A growing team needs more than a spreadsheet
Meet the company
Pepper House is a top real estate company in the Tri-City area, growing rapidly since 2013. The firm focuses on facilitating property sales, purchases, and rentals, while also carrying out its own development projects. As the business expanded, new offices were opened – initially in Gdańsk and Gdynia, followed by Bydgoszcz, and most recently in Warsaw.
The success of Pepper House is driven not only by its team of experienced advisors but also by its strong assistant department. The assistants are the ones who keep the hotline running efficiently – a crucial touchpoint for customers and a cornerstone of the company’s day-to-day operations.
How did the company manage before?
With a small team, HR administration was manageable by hand – contracts, leave records, and employee details lived in memory or in basic spreadsheets.
But as the company expanded, complexity surged. More branches, more people, more paperwork – and suddenly manual processes couldn’t keep up. They were slow, error-prone, and took too much time. That’s when it became obvious: the company needed a smarter, more efficient system. And that’s exactly when HRnest entered the scene.
With a four-person team, keeping everything in memory wasn’t an issue. But as the team grew and staff turnover increased, things became more complicated. That’s why we decided to implement HRnest.
Full control over working hours
After adopting HRnest, Pepper House finally gained complete visibility into employee working time. Team members log their own start and finish times, breaks, private or business outings, and any made-up hours – giving the company accurate, real-time insight into attendance and activity.
Before, everything was based on trust alone. Now I also have full transparency. At any moment, I can see who worked, when, and for how long – and that clarity has made communication across the company much smoother.
Introducing automated time tracking reduced the number of errors and enabled more efficient schedule planning and management of employee availability. It also brought
a noticeable boost in comfort for the whole team.
Employees appreciate having real-time insight into their hours and the ability to manage their own time. They no longer need to ask about the remaining hours or corrections – everything is clearly displayed in the system.
Quick and clear processing of leave requests
Pepper House also enhanced its leave request and approval process by implementing HRnest. Employees submit requests online, selecting the appropriate type of leave, and decisions are made instantly. Every change appears immediately in the team calendar, preventing overlapping absences.
In the past, employees would first ask me for permission, then send emails, and I had to verify everything in Excel. It was time-consuming, error-prone, and stressful. Now an employee simply submits a request online, and the entire company instantly sees when that person will be away.
Everyone on the team has visibility into who’s away and when. Assistants can quickly check available dates and schedule their leave without disrupting the team and without having to chase their managers for updates.
Since they can immediately see who is away, there’s no need to ask or confirm anything. This significantly improved the process and made leave planning straightforward and efficient.
Employee onboarding without the need for dedicated training sessions
Right from the start, HRnest was met with great feedback from Pepper House’s employees. The system is so intuitive that new users get the hang of it quickly, without any lengthy onboarding or training.
Honestly, training isn’t even necessary – new hires figure out the system in roughly 30 minutes. I show them the basics, send the login invitation, and they’re ready to go.
A clear interface and instant access to key data let new employees manage their time and leave independently from the start. And the platform’s reliability is a major plus – it runs flawlessly, without downtime or glitches, which makes daily work much smoother.
The feedback from the team was unanimous: the system is intuitive, transparent, and easy to read. Exactly what we’d been missing. Before, everything happened manually. Now they can instantly check the details they need and make sure everything lines up.
By moving from manual spreadsheets to HRnest, Pepper House transformed the way it manages its team on a daily basis. The company now benefits from:
