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HQ: Goleta, United States
Industry: Food Technology
Company size: >200 employees
Key features used: Benchmarking, Pay Bands, Total Rewards
By switching to Barley, Apeel’s HR team can now easily manage all of their compensation processes in Barley on their own — without relying on complex configurations or external support.
With Barley, they’ve drastically reduced the number of weeks spent on running comp reviews which used to be a complex and time consuming process.
Barley’s flexibility enabled Apeel’s HR team to set budgets by teams and departments during comp reviews so that they could control spend and stay on budget.
Through Barley’s visualized compensation dashboards and data, directors and managers are able to gain insights to make better and more informed pay decisions.
Apeel Sciences is an American food technology company that develops plant-based, edible, tasteless coatings to extend the shelf life of fresh produce, including avocados, citrus, and other fruits and vegetables. Apeel helps reduce food waste and reliance on single-use plastic packaging, creating a more sustainable food system.
As the Senior Global Total Rewards Manager, Malissa Ramirez’s responsibilities include aligning employee rewards with the company’s mission and goals. The HR and Total Rewards team at Apeel oversees the development of strategic total rewards programs that engage and motivate a diverse and global workforce.
Before Barley, Apeel Sciences used their HRIS’s Compensation Module for their compensation planning. However, their HR team faced challenges with that platform because it needed a lot of customization to perform certain compensation workflows and the platform wasn’t intuitive to use.
First, it was difficult to use without an HRIS expert. Since the platform was complex to use and hiring a specialist contractor would’ve added extra costs, the team was limited to executing routine tasks such as updating salary ranges and job levels. Apeel’s HR team was looking for a solution to perform more elaborate compensation tasks and processes.
Another challenge with their previous system was that it didn’t provide the flexibility to meet their needs. Apeel’s HR team wanted a platform where they could gain actionable insights from the compensation data or empower managers with pay decisions and recommendations during compensation reviews.
“We weren’t presenting compensation information to the managers in an efficient and intuitive manner. The managers couldn’t view pay ranges or see where their employees’ salaries stood. I knew there had to be a better way for our managers to access this compensation information, including how they compare to the market and their compa-ratio,” said Malissa.
After facing ongoing challenges managing compensation processes with their existing solution, Malissa searched for a more dynamic compensation management platform that would streamline these processes.
Following a detailed evaluation of multiple options, Malissa ultimately chose Barley for the following abilities:
1. User-friendliness and easy-to-configure interface for admins and managers: Apeel’s HR team found it easy for both admins and managers to learn how to use Barley to perform compensation tasks.
2. Visualized comp data and analytics for managers: With visualized comp data and analytics, Apeel’s managers have a more in-depth understanding of pay ranges and can compare their employees’ pay.
When it came to implementation, Apeel found Barley’s platform to be highly intuitive, enabling their team to get started quickly and navigate the platform with ease. While the team could configure Barley independently, Barley’s Customer Success team also provided tailored support during the setup and gave guidance around establishing pay ranges and comparing them to the market. This combination of an easy-to-use platform and high-touch support made the onboarding process both seamless and highly effective.
The impact of switching to Barley was immediate and significant. With Barley, the process is now streamlined and has saved several weeks of manual work. Not only has Barley saved the team time spent on comp reviews, but it has also enabled their lean HR team to perform more complex compensation workflows on their own, without the need of an external expert.
Apeel also saw marked improvement with their budget management process. The ability to roll up compensation data and maintain oversight meant that they could adhere more strictly to its budget guidelines. Their overall spending has been better controlled, and budget planning has become more predictable and manageable.
The most notable transformation was in manager empowerment. Initially, the new process was rolled out to directors, who quickly became comfortable with the system. These leaders then played a crucial role in training their direct reports at the manager level. With clearer visuals and accessible data, managers could actively monitor their team’s budgets and make well-informed pay recommendations.
With Barley as their compensation management solution, Apeel’s HR team can now confidently perform their compensation planning in a simple and flexible way that meets their needs. The time saved allows their team to focus on strategic initiatives that drive employee engagement and ensures Apeel remains a competitive and rewarding place to work.