A Hotel Group Standardises HR Across 11 Branches

"Eleven properties, eleven ways of running HR. Now: one way." — Group HR Director

The numbers

11 properties (8 Kenya, 3 Tanzania)
1,400+ employees with Papyrus-managed records
38 different forms consolidated to 12 standardised templates
47% drop in cross-property HR queries needing escalation to Group HQ

The starting position

The group had grown by acquisition. Each property's HR ran differently:

One used a payroll system with a basic document repository
Two used network drives
Six used a mixture of Outlook folders and physical filing cabinets
Two had spreadsheet-based employee registers

When a chef moved from the Mombasa property to the Diani property, the HR file did not move with them. The chef effectively started over — same employer, fresh file, lost training and disciplinary history.

The transition

The group made three architectural decisions:

One tenant, multiple property “departments”. Each property became a department in a single Papyrus tenant. Employee records belong to the group, not the property.
Standardised classifications. The Group HR Director defined 12 canonical document types (Employment Contract, ID Copy, KRA PIN Certificate, Performance Appraisal, Training Certificate, Disciplinary Record, etc.).
Cross-property visibility for Group HR. Property HR sees only their property; Group HR sees all properties.

Migration ran property-by-property over 8 months. The Mombasa flagship went first; the smaller properties followed.

What changed operationally

Employee movement between properties:

Before: chef moved, new file opened, training records lost
After: chef moved, department association updated, complete file intact

Group-level reporting:

Before: monthly HR scorecard required compiling Excel from 11 sources, took 5 days
After: dashboard updates in real time

Audit on health, fire, and food safety certifications:

Before: certificates lived in property files, expirations were tracked in spreadsheets that sometimes got out of date
After: certificate expiries appear on Group HR's dashboard, with renewal workflows triggered 60 days out

What was hardest

Property HR managers had autonomy under the old system. Centralising HR documentation felt like a loss of autonomy, even though operationally it was a gain.

The fix: Group HR didn't take access away from property HR. Property HR can still do everything they did before. Group HR has additional visibility. Framed that way, the change was acceptable.

Quote

"My job changed from running 11 HR processes to improving one. That's an upgrade I didn't know I needed." — Group HR Director