Case Study

How Evolia Saves the Granby Zoo Half a Day Per Week on Payroll?

A lion standing against a chain-link fence interacts with a zookeeper holding a red target stick.
A lion standing against a chain-link fence interacts with a zookeeper holding a red target stick.

Introduction

  • 900 Seasonal and Full-Time Employees
  • 1 branche

The Granby Zoo has been delighting animal lovers and fun-seekers for over seventy years with its mixed population of over 1,300 animals dont près de 25 % qui possèdent un statut précaire from all over the globe. Many furry, feathered, and finned creatures living in the Zoo de Granby have a precarious status in nature. However, over 650,000 visitors seize the opportunity to see them in natural environments yearly and leave with a greater appreciation for each species’ importance in the natural order.  

Such a large diversity of animals demands many employees’ hard work and expertise year-round. During the peak summer season, over 900 Granby Zoo employees care for the zoo animals, the grounds and those who visit to have fun and marvel at the animals.

 

The Challenge

Most people love a day at a zoo, water park, or amusement park once or a few times a year if they are fortunate. Can you imagine working for an organization encompassing all three attractions in one place? It sounds idyllic, but it might lose its luster if you spend long days scheduling employees and covering for absences to ensure the animals are in good hands.

This was the dilemma Marie-Claude Hervieux, Payroll and Benefits Coordinator and her management colleagues at Granby Zoo faced before they discovered Evolia’s workforce management platform. They didn’t only have to contend with scheduling a dynamic ecosystem of permanent, seasonal, occasional and temporary employees. They also had to constantly contact workers by phone to inquire about availability, absences and leaves to ensure their dynamic animal and visitor ecosystems would be well tended to. Unpredictable weather also makes staffing an outdoor tourist attraction a daunting task.

 “The number of times the schedule is changed at the last minute. It is autonomous and does not have to go through payroll. The flexibility of this program is really fun. We no longer have any schedule communication problems.”

Marie-Claude Hervieux, Payroll and Benefits Coordinator

The Solution

The combined workforce that oversees and runs the three parks (the Zoo, Amazoo Water Park and amusement park) consists of hundreds of people. They all have varying skills, experience, expertise and schedules. 

By implementing Evolia, the Granby Zoo team gained an Automated Scheduling, and Time and Attendance platform that is secure, flexible and scalable enough to evolve with the Zoo into the future. Managers can spend less time calling or emailing absent or backup employees as required.

The Granby Zoo can rely on the Evolia app to have real-time staffing data at their fingertips – accessible anywhere on the park grounds. 

FAQ

Park staff can contact colleagues and arrange shift swaps through in-app messaging. The park’s animals, visitors and attractions will get the care and attention they need because staff shift times are a phone tap away. Managers can spend more time on Zoo grounds and less time approving timesheets, emailing and calling employees about missed shifts, and processing payroll runs.

Creating schedules for new employees. The flexibility of this program is really fun. We no longer have any schedule communication problems; it’s automatic and avoids paying someone for 3 hours for coming in when they aren’t required to work.

The strong points are the flexibility and quick access to staffing data. Evolia is user-friendly, and my colleagues and I can see the status of our team schedule coverage at a glance. We can manage splitting shifts, where an employee can be in one department in the morning and another in the afternoon.