Large Auto Retailer Creates Purposeful Workplace with UKG

UKG, a leading provider of HR, payroll, and workforce management solutions for all people announced that Belle Tire — one of America’s fastest-growing tire and automotive service retailers, with stores in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio — is leveraging the power of UKG technology to create a purposeful workplace where people come first.

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“Our AI-powered HCM suite allows organizations to put people at the center of their business strategies, with innovations that allow for better collaboration among teams, more focus on caring for employees, and opportunities to turn employee feedback into meaningful change.”

Founded more than a century ago, Belle Tire has more than 170 locations and plans to open additional stores in additional markets over the next five years. Since going live on the UKG HCM and workforce management suite, the organization has undergone significant transformation, most notably creating a companywide culture where store managers can spend more time developing and empowering employees and less time on administrative processes and paperwork.

“Partnering with UKG has allowed us to evolve our business and have a meaningful impact on our organization and people,” said Katie Roberts, director of employee relations at Belle Tire. “We’re able to streamline and automate administrative and HR tasks, so that our field leadership team and managers can spend more time with our customers, and coach, train, mentor, and listen to our people. We deployed UKG as we doubled the number of stores at Belle Tire and brought in new employees. UKG gave us the scalability to successfully manage that aggressive growth.”

One way the retailer listens to employees is by conducting regular surveys with UKG Employee Voice, which allows Belle Tire to truly understand employee sentiment and what’s most important to its people. Through modern AI and natural language processing (NLP) technology, Employee Voice collects and analyzes feedback from employees through both quantitative and text-based responses, and then helps leaders understand where they can make meaningful changes that will have the most positive impact on their employees and create a more fulfilling workplace experience.

“Employee Voice is an effective way to provide our leaders with the insights they need to create a great place to work,” said Roberts. “We want our employees to know that we hear them, and our leadership team strives to make changes based on their feedback. For example, after thoughtfully analyzing our employees’ input, we enhanced our companywide discount program, enriched our employee recognition program, and we’ve added additional company holidays that are important to our people.”

UKG partnered with Belle Tire to technologically enable the organization’s people-centric culture to meaningfully and tangibly come to life. Like many retailers, Belle Tire struggled with paper-based HR and payroll processes that made employee-company interactions feel transactional rather than personal, additive, informative, and enhancing an employee’s workplace experience and satisfaction.

“By modernizing through UKG, we have gained time back each day, which means we can spend more time educating employees about our benefits and explaining valuable programs like our 401(k) offering and employee assistance program (EAP),” explained Matt Pyles, director of compliance and analytics at Belle Tire. “Now, our job has evolved to advising and helping our teammates get the most out of their benefits and options that make sense for them, their families, and stage of life.”

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In 2022, Belle Tire enhanced its UKG HCM suite with the addition of the UKG modern workforce management cloud offering. Managers now have access to real-time information and insights about productivity and performance, allowing them to quickly make data-driven decisions. Time spent resolving missed punches and timecard exceptions is now channeled into more strategic business priorities.

“We wanted to keep all our solutions within UKG, so moving to the newest workforce management offering just made sense,” said Pyles. “With the intuitive user experience, our managers can make immediate decisions on overtime projections and address time-off requests. That means they’re spending minimal time on administrative work at the start of their days and can focus on the overall employee and sales experience.”

“Belle Tire’s experience with UKG exemplifies our vision of helping organizations tap into the power of their people and transform into great workplaces,” said Hugo Sarrazin, chief product and technology officer at UKG. “Our AI-powered HCM suite allows organizations to put people at the center of their business strategies, with innovations that allow for better collaboration among teams, more focus on caring for employees, and opportunities to turn employee feedback into meaningful change.”

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