HCM pain points for Leisure businesses — and tech solutions to remedy them

The Leisure industry: a snapshot 

“Work hard, play hard.” 

A mantra followed by workers from all around the world, who spend billions in hard-earned cash to enjoy themselves — getting away from the desk, tools, or whatever else keeps them locked in during the day. 

While definitions vary, this article uses “Leisure” as a blanket term for any business that falls into the following sub-categories:  

• Attractions (theme parks, tourist centres, zoos, galleries, and others) 

• Sports-related venues (gyms, aquatic centres, sports centres, and others) 

• Venues for kids and families (play centres) 

• Entertainment venues (cinemas, theatres, clubs) 

Leisure businesses are more than just fun-and-games — they are sizeable employers and major revenue generators for any market. The US Leisure & Hospitality sector currently employs 16.6 million people — and by 2033, 1 in 8 new jobs will be in the sector. In Australia, the sports and recreation sector alone contributed AUD 9 billion to the economy, while the UK leisure industry generates over GBP 200 billion annually. 

Introduction to HCM pain points for Leisure businesses 

In terms of human capital management (HCM), businesses in the Leisure industry face pain points akin to those experienced by those in Hospitality, Retail, and Events & Stadiums — high employee turnover, disengagement, lack of career development, and burnout. 

Another commonality shared by Leisure and the above industries is the imperative for a premium customer experience (CX) — and ensuring a positive employee experience is the key to doing so. Customers who walk away happy after interacting with your business and its employees are much more likely to return. 

Moreover, the success of Leisure businesses weighs largely on the state of the wider economy. Staffing requirements and patterns are correlated to consumer behaviour, spending patterns, and trends. Think of the school holidays, where play centres, zoos, and theatres hire holiday casuals to beef up their roster and keep up with demand. 

Fortunately, there are many avenues for Leisure businesses to optimise and plan their workforces for these peaks and troughs, as well as recruit, engage and retain staff — and one of the best ways to do so is through innovative HCM tech solutions.

Pain point #1: High staff turnover and a transient workforce 

The seasonal nature of employment in Leisure businesses often leads to high levels of employee turnover, as well as poor retention overall. As peak periods decline, businesses cut down on staff to reduce the burden of labour costs, which generally consume between 25%-35% of business revenue. This may reduce labour costs, but places extra stress on employees who can experience burnout due to increased workloads.  

Another intrinsic aspect of Leisure businesses is the temporary, ‘time-being’ nature of the work. Casual work is attractive for students, working visa holders, those unable or unwilling to work full-time, or younger people — until they seek something more stable, or with greater career development. For many, the intensity of the work is the final nail in the coffin. Long, late shifts on weekends and public holidays are only tolerable for so long. 

Plus, with newer generations like Gen Z laser-focused on flexible work arrangements, better work-life balance, and an increased focus on mental health, an employee’s decision to move on is simpler than ever.  

In response to these retention challenges, savvy employers are focusing on the EX and how they can bolster and position their employee value proposition (EVP). 

How Humanforce can enhance your EVP 

Employee Engagement 

The Humanforce Employee Engagement solution gives employees a voice. It enables HR and managers to create bespoke surveys to gather employee feedback so that proactive steps can be launched to retain people for longer. Managers can track happiness and wellbeing over the entire employee lifecycle and align wider teams around goals for better collaboration. 

Despite the transient nature of employees in Leisure businesses, checking in and ensuring they feel heard are essential parts of cultivating an engaged workforce. It can also lead to initiatives and programs that genuinely enhance the EX. 

Employee wellbeing (Benefits) 

According to Gallup, the number one way to prevent employee burnout is by making wellbeing a part of your culture — this includes providing the tools to help employees practice wellness and live healthier lives overall. 

The Humanforce Benefits suite, which includes a financial wellbeing app*, is a great way to alleviate financial stress by providing financial education, tools to budget and save money, cashback rewards for everyday purchases, and early access to pay. 

*Currently only available to Australian Humanforce customers.

Pain point #2: Skills shortages 

In general, Leisure businesses have no issue finding workers due to an abundance of people looking for casual employment. However, sourcing enough workers in time for peak periods is challenging. Retaining skilled workers at a more managerial or niche level can also be quite difficult, due to high levels of employee turnover. 

