When a company opens its first location in a new market, its main focus is usually operations, recruitment, team training, and the first months of running the business. At the same time, however, this is also the phase when the company sets up how it will work with employees: what benefits it will offer, how it will communicate, and how much administration will remain with HR and managers.
Five Guys opened its first location in the Czech Republic at the end of last year. The company decided to offer its employees Advanto’s Earned Wage Access benefit, which gives employees access to part of their already earned wages before the standard payday.
Previous experience with Advanto also played a role at Five Guys. HR Manager Aneta Krausová and other members of the leadership team had previously worked at companies where Earned Wage Access was already in place. They therefore knew what to expect from the benefit: practical support for employees, less administration around salary advances, and a benefit that could also be attractive in recruitment.
We spoke with HR Manager Aneta Krausová about why Five Guys decided to introduce Advanto right from the launch of its first Czech location, how the implementation went, and what she would recommend to other companies.
Aneta, could you introduce yourself to begin with?
My name is Aneta Krausová, and I work for Five Guys as an HR Manager. Since we currently have one location, it means that I handle absolutely everything in HR there. So recruitment, benefits, communication with employees, standard HR matters, communication with payroll, and so on.
We opened in December, but the company had already been operating since September because we were preparing for the opening. Before that, I worked in the same position for AmRest at Pizza Hut, where we also knew Advanto from. Even before that, I worked at Batist, and we had Advanto there too, so it is a company I am very familiar with.
So you already knew what you were getting into?
Yes, I knew exactly.
This previous experience was important for Five Guys when making the decision. For part of the leadership team, Advanto was not an unknown service, but a benefit they had already encountered in practice. That also made it easier to explain its value internally and decide to introduce it right at the start of the new location.
What made you consider Advanto at Five Guys?
Definitely expanding our benefits, because we did not have many. Since we were starting from scratch, we wanted to provide employees with as much as possible. At the same time, we wanted to reduce administrative work. Since the headquarters team is very small, we wanted something that would make our work a little easier. When someone needed money and wanted to take an advance, it was very administratively demanding for us. Advanto makes this much easier for us.
Earned Wage Access allows employees to transfer part of their already earned wages to their bank account before the standard payday via a mobile or web app. For employees, this means greater flexibility in their personal finances. For the company, it provides a simpler solution for situations where an employee would otherwise ask for a salary advance.
Did the demand for Advanto come from employees?
It probably came directly from us. We have many foreigners on the team, around 90%, so I think they did not know Advanto and it was something new for them. A pleasant novelty, but it came more from us.
What were your expectations when introducing Advanto?
It was definitely supposed to help us with recruitment. Since we can communicate it as a major benefit, I think it is valuable. It can certainly also help with turnover. Since we have only had it for a short time, I cannot say that yet, but it was one of our arguments toward the leadership team when we were introducing Advanto. And of course, reducing the workload for us when someone wanted to take an advance.
At Five Guys, Earned Wage Access was not seen merely as another item on the list of benefits. From the beginning, it was expected to fulfil several practical roles: expand the employee offering, support recruitment, and at the same time relieve HR and managers of the manual agenda connected with salary advances.
Do you already see any results?
It is still early, but I definitely see great satisfaction. People are using it. No one has come to me with any problem, so that is great. And I can definitely see that no one contacts me or our managers directly anymore saying they would like to take an advance. Everyone handles it through Advanto, which is excellent. That has helped us a lot.
Managers in operations need to dedicate their time to the team, shifts, and the customer experience, not to manually handling individual financial requests.
Did you have any concerns during the implementation?
No. I do not think there were any concerns. Since I had already experienced it before, I was able to explain it very clearly to the leadership team. And as for the integration, everything was set up very well on your side, and our payroll provider, which also manages OKbase for us, can work with it and knows it too. So I knew exactly what we were getting into. I would say it was completely problem-free. We were not really worried, and nothing surprised us as an issue during the implementation.
Five Guys uses the OKbase payroll system and the Giriton attendance system. Advanto is already familiar with both systems, so the implementation itself did not create an unnecessary burden for HR or operations.
How much time did the implementation take?
Almost none. You took care of everything. Then, of course, there was communication toward employees, but that was a matter of tens of minutes. It was nothing worth mentioning.
When introducing a new benefit, companies often ask how much time the implementation will take and whether it will bring additional complications. In the case of Five Guys, it helped that Advanto fit into the systems already being used and that most of the preparation was handled by the Advanto team. The main focus was therefore on internal communication.
What would you recommend to companies considering Advanto?
I would mainly recommend thorough communication. Promote it through as many communication channels as possible, because that is important. I liked that, from your side, we had the opportunity to have a meeting with managers where you explained everything to them. Because most questions would potentially be directed to them. Since they understood it very well, no questions came to me afterwards. They filtered everything, and that is great. So I would mainly recommend training people in leadership positions, who will then receive the questions, and communicating it properly.
The involvement of managers proved to be important. In operations, they are often the first people employees turn to. Advanto therefore prepared communication materials for Five Guys and also trained managers so they knew exactly how the benefit works and were able to answer any questions from employees.
Is there anything you would improve about Advanto?
Probably not, nothing really comes to mind.
Summary
The Five Guys experience shows that even when launching a new location, it is possible to introduce a benefit that starts making sense very quickly. Earned Wage Access helps employees gain greater flexibility in their personal finances while also relieving the company of manual administration connected with salary advances.
It is important to choose a solution that is practical, easy to use, and fits well into internal processes. And it is just as important to communicate the benefit clearly to both employees and managers.
Would you like to find out how Earned Wage Access could help your company? Get in touch with us.
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