BridgeClimb

To understand how the iconic BridgeClimb Sydney manages its diverse and sizeable team, we sat down with their Payroll & People Experience Coordinator Caterina Davis.

Right off the bat, Caterina emphasised the central role of their team members. “As the Sydney Harbour BridgeClimb is such a world-renowned experience, our people are front and centre. So things like team member satisfaction, their experience when joining us and working here and their learning and development are really important for us.”

However, the famous experience operator faced several bottlenecks they wished to conquer. A significant issue was their decades-long reliance on paper team member records, going back to 1998, As Caterina explains, “When you’re looking for a paper employee record from 2007 in a manilla folder, you know you need to do something differently.”

With a team that ebbs and flows over peak tourism periods, and bounces between full time, part time, and casual, a well-oiled and consistent learning and onboarding experience was also a must.

“We have crucial quality, learning and compliance responsibilities because there’s a lot of safety aspects to what we do” Caterina noted.

“To be able to manage and record all of that in a system became extremely attractive. Given the importance of learning, we were also looking for a more interactive learning space on top of a smoother onboarding process to get our people up to speed while keeping records stored securely”.

Caterina tells us that when it came to onboarding new team members, it wasn’t just about learning management or certification, but the process itself.

“We were printing, scanning, and emailing documents to new team members, which took a lot of time and made onboarding more complicated than it needed to be.” She added that, “sometimes documents would get misplaced or delayed, which impacted the overall experience for new team members. We wanted to ensure that every new hire had a smooth, professional first day with us.”

BridgeClimb also had a strong desire to strengthen their focus on their people. “Another aspect we were really looking to strengthen was our focus on rewards and recognition, including surveys and feedback, so it was important to see engagement tools in a new solution,” Caterina added.

In ELMO, BridgeClimb was able to find a best-fit solution that worked for them and their sister company Scenic World in the Blue Mountains.

Since implementing ELMO HR Software, BridgeClimb has seen an overhaul of their once archaic and frustrating onboarding process. The HR team now spends significantly less time on back-and-forth, is more confident in their compliance, and delivers a more consistent and professional experience to new team members.

Caterina rejoices in the removal of paper from her life, “the fact that we don’t have to sit there, take all their files, scan them through, put them in their own folder…it’s great. Understanding what stages people are at in their job application is a lot easier now as well, she says, “there’s a lot less miscommunication as I can look at the onboarding and say ‘okay’ so this person has been shortlisted – I can start looking into them. When we set up a new hire, they create their own profile in ELMO with all their information, so it’s just an easy way to store everything as well.”

What she really loves is the all-important team connection improvements, “I think it’s really nice to see the team engaging with each other through the recognition side of things.” Caterina observes, “gathering feedback is just a lot easier and it’s really simple to make surveys and implement rewards.”

BridgeClimb have also seen marked improvements in essential functions like creating reports, “ELMO is pretty straightforward. You can easily build reports on the fly, which I love”.

Ultimately, ELMO didn’t just streamline BridgeClimb’s HR, it cleared the clutter, boosted team spirit, and freed them to focus on what they do best – delivering world-class experiences high above Sydney Harbour.