Wild about MHR: Essex Wildlife Trust selects People First

Essex Wildlife Trust is partnering with MHR, using its comprehensive suite of People First modules, covering HR, recruitment, onboarding, learning, talent, workforce management and a managed services payroll. The Trust will also make use of MHR’s Power BI integration to improve data-led decision making.

As a leading conservation charity, Essex Wildlife Trust is committed to protecting wildlife and inspiring people with a lifelong love of nature. Founded in 1959, the Trust manages 8,400 acres of land made up of 87 nature reserves, two nature parks and ten Nature Discovery Centre’s across Essex.

Previously outsourcing their payroll, Essex Wildlife Trust required a modern solution that could support its future growth and better engage its workforce spread across all of Essex. The Trust’s team includes 200 staff split across a main office in Colchester and smaller regional offices, as well as nature reserves and visitor centres. MHR’s People First solution was the perfect fit; offering flexibility, scalability and a social and engagement platform plus an integrated mobile app for ease of accessibility, which has a proven history of engaging employees anytime, anywhere on any device.

The Trust was also seeking a solution that provided additional visibility of data to allow informed decisions to be made both now and in the future. MHR’s Power BI integration provided the answer, delivering powerful data visualisations and valuable insights directly from the data stored in People First, which can help improve strategic business decision-making processes.

Tony Cocca, Senior People Business Partner at Essex Wildlife Trust, expressed what impressed them about People First, saying, “MHR has provided us with a comprehensive solution that meets our needs, both with a customisable HR platform and an integrated payroll and ATS provision. This is a truly flexible, scalable system for us at Essex Wildlife Trust. The platform, including the app, allows all our people, not no matter which of our sites in Essex they are based at, to access news and updates via the social platform, their pay data, and for managers an easy-to-use system for approvals and their people data”.

Anton Roe, CEO of MHR, said: “Essex Wildlife Trust is crucial to the support and protection of vital ecosystems. We’re thrilled to be working together to support the Trust, and we are confident that our People First solution will streamline their key HR processes. At the same time, Microsoft Power BI will provide the team with insightful people data that will enable them to plan for different scenarios and allocate resources effectively.”