10,000-Employee Restaurant Chain Leverages UKG Pro to Overcome Industry Challenges

July 13, 2022 , LOWELL, Mass., and WESTON, Fla.

UKG, a leading provider of HR, payroll, and workforce management solutions for all people, today announced that HOA Brands, the parent company of the Hooters & Hoots Wings restaurant concepts, is using UKG Pro to manage its complex workforce, enhance the employee experience, and improve communication at all levels of the company.

A Pro customer since 2000, HOA Brands recently optimized and expanded its use of the solution in order to drive greater business value and future growth.

“We have improved operational efficiency related to payroll, reporting, and compliance by using job codes in Pro,” said Cory Conrad, senior director of HR operations and compensation for HOA Brands. “With Pro, we can achieve an accurate payroll effortlessly, despite our combination of hourly employees, salaried employees, and employees who work multiple jobs in the same pay period. Pro also helps keep us aligned for employees who switch locations within a pay period, a common occurrence in this industry that is continually managing staffing challenges.”

While Pro is helping HR keep organization around its complex structure, the solution is also having a significant impact on the employee experience.

“We recently launched the UKG Pro mobile app, which has been a game changer,” said Conrad. “Employees are now able to complete their open enrollment through the app, eliminating our prior cumbersome process of having a manager enter each employee’s information into the system one at a time. Our hourly employees are using mobile to access their HR information to make address changes, revise direct deposit information, and update their W-4s.”

Conrad also reported success for the company from using UKG Pro Workforce Continuity through the app. “Our leadership team and our brand now have a direct line of communication to employees at every level. When we need to deliver information companywide or make a change in the field, we have a platform ready. We can also target specific types of employees for communication, or employees by geographic area. It’s a really powerful tool.”

Conrad credits the company’s progress with the solution, and the elevation of the employee experience, to support and partnership from UKG.

“There are levels to my relationship with UKG,” said Conrad. “For technical issues, I can reach out to customer support and get an answer quickly. For strategy and best practices, I have a knowledgeable and engaged account rep who is always one step ahead of me as we tailor Pro to our business needs. It’s been remarkable.”

“We have designed Pro to support the complex payroll and organizational needs of the restaurant industry,” said Chris Todd, CEO at UKG. “We are pleased to see how HOA brands is using the solution to adapt quickly to changing conditions, all while improving the employee experience.”

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About UKG

At UKG, our purpose is people. As strong believers in the power of culture and belonging as the secret to success, we champion great workplaces and build lifelong partnerships with our customers to show what’s possible when businesses invest in their people. Born from a historic merger that created one of the world’s leading HCM cloud companies, our Life-work Technology approach to HR, payroll, and workforce management solutions for all people helps more than 70,000 organizations around the globe and across every industry anticipate and adapt to their employees’ needs beyond just work. To learn more, visit ukg.com.

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