Coffee Service Provider Finds the Perfect Blend for Streamlined HR and Payroll

What keeps a business running smoothly? Accountants will tell you that it’s all about optimizing cash flow and working capital. Executives might say that it’s all about embracing change and innovation. But here’s the real answer: coffee. It fuels your employees in the morning, brings them together in the breakroom at lunch, and re-energizes them when things start to drag late in the day.

And that’s where Daiohs USA comes in, providing comprehensive office coffee services: equipment, beverages, snacks, installations, ongoing support, and white glove service. Operating since 1987, the company serves clients from Fortune 500 enterprises to car dealerships and apartment complexes.

Sarah Eigel, General Manager of Administration at Daiohs USA, explains: “Companies are trying to persuade employees to come back to the office following the pandemic. Having great coffee and snacks available in those offices plays an important role in that effort and has created some great opportunities for us over the last few years. This has helped fuel our current and future growth.”

To support the next stage of its growth journey, Daiohs USA recently upgraded its HR and payroll system from a small-scale desktop solution to Paycom. Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before red flags started to appear, including payroll errors, exorbitant fees, and unresponsive support.

“Going through another payroll conversion was far from ideal, but Paycom was a disaster,” adds Sarah. “We had two options: re-build Paycom or start again with a different vendor. Several of my coworkers, including myself, had used Paylocity before, so we knew it was an awesome platform. We didn’t need to look at other vendors; we were confident that Paylocity was the answer!”

The Challenge: Planning a Fresh Brew

With the company growing quickly, Sarah looked to make a fresh start, replacing the error-prone Paycom platform and streamlining disjointed workflows.

Fragmented HR Processes Create Inefficiencies

Daiohs USA has grown largely through acquisition to reach 60 locations. In the HR field, the company’s growth over time led to a variety of processes and policies being developed independently across locations. While well-intentioned, this resulted in a complex structure that presented some inefficiencies and inconsistencies. 

“Each location was managing recruitment and training in their own way,” explains Sarah. “In the case of recruitment, our Indeed representative told us that we deserved a prize because of the number of 'independent' company accounts we had on the platform. When I joined the company in 2023, one of my objectives was to standardize the operational workflows of the HR department.”

Distributed Teams Create Communication Challenges

Having a workforce spread across so many locations also made it difficult to connect with employees and build a unified culture. “Many of our employees are Route Drivers or Service Technicians who are working out on the road for most of the day,” adds Sarah. “Around 70 percent of our employees don’t have access to a company email address, so in the past, we had to ask our Branch Managers to communicate HR and corporate news. Of course, managers are often busy, and important announcements are easily overlooked.”

Moving to Paycom Proves Underwhelming

The move to Paycom created many issues that were discovered a few months after going live. “We realized that our cost centers hadn’t been configured correctly, which limited our ability to run reports by location, position, title, and entities” notes Sarah. The vendor also made errors around payroll submission dates, leading to $25k of additional charges for Daiohs. “Just using the platform was very cumbersome,” adds Sarah. “And there was always a delay when we wanted support. There was no direct number to call, and they took forever to respond to emails.”

While Sarah was excited to digitize some processes with Paycom, the platform didn’t deliver. “Our sites used to send in a 35-page onboarding packet filled out by new hires,” she adds. “We expected Paycom to eliminate those, but we still had to complete some forms outside the system.”

The Solution: Grinding the Beans

Following discussions between Sarah, the company’s President, and the Chief Financial Officer, Daiohs USA made the call to reshape and optimize HR and payroll with Paylocity.

Streamlining Hiring, Onboarding, and Training

Using Paylocity’s Recruiting module, Daiohs USA has built standardized hiring workflows for all locations. “We are hiring continuously,” says Sarah. “With Paylocity, the integrations with LinkedIn and Indeed mean we can manage everything centrally, without constantly logging back into job sites.” The Onboarding module has eliminated paperwork, enabling new hires to complete digital forms and view policies and handbooks before starting. 

In addition, Daiohs uses the Learning module to run standardized two-week training programs for new drivers and sales employees (with additional positions coming soon). These trainings include videos that are waiting in the new employee's Paylocity account before their first day! Daiohs also has a monthly training program distributed and tracked within the Learning module, including safety videos for all employees, plus specific videos dependent on the individual’s position.

Improving Payroll and Day-to-Day Operational HR

After the costly errors of Paycom, Daiohs has enhanced the efficiency and accuracy of payroll with Paylocity. “The Payroll module makes everything seamless and almost error-free—we can’t be perfect,” adds Sarah. “With our first payroll with Paycom, we had five employees each paid an extra $50k during one cycle. I realized how important it is to be able to trust your payroll provider and to have confidence that they will help you learn the system and run those first payrolls—without overpaying employees by $250,000.”

For employees, the Paylocity Mobile App makes life simple, enabling them to clock in remotely. Sarah adds: “Our drivers and service technicians have so much flexibility. With Paycom, we had to have a designated kiosk at each location for clocking in, which meant purchasing 60 extra laptops. With Paylocity, they can do everything on their phones.”

Sarah also uses the AI Assistant tool to support day-to-day work in Paylocity. “We love using the PEAK Knowledge Base whenever we have questions about the platform,” adds Sarah. “It’s such an in-depth resource, and the AI Assistant helps us find specific information. It’s a great addition that saves me so much time and energy.”

Connecting HR and Employees Across All 60 Locations

With the Community module, Daiohs has transformed internal communications. “I was so excited to deploy Community,” explains Sarah. “We can now talk to everyone across all 60 locations, informing them about benefits enrollments and promotions, sharing pictures of company events, and highlighting great feedback from customers.”

The Results: Enjoying the Rich Taste of Success

Switching from a relatively new Paycom system onto Paylocity was a big call—but the Daiohs USA team is delighted with the results: smarter processes, stronger culture, and strategic HR insights.

Standardized Workflows Drive HR Agility

By crafting standardized processes for recruiting, onboarding, and training, Daiohs has increased operational efficiency. For example, when recruiting, the company can post job ads much faster using predefined templates. “We’re using the time we save to optimize our presence on job boards and ensure we attract the best talent,” says Sarah. “We now have full visibility over all open roles, who is hiring, and incoming applications. If we see one location is receiving hundreds of résumés for a role, we can help the branch manager to screen applications and prevent bottlenecks.”

Simplified Collaboration Improves Engagement

Beyond internal communications, Community has had a positive impact on culture and engagement at Daiohs. Employees are giving each other shoutouts for great work, while branch managers are running groups to highlight achievements and news for their teams. “The Community chat function helps people get to know one another, without needing an email address,” adds Sarah. “Community is such a fun tool, and we’re very active users. It’s helped us make all our locations feel more connected and engaged which is really important.”

Strategic Insights Enable Better Retention

Finally, Paylocity’s Data Insights module has enabled Daiohs to gain a much clearer understanding of key HR trends, such as turnover based on role and location, overtime, and performance. And those insights have enabled Sarah and her team to refine training processes to boost retention. 

“Our regional managers now compete against one another to try to bring their turnover rates down,” explains Sarah. “We also found that some Route Driver and Business Development Manager roles had unusually high turnover in the first three months on the job. We took steps to improve our training and support in that initial period, and we’ve seen a big change, with turnover dropping by more than 30% for the Business Development Manager role.”