#BrioEmpowers Halo Doughnuts: Taking the Guesswork Out of HR
Halo Doughnuts is a trending, up-and-coming bakery in the heart of Petaling Jaya. Like its name implies, it creates doughnuts with imaginative toppings like miso-infused caramel glaze, brûléed hojicha with matcha crème pâtissière, and Canadian maple and duck bacon.
Founded by couple Khristabelle and Raphael, Halo Doughnuts has grown steadily since it was founded right in the middle of pandemic lockdown. From baking and selling out of Khris’ mother’s home to opening a physical storefront, the company’s organic success is credited to a personal and approachable brand, a commitment to excellence, as well as having a roadmap and set of targets – not to mention having delicious doughnuts in innovative flavours.
Growing Pains
Nevertheless, as Halo Doughnuts grew, Khris and Raph experienced growing pains just like every other entrepreneur.
Raph said, “Our main challenges were figuring out how to scale processes. There’s quite a gap between making a few dozen doughnuts a week, which can be managed from home with a notebook, and making a hundred doughnuts a day, which can’t.
“The same gap applies to buying ingredients, managing orders, and of course managing staff,” Raph explains.
As soon as the company hired its first employee, the HR problems started. “Doing payroll every month was a pain as soon we hired our first employee. EPF rates kept changing, some months had public holidays, some didn’t. We didn’t really know how employee income taxes worked,” shared Raph.
At first, the team started out like many other startups, using spreadsheets to manually calculate pay and generate payslips. However, the system was messy, tedious, and error-prone. “As our team grew, it became untenable,” Raph said.
Halo Doughnuts co-founders Khristabelle Adelaide Teri and Raphael Mannadiar
We haven’t looked back and I fall in love with BrioHR all over again every time I seamlessly do payroll in just a few clicks.
Switching to BrioHR
To solve their HR issues, a friend recommended that Khris and Raph look into HRMS – specialized HR software.
To Raph’s trained tech eye though, most HR software they considered had flaws and serious issues. “I preferred to stick with my tedious spreadsheet process rather than rely on any of them,” explained Raph.
In contrast, when they looked at BrioHR, they found a simple, user-friendly HR software that met their needs. “BrioHR was clearly built on modern technologies. I was impressed by the quality of their software.” said Raph.
Aside from software, Raph is also impressed with BrioHR’s customer experience. “The team was extremely friendly, courteous, professional, helpful and expedient with our onboarding. I’ve never so much as stumbled on a bug, and their helpful team is always one-click away via live chat if I need a hand finding something, which itself demonstrates their technical abilities.”
For businesses that are used to manual HR processes, switching to using HR software like BrioHR can be daunting. But, Raph is adamant that kicking bad habits is the key to success in Halo Doughnuts. “We haven’t looked back and I fall in love with BrioHR all over again every time I seamlessly do payroll in just a few clicks.”
