How National Protective Services Scaled Up Their Workforce

National Protective Services is a Melbourne-based, full-service security solutions provider. Founded in 1988 by Chief Executive Officer Rachaell Saunders, the business provides manpower, electronic security and consultancy services for a range of residential, commercial, industrial, not-for-profit and government organisations across Australia. Across all its divisions, National Protective Services manages a workforce of 1,600 employees.

Before foundU, National Protective Services were seeking an all-in-one system that would streamline their workforce management. Their previous systems did not communicate with each other and lacked the efficiencies to onboard staff at scale, impacting their ability to take on bigger security contracts. 

After seeing the benefits of foundU, National Protective Services chose the platform because of the efficiencies that could be built into their onboarding process. As one of foundU's performance-tier customers, National Protective Services can customise their onboarding journeys, to make sure they are capturing all the necessary details more efficiently.

Mandeep Singh, General Manager at National Protective Services, reports that implementing foundU has enabled them to scale up their workforce while saving thousands of hours on onboarding new staff.

The search for an all-in-one system

National Protective Services manages a complex payroll of 1,600 employees across all its divisions.

Before foundU, the team National Protective Services operated with several systems that didn't communicate with each other. They also lacked the efficiencies to onboard staff at scale, meaning they struggled to take on much larger security contracts.

"We couldn't find one system that does everything the way we want it to," Mandeep said.

"The big pain point for us though was our current system didn't have onboarding, which meant that we couldn't pick up larger security contracts. That's why we really chose foundU in the end - because it has great onboarding."

Implementation at speed

After considering alternatives, National Protective Services chose foundU as their new workforce management platform. They soon began the implementation process, which Mandeep reports was completed at a record pace.

"We got the call on a Friday evening and it was implemented over the weekend, ready for us to use on Monday morning," Mandeep said.

"There were teething issues, but to get it done within two days was an incredible effort for us and the foundU implementation team."

Mandeep also says the foundU customer success team has been an incredible support for National Protective Services.

"The way that foundU has set up their organisation is fantastic," Mandeep said.

"We have one person we can go to and they understand us, they understand our business. We know that each of foundU's customers would be unique with their own requirements, so it's incredible to have that level of support."

Scaling up while saving time onboarding

Since implementing foundU, Mandeep estimates they have saved thousands of hours on onboarding new staff.

"Onboarding is one of foundU's greatest features and has really helped us," Mandeep said.

"Being able to allocate tags makes it easy to assign policies to staff and get them signed before they start. We also don't have to waste time anymore manually typing in information or scanning in forms. The security guards do all that themselves, which has removed the burden on us and helped us save thousands of man hours."

"During the height of the pandemic, we were offered a security contract that required us to onboard and manage hundreds of guards - which we couldn't possibly do with the system we had," Mandeep said.

"Since implementing foundU, we have grown to 1,600 employees. The platform gives us the ability to onboard and manage this larger workforce and potentially take on these larger contracts."

As well as onboarding a growing workforce, Mandeep also says that being able to accurately track time and attendance of guards across multiple sites is one of the platform's best features.

"Our guards regularly use the foundU app - we made it compulsory for them to clock-in and clock-out with it," Mandeep said.

"There are plenty of contractors out there who don't pay their staff properly or they just fail to stay on top of payroll. By having an app that links directly to payroll, it means that we can keep on top of it and ensure we are paying staff the correct wages."

Mandeep also says that foundU's earned wage access functionality has been a great addition to their platform.

"Many of our guards know and use the earned wage access feature to draw down on their wages before payday," Mandeep said.

"Giving staff the ability to manage their own finances is the future of payroll, and I think, one of the great features of foundU."

Overall, Mandeep says that National Protective Services are enjoying using the foundU platform and do not plan to switch anytime soon.

"I love foundU - it's just such a great system," Mandeep said.

"It has saved us a lot of time with onboarding. Being able to accurately record time and attendance is awesome. Earned wage access is a great feature. I'm just really happy with the system."