into a diverse organisational structure comes with its challenges, the team at RosterLive was responsive, helpful and provided intelligent and flexible solutions. The system has streamlined and improved the management of our rostered workforce, as well as being cost effective.”