Dallas Stars Put HR and Payroll Pains on Ice with Simplified HR

In the National Hockey League (NHL), the Dallas Stars are among the most celebrated, dynamic, and exciting teams. Over the years, the Stars have won Division and Conference titles, been home to Hall of Fame players, and even secured the biggest prize of all: the Stanley Cup.

Running a top-tier team needs a wealth of talent off the ice to support game-day events, sell tickets, manage facilities, and more. Moreover, today the Stars are more than just an NHL side. They own the Texas Stars development team, based in the H-E-B Center in Cedar Park, Texas, operate a network of StarCenter ice rinks and multisport facilities, and they run the Dallas Stars Foundation, which invests in community projects across North Texas.

Recruiting and managing talent for all these facets of the organization is a central preoccupation for Lindsay Dowdy, Senior Vice President, Human Resources, and Megan Lippe, Director, Human Resources.

“When I joined the Dallas Stars in 2015, our HR processes were very different,” explains Lindsay. “On my first day, I remember Megan helping me complete my paper onboarding documents on a makeshift desk, before clipping them together and storing them in a pile in the CFO’s office.”

Since then, the Stars have taken massive strides forward to streamline their HR operations with Paylocity. “We have turned HR into a strategic partner to the wider organization,” adds Lindsay. “We sometimes look at other HR and payroll solutions, but they are almost always much more complex than Paylocity. The Paylocity platform is simple to use, and has really helped us to grow.”

The Challenge: Shooting for Goal

To support ambitious growth plans, the Dallas Stars looked to replace inefficient legacy systems and manual processes with more scalable, streamlined HR and payroll workflows.

Setting Sights on Expansion

Since new owner Tom Gaglardi arrived in 2011, the Dallas Stars have been in fast-growth mode. As well as the takeover of the Texas Stars, the team has opened more StarCenters for youth and adult hockey and public skating, and acquired several multi-sport facilities. “We have two sites under construction that will provide ice rinks, basketball, volleyball and pickleball courts,” says Megan. “It’s an exciting time, but we will need to onboard many more people to manage these new locations.”

Building a Workforce to Succeed

Every stage of the growth journey brings fresh recruitment and people management challenges for Lindsay, Megan, and the HR team. “We need a very varied workforce, from game-day support and administrators to communications and business specialists and hockey operations teams,” explains Lindsay. “A large proportion is part-time, with relatively high turnover in those roles.”

Finding talent to manage the StarCenters and multisport facilities presents headaches, too. “Our sites are open almost 24/7: figure skating classes start as early as 05:00 in the morning, beer hockey leagues go on until well past midnight, and we only close for three days each year. We’re recruiting for roles that don’t fit the standard nine-to-five template,” adds Lindsay.

Moving Beyond Limited HR Tech

Legacy systems and manual processes also made life difficult for the HR team. For example, the previous Paycom platform was poorly suited for running a complex payroll. “When players travel to away games, they pay tax in that location, which can make our payroll very complicated,” adds Megan. Pulling data from the system to support workforce planning was also difficult, while paper-based onboarding was time-consuming, error-prone, and created a heavy admin burden for HR.

The Solution: Selecting the MVP

After analyzing and running demos with multiple solutions, the Dallas Stars selected Paylocity for its sophisticated, enterprise-scale HR, payroll, and talent management capabilities.

Automating Payroll and Benefits Management Workflows

Initially, the Dallas Stars deployed Paylocity’s Payroll module, creating streamlined processes for calculating employee compensation and customized workflows to ensure players pay the right taxes in different locations. Megan adds: “Our Payroll Manager just started using the AI Assistant in Paylocity to find data on expenses, and it’s proved really useful.” An integration between Paylocity and Bswift has also simplified benefits management. “We used to run open enrollments on paper. With Paylocity, we’ve digitalized the process, and it runs much more smoothly,” says Lindsay.

Empowering Employees with Intuitive HR Tools

In another major win, the Dallas Stars elevated the employee experience with the Paylocity Mobile App and Employee Self-Service module. “We have got rid of physical timeclocks,” comments Megan. “Almost everyone clocks in on the app and uses it to manage their personal information.”

Accelerating the Recruiting and Onboarding Pipeline

The Stars have also transformed the talent acquisition process with Paylocity. “We love the Recruiting module,” explains Megan. “The way candidate data flows seamlessly into the Onboarding module saves time and eliminates the risk of typos and other errors.” Crucially, the Onboarding module has replaced paper forms with a frictionless digital process that new hires can complete online whenever convenient. Megan adds: “We often used to have to chase people for essential information. It was a nightmare and Paylocity has really helped improve this process for us.

Gaining Detailed Data on HR Trends

In addition, the HR team uses the Data Insights module to pull in-depth reports on headcount, demographics, and workforce trends, while the Compliance module helps them stay on top of their responsibilities to employees. “The Compliance dashboard is very useful to track employee hours and whether people qualify for health coverage under the Affordable Care Act [ACA],” says Megan.

The Results: Reaching the Endzone

Over ten years, the Dallas Stars have used Paylocity to accelerate HR processes, improve strategic decision-making, and ultimately support large-scale organizational growth.

Becoming a Billion-Dollar Enterprise

Bringing Paylocity onto the team has helped the Dallas Stars to turbocharge their growth. Today, the organization has expanded into a billion-dollar operation, with 1,700 employees managed by just six HR people. One key contributor to this rise has been efficient hiring and onboarding, as Megan notes: “We’ve halved the time to hire and onboard new employees. And managers don’t have to sit down with new hires to go through paperwork, cutting the administrative burden.”

Lindsay adds: “Streamlined onboarding has been a key enabler of growth. We benefit from the speed and sophistication of online, intuitive processes, and we aren’t held back by spending time chasing new hires for social security numbers or signed W-4 Forms.”

Making Complex Payroll Simple and Seamless

The Dallas Stars have felt the impact of Paylocity across many other HR processes, too. For example, payroll runs faster and with 100 percent accuracy, as Megan explains: “Managing payroll for players and full- and part-time employees is a huge task that Paylocity has reduced to a precise science.” Similarly, employee self-service has reduced pressure on the HR team. “We receive far fewer questions about benefits plans or timecards,” says Lindsay. “That gives us more time for value-add tasks.”

Building Success with Data-Driven Insights

With quick access to detailed reports in Paylocity, the HR department is now helping to shape the future of the Dallas Stars. “Our President and executives could ask me for a breakdown of headcount across our entities, and I can just pull the numbers to guide their strategic planning and decision-making. And as we start to hire for our new facilities, we are also drilling down into the data from our current sites to ensure we have the right people available from day one,” concludes Lindsay.