Without careful planning and appropriate forecasting, managers may find themselves cutting too many staff in response to seasonal demand troughs. If these cuts are too aggressive, they can leave employers scrambling to find talent when demand increases – or it may place stress on existing staff to fill the gaps in rosters.  

How Humanforce can help find suitable talent 

Talent  

Given the fluctuations in staffing requirements for Leisure businesses, having access to a pool of pre-qualified candidates that can be called up on-demand is invaluable. 

The Humanforce Talent Suite is an all-in-one talent acquisition platform that pools pre-qualified candidates, contractors, internal staff and alumni into a single Talent Community. Managers can analyse demand forecasts and tap into the power of volume-based hiring, with the ability to contact the desired number of candidates for the job at hand.  

Each member of the Talent Community is given a profile complete with qualifications, achievements, preferences and work history. This reduces the time to hire and is a modern solution to contingent hiring — this being a real consideration for Leisure businesses needing to mass hire at short notice. 

The Talent Suite can also help build and reinforce your employer brand to stand out from the pack. Managers can create a career site that showcases their business’ culture with standout job listings, development opportunities, and wellbeing perks. The application process can also be enhanced with engaging visuals and content tailored to each role. 

Workforce Analytics 

One of the downsides of a transient workforce is a lack of consistency — and in an industry that prides itself on customer service, Leisure businesses must be able to track key KPIs and metrics to better optimise their workforce.  

Humanforce’s Workforce Analytics grants managers access to robust analytics & reporting capabilities, which can transform data into actionable insights. The reporting features can be used out-of-the-box or customised according to your needs. 

Leisure business managers who head multiple departments in different locations can view key metrics such as absenteeism rate, tardiness, labour costs, shift acceptance rates, and many more, all via the same dashboard.

Pain point #3: Managing high volume employee onboarding 

Leisure businesses dealing with peaks and troughs in consumer demand must remain agile in terms of hiring. They often need to hire staff en-masse — and quickly. Therefore, keeping the onboarding and admin process as bump-free as possible ensures the swiftest possible start for these employees.  

To avoid potential delays when hiring large volumes of staff, Leisure businesses may need to calibrate their onboarding and offboarding systems and processes to accommodate short-term employees. Reducing logistical delays and the number of onboarding steps allows new hires to get to their jobs more quickly. For example, an indoor sports centre hiring holiday casuals can streamline their onboarding process by acquiring basic contact and bank details, providing uniforms, and training new hires for a couple of hours before they can get to work.  

How Humanforce can streamline onboarding 

Onboarding & Offboarding 

With casual employees constantly coming and going, it’s essential to simplify their arrival and departure.  

The Humanforce Onboarding & Offboarding solution encourages this seamless transition. It’s designed to enhance compliance and cost efficiency, eliminating time and resource intensive tasks such as employee information gathering, policy signoffs, and qualification updates.  

Even better, the onboarding workflows can be customised for each new hire’s specific role, team, and location. For Leisure businesses who wish to accelerate their hiring process, this can be shortened to ensure that only the most essential documentation (tax, super, bank, and personal details) is digitally collected during pre-boarding from new hires or contractors for the swiftest possible start. At the end of tenure, offboarding workflows can also be customised to the needs of each role, the tenure of each employee, or their employment type (full-time, casual, contractor). 

Pain point #4: Meeting compliance obligations 

Employees working in Leisure businesses come from a variety of backgrounds — from hospitality staff to retail salespeople, and security guards, just to name a few. This adds extra layers of compliance complexity.  

Most importantly, Leisure businesses must acknowledge and comply with the complex industry awards and employment agreements under which their employees are protected. This is essential, as the award is referred to when calculating accurate payroll, as well as leave, notice, and redundancy entitlements. With employees coming in from diverse industries, however, this can become complicated.  

For example, an Australian RSL club hosting a large event would need to consider the different award requirements for kitchen and bar staff [MA000009], security personnel [MA000016], and landscapers [MA000101] preparing outdoor areas beforehand. This applies to any type of Leisure business. 

How Humanforce can help employers stay compliant 

Awards & Compliance 

The Awards & Compliance solution allows Leisure businesses to accurately interpret complex awards and enterprise agreements, track changes as they happen, and apply them with ease. 

