Top Baseball Franchise Hits HR Challenges Out of the Park

To uncover the next cohort of superstar batters, pitchers, and shortstops, there’s only one place to look: the red-hot competition in Minor League Baseball (MiLB). And in northern Texas, that means heading to Riders Field, the 10,000-seat home of the Frisco RoughRiders.

Launched in 2003, the RoughRiders compete in the Double-A class—the second-highest level of play in the MiLB. Affiliated with the Texas Rangers Major League Baseball (MLB) team, the RoughRiders have developed more than 140 players who have gone on to enjoy success at the highest level.

Of course, the fan experience in the MiLB is defined by more than just on-field action. Today, it involves everything from viewing highlights on social media and checking player stats online, to enjoying mascot contests and other entertainment between innings. The RoughRiders are top performers in this area, consistently attracting some of the highest gameday attendances of any Double-A team.

But keeping the show running smoothly creates unique pressures behind the scenes. For example, when the start of the season comes into view in spring, the RoughRiders need to onboard around 250 seasonal employees—from marketing and media specialists to stadium operations teams and gameday hosts responsible for meeting and greeting fans.

To support their HR and finance team in those clutch moments, the RoughRiders recently decided to upgrade their outdated HCM systems and processes. After scouting potential partners, the franchise added a hard-hitting game-changer to its lineup: Paylocity.

 

The Challenge: Three Strikes and Out

Outdated systems and paper-based processes left the RoughRiders swamped with admin. The franchise wanted to find a partner with a more powerful HCM platform.

New Season Brings New Challenges

Every year, February and March are crunch time for the RoughRiders back-office team: it’s a scramble to recruit hundreds of employees before the new season begins. “We typically re-hire around 150 people from previous years, but there are another 100 roles that we fill with new people,” explains Mark Linden, Finance Director. “Beyond our stadium operations teams, we need to onboard specialist medical people, representatives from the fire department, and police officers—they’re all on our payroll for the season.”

Fragmented Systems Create Frustrations

The limitations of the previous HCM platform meant that onboarding was a lengthy, inefficient process. Lorraine Spencer, Office Manager, elaborates: “New hires filled out paper forms, then we entered their details into the system manually. The whole process consumed many hours, increased the risk of errors, and left us with stacks of paperwork in the office. It was an absolute nightmare.”

Managing employee benefits was another largely paper-based process, while clocking in was also a clunky, fragmented experience for employees. “Navigating the mobile app was far from easy: the timeclock was totally separate from the main HR area,” adds Lorraine. “Our employees range from 15-year-old digital natives all the way up to 70-year-olds, who aren’t so comfortable with tech. We need things to be as user-friendly as possible.”

Limited Communications Hamper Engagement

The RoughRiders want every team member to feel like part of the family, but they had no mechanism for connecting with seasonal employees. “Our previous platform was pretty basic when it came to employee engagement,” continues Mark. “We can always communicate with our 50 full-time employees via internal email, but that doesn’t work for our seasonal hires.”

 

The Solution: Reaching First Base

The RoughRiders selected Paylocity for its powerful, scalable core HR and payroll functionality, the user-friendliness of the platform and mobile app, and its rich employee engagement features.

Boosting HR Productivity By Banishing Paperwork

With Paylocity’s Onboarding module, the RoughRiders have transformed hiring, replacing paper forms and manual data entry with frictionless digital workflows. Lorraine explains: “We just send an email to the new employee, and they add their details and upload their ID documents. All we have to do is doublecheck things, rather than managing five pieces of paperwork.”

Keeping Things Simple Elevates the Employee Experience

The Paylocity Mobile App has made clocking in much easier for employees, as Lorraine says: “We have the Time & Labor module loaded on an iPad as a backup, but almost everyone uses the app from their phone. It is a very intuitive process for employees, and I can log in, navigate to each employee profile, and check and approve their hours. Compared to the complexity of the old system, it has been a huge upgrade.”

Alongside this, the Community module provides a central hub where employees can see corporate announcements and connect with one other. “Having used such a barebones system in the past, we’ve been really impressed with the employee engagement tools in Paylocity,” says Mark.

Automating Core Workflows Cuts HR Admin

Using the Payroll module, the RoughRiders have increased the efficiency and accuracy of their pay processes. “Paylocity has been a big improvement,” adds Mark. “There is minimal administrative work for us during the payroll process: Paylocity prints and sends out the checks.”

In addition, Mark is confident that the Benefits Administration module will streamline open enrollment. “Employees can select plans and set contributions in Paylocity,” he notes. “That information flows seamlessly into Payroll, which will save us a lot of time.” Plus, an integration with provider John Hancock is also helping to reduce manual work. “If an employee changes their contributions, the system will automatically update their deductions in Payroll,” says Mark.

 

The Results: Hitting a Home Run

By partnering with Paylocity, the RoughRiders have successfully modernized their HR and payroll systems, built more nimble and scalable processes, and enhanced the employee experience.

Accelerating Onboarding and Saving Time

The new digital onboarding workflow has made a big impact, reducing onboarding time by around 90%, from hours to a few minutes. “All of our employees find the process easy to follow,” adds Lorraine. “And we’re no longer collecting whole rooms full of paper!” In the next 12 months, the RoughRiders plan to ramp up seasonal hiring, adding another 50 people, and the streamlined process will make it easier to scale the workforce ready for the new season. 

Focusing on Strategic HR and Finance

With smarter processes unlocking major time savings, Mark can now focus his energies on more strategic tasks, such as preparing reports on baseball operations. “Today, I have more opportunities to analyze our accounts and create updates for our ownership group,” he explains. “We have been able to explore ways to reduce our costs, optimize our business model, and improve our bottom line. It all comes from having a better HR and payroll platform, because I’m longer stuck spending time on paper-based administration that offers limited value to the wider business.”

That’s a sentiment shared by Lorraine: “During hiring, I would lose so many hours chasing people for paperwork and checking that employee information on our paper onboarding forms was legible, correct, and complete. Since moving to Paylocity, things run so much smoother.”

Building a More Cohesive Culture

With Community, the RoughRiders now has an effective way to engage seasonal employees and ensure they feel part of the team. “The feedback has been very positive,” says Mark. “New starters can see what other employees are doing, even if they don’t share a shift. It all helps to bring people into the RoughRiders family, right from the start.”