Weigel’s Stores and Paylocity Secure Brandon Hall Excellence Award for Innovative HR Program

In an increasingly competitive labor market, retailers are looking for any edge to keep current employees engaged and happy. Just ask Weigel’s, a family-owned retailer with more than 70 stores in Tennessee, which focuses on offering an exceptional employee experience to ensure its 1,500+ employees are as happy as its customers. Weigel’s found success offering unique tools using Paylocity’s ground-breaking software suite, which is why Brandon Hall recognized the partnership as one of the Best Unique or Innovative HR Programs in their HCM Excellence Awards for 2023.

Weigel’s focused on three areas to improve the overall employee experience as the labor market tightened and the gig economy became increasingly prevalent.

• Flexible schedules
• On-demand payment options
• Strong workplace culture and connection with open communication

These are just a few of the factors which led Weigel’s Stores and Paylocity to win the coveted Brandon Hall Group HCM Excellence Award for 2023. Paylocity also won an HCM Excellence award in 2022. In addition to the HCM Excellence, Paylocity earned two awards for its Learning & Development program with its “Client Engagement Hub Training” and “LEAD: An exploration into Leadership” training programs.

“We are thrilled to be recognized for our innovative partnership with Paylocity to enhance our HCM solution which drives impact across our business," says Melanie Wilson Disney, Director of Human Resources at Weigel’s Stores. “We are constantly looking for innovative ways to engage our employees, communicate with them, and ensure they have the benefits they need to succeed and grow with us.”

While many legacy HR and payroll vendors focus solely on automating certain HR processes such as payroll and benefits administration, Paylocity has embedded modern experiences into its HCM platform that connects employees to their work, their coworkers, and leaders. To stay competitive in a highly competitive and high-turnover industry, building an employee-first culture can be a real differentiator.

“Our workforce is in awe of what the Paylocity app can do; they have never had an HR platform like this before,” Melanie said. “Culture is the key to retention. Recognizing and engaging with our employees and connecting different stores to each other—those have been huge, and they all come through Paylocity.”

Weigel’s leads the retail industry with its innovative strategies for scheduling, benefits, and culture. The HR team uses Paylocity in several ways to support those strategies. Weigel’s efforts to connect more than 70 store locations and create a sense of shared purpose have paid off. There is now a genuine culture of fun, positivity, and enjoyment running through the company that keeps people motivated and committed.

“You can throw all the money in the world at HR issues, but it won’t make a difference if you don’t get your culture right,” adds Melanie. “Building a real community helps us become a more resilient business. Add in benefits like On Demand Payment and flexible scheduling and we’re really differentiating ourselves against competitors.”

Entries were evaluated by a panel of veteran, independent senior industry experts, Brandon Hall Group analysts, and executives based on these criteria:

• Alignment to their business need and environment
• Program design, functionality, and delivery
• Adoption, integration, user experience, innovation, and creativity
• Overall effectiveness, impact, and measurable benefits

"Excellence Award winners are shown to be organizations that truly value their employees and invest in them through their human capital management programs. These HCM programs have been validated as best in class for business value and the impact on the employees themselves," said Brandon Hall Group Chief Operating Officer Rachel Cooke, HCM Excellence Awards program leader.

Growing Recognition and Momentum

The Brandon Hall Group also honored Paylocity’s Learning and Development team for its internal training curriculum, including:

• Best Customer Training Program: The Paylocity learning team identified critical opportunities within the new client implementation process to improve client experience and operational effectiveness.
• Best Hybrid Learning Program: A program that prepares Paylocity frontline leaders for their first day as team lead in a hybrid working environment.

Paylocity continues to build on its history of innovation—including the industry’s first integration of generative AI. With several new products and feature enhancements—including dynamic scheduling capabilities and deep data insights into market compensation trends — Paylocity continues to advance its position as the most modern HCM platform on the market today.

Paylocity offers an intuitive, easy-to-use product suite that helps businesses automate and streamline HR and payroll processes, attract and retain talent, and build culture and connection with their employees. Known for its unique culture and consistently recognized as one of the best places to work, Paylocity accompanies its clients on the journey to create great workplaces and help all employees achieve their best. Find out more about the most complete HR system that employees actually love to use, too.