The sophisticated award interpretation engine (sometimes referred to as a pay conditions engine) ensures that all modern awards and employment agreement pay obligations and entitlements are met, providing instant calculations to indicate exactly how much employees should be paid. The pay conditions engine quickly and accurately calculates wages, penalties, overtime and allowances in accordance with the relevant industrial instrument(s). 

Compliance Management 

Keeping tabs on certifications, qualifications, visas and more can be a logistical nightmare. Humanforce’s Compliance Management solution focuses on qualifications management but can help with other compliance-related obligations.  

For example, managers and HR can receive notifications about renewal dates for work visas and vaccinations before they hit, track qualifications and certifications for different job roles (such as first aid), and stay on top of continuing professional development (CPD) requirements with training and qualifications monitoring.

Pain point #5: Complex workforce logistics 

An ever-changing workforce requires a proactive attitude towards workforce logistics. To achieve this, two key systems should be running like a well-oiled machine, at any given time: rostering & scheduling, and time & attendance tracking.  

For Leisure businesses and managers presiding over multiple departments in different locations rostering can become complex without a centralised and intuitive scheduling tool. Miscommunication frequently results in shift conflicts, absenteeism, and understaffing — each of which hinders the business’ ability to perform on the day. It also becomes impossible to accurately track time & attendance, which can lead to budget blowouts due to time theft from employees claiming to work longer hours than they have. 

This also stresses the importance of forecasting. A theme park on the school holidays, for example, should aim to have just enough staff rostered to cover each zone for a pleasant customer experience. However, the number of staff rostered should be reduced immediately after holidays end to reduce spend on labour costs. 

How Humanforce can ensure the workforce logistics are handled efficiently 

Rostering & Scheduling 

Humanforce’s Rostering & Scheduling solution is non-negotiable Leisure businesses, allowing managers to auto-generate optimised, award-compliant rosters with just a few clicks. Under this solution sits Event Rostering, a tool designed specifically for event managers to create complex, event-specific schedules spanning several days, locations, roles and areas. 

With this tool, employees can be split across multiple roles and locations over different days. This is perfect for Leisure businesses in general, but especially for those who are more event focused.  

As highlighted earlier, matching talent supply to demand is critical. Using sophisticated AI, rosters can be auto-populated with suitably qualified and available talent who have specified their work preferences. AI can even help forecast how many workers will be required based on historical data – for example, event attendance data for similar events or times of year.  

Managers can also switch to multi-view rostering for a more detailed view of employee schedules and labour costs. Finally, managers can enjoy these functionalities with intuitive click-and-drag controls and automated alerts for rostering conflicts.

Time & Attendance 

Staff working at larger premises, inside large buildings, or with multiple point of sale (POS) systems may need to walk some distance before reaching their designated work zone. At times, employees may clock on before reaching these zones, resulting in unnecessary labour costs for the business. Employers who are conscious of this may still want to confirm their employee is at the venue, but ensure they clock on only once they arrive at the correct area.  

Humanforce’s Time & Attendance solution enables more accurate clocking for Leisure businesses by providing real-time, shift-based information on staff and their work hours. The automatic time capture functionality, available via the Humanforce Work App or on-site kiosks using finger vein scanning, facial recognition and QR code technology, also means records are kept safe and secure.  

Managers then hold the power to use pre-set rules to auto-approve digital timesheets in an instant, and on-the-go via the mobile app — a fantastic solution for the seamless management of contingent workers during peak periods.

Conclusion 

Leisure businesses experience pain points akin to those felt by businesses in Hospitality, Retail, and Events & Stadiums. It’s a dynamic and highly seasonal industry due to trends in consumer behaviour — this is mirrored by businesses with an inherently casual and transient workforce. 

While retention is important in general, Leisure businesses should seek to understand the nature of their workforces and implement HCM tech that helps them remain agile — namely in areas like onboarding & offboarding, hiring, forecasting, rostering, and time tracking.  

About Humanforce 

Humanforce is the best-in-one platform for frontline and flexible workforces, offering a truly employee centred, intelligent and compliant human capital management (HCM) suite – without compromise. Founded in 2002, Humanforce has a 2300+ customer base and over half a million users worldwide. Today, we have offices across Australia, New Zealand, the US, and the UK. 

Our vision is to make work easier and life better by focusing on the needs and fulfilment of frontline workers, and the efficiency and optimisation of businesses. 

To learn more about how Humanforce’s solution can help automate people processes in your business, please contact us.