JJ Foodservice Uses UKG Ready Insight to Improve Retention and Become a Great Place To Work

JJ Foodservice, based in Enfield, UK, offers high-quality foods to both restaurants and households from 12 locations around the country. With a fleet of 155 delivery vehicles, the company and its more than 800 employees ensure the timely delivery of products from its warehouses. JJ Foodservice was voted 2024 National Wholesaler of the Year and is a Great Place To Work Certified™ company.

Challenges

The majority of JJ Foodservice team members are focused on the warehousing and distribution of more than 3,000 products. Using manual processes to manage this largely hourly workforce created challenges for the company, including accurately capturing employee time and not approving too much time off.

To ensure that warehouses and delivery vehicles were adequately staffed ― especially during peak holiday periods ― the company established rules on how many employees could be on holiday at the same time. Managers manually monitored and controlled approving this time, which sometimes led to too many leave requests being approved. Understaffing resulted in delivery vehicles not being loaded on time for products to be delivered on schedule, and remaining workers picking up the slack but feeling exhausted and demotivated ― creating sick time and retention issues.

Managers manually tracked employees' work hours, but this didn't always ensure employees weren't working too many hours or missing their required breaks.

Solutions

To overcome these and other issues, JJ Foodservice decided to automate its human capital management processes and evaluated solutions from five companies, ultimately selecting the UKG Ready® solution. The solution’s flexibility played a key role in the decision, says Joanna Florczak, Head of HR, at JJ Foodservice. This flexibility has supported the company’s evolving needs, she says, and “the tech support is really good.”

As an example, she shares that when the company decided to add a shift allowance to the night shift because of retention issues, UKG Ready easily accommodated the labor rules. To receive the shift allowance, an employee must work more than five hours and across midnight. The UKG® support team helped JJ Foodservice configure the solution to automatically apply the daily allowance for night shift workers who meet the requirements, saving time and ensuring these workers are paid correctly.

Results

About 70% of JJ Foodservice employees don’t have access to a computer. Warehouse workers track their time on timeclocks, while managers and mobile workers such as drivers can use the solution’s mobile app. Both timeclocks and the app display company communications ― such as holiday and other messages and notices on employee handbook updates ― making UKG Ready the central point of communication with all employees.

The solution also has boosted visibility and transparency into employee hours and other workforce information. Night shift workers load delivery vehicles so products are ready to be delivered when the morning drivers arrive. At times, the night shift finishes earlier than the shift is scheduled to finish, but managers have requested additional staff. A UKG Ready report shows all worker “clockings” and actual hours worked versus scheduled hours, enabling the company to clearly see whether additional staffing is needed.

“It gives us extreme transparency, so that nothing can be hidden,” says Florczak. “Visibility and transparency allow us to monitor and report on everything, which, in the long term, will be beneficial in terms of saving money for the organisation.”

Transparency also is reducing payroll errors. Before the end of a pay period, employees are encouraged to use UKG Ready to check the accuracy of their clockings in and out and confirm their holiday time taken, so they will be paid accurately and on time. A report of changes needed streamlines and automates corrections, saving time and improving employee satisfaction.

Automating the manager holiday approval process was an “easy fix,” says Florczak. A rule configured in the UKG solution allows no more than three workers in a location’s job type to be on holiday at the same time. If a fourth worker requests time off, an automated rejection is generated because no more holiday time remains for that position.

Compliance with local legislation, such as the Working Time Directive, is another area that has been improved and streamlined. JJ Foodservice can easily monitor each employee’s hours worked throughout the day, during the week, and at the end of the month. With a report of hours worked readily available, managers can be sure their workers aren’t working more hours than necessary and are taking required breaks.

JJ Foodservice is deriving tremendous value from the workforce data that managers now have at their fingertips. With hours-worked data available in UKG Ready, Florczak says her boss can easily calculate the cost per box, the hours spent on each shift, and the cost of employee wages.

“This allows him to see how many boxes we produced and sold and how much it costs, so he can forecast this for the future,” she says.

“And I can see the trends in different branches and what they do,” she adds. “Growth and recruitment go hand in hand. If there’s growth, then we need more hands to do the work.”

UKG Ready has helped her calculate the employee turnover rate, which over five years dropped from about 55%, the industry average, to just 25%.

This increase in employee retention and engagement indicated to her that JJ Foodservice had become an employer of choice, and that it was the right time to apply to be a Great Place to Work®. The communication tools in UKG Ready enabled the company to survey employees and compile data to build its case for this designation.

JJ Foodservice was recognized as a Great Place to Work Certified company in 2024. Florczak credits the UKG solution with helping to give the company a competitive edge in creating a great workplace where people want to work ― and stay.