HR support is always there when we need it. Regardless of which HR team and level of support you speak to, they all come back to you really quickly. We’ve also recently used EPM as the Investigating Officer within a case, which has been really helpful. The fact that EPM offers various additional services, such as workforce planning and support with TCaF funding, is really useful. Although these are additional services, it’s nice to know the support is available if and when we need it. There’s never a hard sell, and we weren’t aware there were so many different services available!  

EPM always offer a variety of options to ensure that savings can be made where possible. Payroll has also greatly improved. Our teams put in their queries, and they get resolved quickly. If we ever need more support with a query or need to chase it up, Jasmin, our Customer Experience Adviser, sorts these straight away. Jasmin is great, will source answers, never leaves you hanging and is a great support. Our monthly review meetings are also really beneficial. We receive a report before the meeting with over-arching information, which ensures we go into the meeting with the information we need. This means they can be short and straight to the point; we can ask questions, focus on the most important elements and agree on actions, which saves a lot of time.

The results

With EPM’s support, we are confident that we are consistent across the Trust and providing the same support across each school every month, for example, in rolling out pay scales. This saves us time in the long run as our Central Team can get involved less and save us money. Having been with EPM for a number of years, across two Trusts, EPM is definitely the best it’s ever been. There was a little bit of a rocky patch during Covid, but the service and support from EPM now is unbelievable, great value for money and cost-effective.