Sponge, a digital learning and technology company with a Plymouth HQ, has opened a new office in Bristol. 

 

The office at CityPoint in Temple Gate is the fifth location for Plymouth-headquartered Sponge, and its second in the South West.

 

As part of its ongoing expansion, Sponge is planning to increase employee numbers to 300 within the next five years and to open more offices in Europe and in the US.

Sponge’s clients include Coca-Cola, BMW, adidas, Marks & Spencer, Tesco, Royal Mail, AstraZeneca, Specsavers, and AXA.

 

Over the last three years the company has grown significantly, from a turnover of £1.9m in 2014 to £5.2m in 2017. Last year, the company’s turnover grew by 50 per cent, allowing the creation of 40 additional jobs, and 2018’s turnover is on track for £7.5m.

 

Louise Pasterfield, founder and managing director at Sponge, said: "When we were looking for a new location to expand into, we were immediately drawn to what Bristol has to offer.  It has been named as a globally significant tech cluster and it is home to a number of world-class creative companies.

 

"Bristol aligns completely with how we work at Sponge. We use creativity and innovation to help people learn and grow and to help businesses succeed. We are very much looking forward to growing our presence here in the years to come."

 

A major increase in staff numbers, such as Sponge will encounter if its expansion plans go smoothly, can cause problems for staff performing HR, admin and accounts job roles, particularly in the area of time management.

 

For example, it is very easy for staff to fill in paper timesheets incorrectly. Sometimes this can be deliberate time fraud, but sometimes it is just people forgetting to fill in their timesheets until a week later. Delays like this can lead to misremembering exact shift details, as well as delaying the whole timesheet processing task unnecessarily.

 

Even if the details are all delivered on time and correctly, paper timesheets are generally manually transferred to an Excel spreadsheet before being sent to payroll software. 

 

There are many opportunities for human error to kick in during this time-consuming process – e.g. making an unrecognised typo in entering, or misreading employee’s handwriting (1 or 7? O or 0 or D?). This can result in incorrect payslips. 

 

Incorrect data can also cause problems for HR tasks too, making it much more difficult to spot issues like adherence to the Working Time Directive or someone taking three 30 minute breaks plus lunch.

 

At Time and Attendance South West we offer specialised time and attendance management software which can work either with smartcards or with biometrics (fingerprints or hand scanners). 

 

Your staff clock-in using a terminal, and the information is logged. At the end of the week or month, or whenever you need, the data on how many hours people were clocked in for can be exported straight to your payroll system. (Our products are compatible with all the major providers, please feel free to ask if you’re uncertain).