Convenience Store Elevates Employee Recognition with Paylocity

Family Express, a chain of convenience stores with locations throughout Indiana, prides itself on delivering a superb customer experience by offering competitively priced, high-quality products and services in a clean, safe, and friendly environment. That friendly environment is driven largely by its workforce, spread across 81 locations, and the company culture of kindness and recognition.

“We get to see the schoolteachers and police officers on their way to work. We get to see the electricians and plumbers and service workers. We get to see the mayor,” explains Alex Olympidis, President of Operations.

Treating every guest with kindness and respect is an important part of the Family Express culture.

But with so many locations to manage, the Family Express leadership team faced challenges not only with back-office operations but also with connecting employees and showcasing appreciation. The technology they selected nearly a decade ago was never updated, and other providers were being bought by mega corporations that didn’t give Family Express the care they needed. The team needed a partner that could offer a scalable solution and show them the same respect they show their customers. 

The Challenge: Outgrowing Legacy Solutions

Outdated technology can’t adapt to a growing, changing business

Previous Providers Couldn’t Meet the Needs of a Modern Organization

Before starting with Paylocity, Family Express partnered with various small business payroll providers. Alex and his team appreciated their attentiveness and willingness to address any issues right away, but that only went so far. 

“We were with a wonderful boutique firm that was a smaller business,” he says. “Seven years ago, when we transitioned to that boutique firm, it was at the height of seven-years-ago technology. The problem was it stayed at the height of seven-years-ago technology. If I needed something, they would certainly take the call and do their best, but they couldn't rewrite the software code.” 

The previous platform's limitations led Family Express to consider alternatives as they focused efforts on building a strong culture across its 81 locations.

Employee Recognition Didn’t Go Beyond Someone’s Personal File

As the business grew and the company culture continued to be a focal point, another pressing need arose: the need to socialize employee recognition.

“We invented something called an ‘early recognition,’” Alex says. “ Anybody could write an early recognition for a coworker, and it would go in their file forever. The problem with that system — it was better than nothing — was only that person and their supervisor and I ever saw that early recognition.” 

They didn’t realize it when they began their search, but what Family Express wanted was a way to shout these appreciative acknowledgements from the rooftops.

The Solution: Building for the Future

Family Express found a right-sized and well-rounded solution in Paylocity.

Finding the Balance of Large-Scale Capabilities with Boutique-Level Care

With their wish list in mind, Family Express began the search for a new HRIS provider that could give them not only the functionalities they needed, but also the attentiveness they loved. There were multiple options on the market, but finding one that aligned with the Family Express culture and growth trajectory was important.

Alex recalls: "We started searching for a new provider and talked with a few of the massive providers out there, but we thought they were too big. Paylocity hit that sweet spot for us since they are big enough to do big things with innovation, but also small enough to be agile."

Enhancing Family Express’s Culture of Recognition and Kindness

Most HCM providers can handle the basics of HR and payroll. However, there are few that truly differentiate with employee experience tools built right into the platform. Tools like Community, Video, Employee Voice, and Recognition and Rewards showed Alex and his team Paylocity could support the culture-first strategy at Family Express.

“Everybody says they will do this, that, and the other metric,” Alex remembers. “Paylocity stood alone with Community and the overall Employee Experience layer of the platform.”

Family Express prides itself on its uniquely friendly workforce across its 81 locations. Alex knows there are good things happening every day at the stores. He’d be lucky if some would send him a message about a positive interaction or satisfied customer, yet he knew technology could help foster that well beyond an email.  

“We theorized that with Community, we would have a tool to where those stories of good news would carry with them a snowball effect and that snowball effect would encourage others to treat their coworkers with kindness and respect, but also our customers,” he says.

He continues: “Not only does the employee see it, but their supervisor sees it, and their colleagues see it, and these things are contagious. Positivity is contagious. Appreciation is contagious. Gratitude is contagious.”

Simplifying Employee Access to a Family Express Information Hub

With the Paylocity Mobile App, Family Express employees now get simplified day-one access to both a wealth of information and a place where they can view checks, request time off, clock in and out, update personal data, and more. 

One impactful example is the employee links, which Alex and his team strongly encourage employees to view as they begin their careers with the organization. “They aren’t traditional company links,” he admits. “There's a TED talk about the value of building relationships. There's a commencement address about our own perspective in this community we call Earth. Those are the company links that I want people to read, but we didn't have an app before.”