Meet Tracy McDonald

VP of People at Left

“I don't have to worry about paperwork and small details that don't provide high value for our organization.”

— Tracy McDonald

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The Results

No more hunting for employee data: With BambooHR, all employee data is in one organized and secure database with powerful automation capabilities. The HR team at Left spends less time on operational tasks so they can focus on strategic issues.

Employee self-service: 20 percent time savings. “All those [employee] questions and concerns and [PTO] tracking and updates can really add up. ...[Now] we don’t have to field those questions.”

Onboarding: 20–30 percent time savings. “In BambooHR® Onboarding, we use the New Hire Packet, so [new employees] actually get an introduction to BambooHR a week before they start. ...It’s really quite automated, but welcomes them well into the organization.”

Offboarding: 20–30 percent time savings. “I used to print out a piece of paper with a checklist that would float around the office as we were making sure all the steps were done. ...[BambooHR] offboarding has been a game-changer.”

The Challenge

Have you ever felt like you were looking for a needle in a haystack? That’s how Tracy McDonald felt when she joined Left in 2014 and found herself struggling every day to locate and manage the information she needed to do her HR work.

“We had no idea where our employees’ contracts were,” said Tracy. “...We were keeping track of time off in Excel spreadsheets and not really updating it regularly; we had no centralized place where we were storing data, so if we needed to look something up it was really hard to find.”

“I tried to pull everything together on my laptop, but there were still holes, and when I needed to update something it was still more work.”

There was also no provision for employee self-service, which only made things worse.

“Employees didn’t have visibility into the [PTO] spreadsheets, so if they wanted to know how many days they have, they had nothing. They’d come to me, I’d have to do the calculation, then take a look at the chart—it was just slow.”

The Solution

Everything in One Place: BambooHR solved the data organization issues at Left by keeping all employee data in one organized, secure database accessible from anywhere. At the same time, key features of BambooHR streamlined operations and provided a variety of additional benefits for the HR team and the entire company.

Improved Efficiency: “Where BambooHR really excels and makes my job better is that it takes care of and automates a lot of those foundational elements in HR, the things that have to be done—whether it’s making sure we’ve got all of our personal data on file or tracking our PTO.”

Work from Anywhere via Mobile App: “Last time we had to let some folks go, I was able to trigger offboarding while I was on vacation, as opposed to having to do it when I got back in town. ...That was so much simpler...all the tasks could go out to all the people who had a role to play in the offboarding, and I could watch things get checked off on my dashboard and do it remotely. A much more streamlined process to help in challenging times!”

Get More Done: “From onboarding all the way through offboarding...you can take advantage of features all along the way [and] streamline more of your workload.”

Time for What Matters Most: “A centralized system that can automate our onboarding and offboarding frees up a ton of time within my team that we can now use to really meet the important part of HR, which is working with our people, developing and growing them. And that allows me in my role to [focus on] strategy and the bigger picture.”

About Left

Left is a Canadian travel tech company. Their mission, says Tracy, is to “increase the benefits and decrease the downsides of travel for people, business, and the planet.” They rely on BambooHR to keep all employee information in a single secure database.