Saving time and eliminating risk

About the Business

The Bega Group is home to many trusted and wholesome food brands that are enjoyed in Australia and all around the world. The Bega Group brands encompass iconic household names in the Australian market, such as Bega, VEGEMITE, Dare, Dairy Farmers, Farmers Union, and Zooper Dooper to name a few. These are sold in both the retail and the food service industry.

Pain Point

With a team of approximately 3800 employees throughout Australia, including Australian visa holders across a variety of sites, recording and maintaining accurate data on right to work and visa status is no small feat.

The Bega Group’s People Services team are vigilant in ensuring that visa holders comply with varying work conditions and restrictions and maintaining data privacy and security protections for its employees.  The team are also aware that employers that engage a foreign national to work who fails to have the correct work visa will be fined.  Always on the look out for better solutions to complex challenges, the Bega Group’s People Services team began looking for ways to better manage the volume and frequency of manual VEVO checks, which had become increasingly time consuming and laborious, particularly post with the acquisition of the former Lion Dairy & Drinks business in 2021.

The Bega Group needed an easy-to-use solution they could implement and disseminate across their entire organisation quickly.

Solution

CheckWorkRights first helped the team amalgamate, organise and import their visa holder data. Then, they needed to consider how to handle incoming employee data in a way that fit with their recruitment and onboarding processes, ultimately deciding on candidate self-serve via the MyCheck dashboard prior to sending employment contracts.

Once the existing data was in and onboarding systems were in place, it was only a number of hours before the whole Bega Group organisation was up and running. ‘We signed the contract and our team members were using CheckWorkRights the next day,’ said Anthony Peroukaneas, People Services Partner.

Result

CheckWorkRights provided the Bega Group’s People Services team with clear oversight of right-to-work checks, allowing them to automate processes and set up colour-coded alerts for visa expiry dates. Centralising data minimised risks and provided an audit trail, while secure self-service workflows ensured compliance and data security.

For the wider team, operators on site picked up and started scanning passports with ease using the CheckWorkRights mobile device passport scanning tool. On sites where workers on student visas are employed, the team uses the system to ensure that workers with limited conditions are remaining within their allowed hours.

People Services Partner Bec Cockerill joined the team after implementation, and cites one of the key draws to working in the Bega Group team is the time savings that CheckWorkRights provides her.

‘In a previous role at another organisation, I was tasked with manually checking and rechecking over a thousand right to work checks, so when I heard that the Bega Group was using software to automate these processes, I knew I’d landed in the right place.’

Ready to see how CheckWorkRights can save you time? Book a demo today.