Simpler approval processes, reduced hiring time, clear skills development: How a leading property platform streamlined its HR system

With over 1,300 employees serving 31 million users across five countries, PropertyGuru has become the leading property technology platform in South-east Asia. However, its human resources (HR) managers were facing operational challenges as their systems were not keeping up with the rapid growth of the company.

“We had our work cut out for us,” says Helen Snowball, PropertyGuru’s chief people officer. “Our old HR systems were scattered across different platforms hindering our leaders from easily accessing important information about their team members.

“We also had inefficient approval and communication processes, which caused frustration among our HR and business teams. For example, each new prospective hire had to go through four approvers before he or she could be hired.”

Recognising the urgent need for change, Snowball and her team began looking for a new HR management system that would make their work easier and give employees access to the data they needed to make hiring decisions, track team performance and plan career paths for themselves and staff.

The solution came through a partnership with Workday to streamline PropertyGuru’s HR operations. Since implementing Workday Human Capital Management (HCM), PropertyGuru has simplified the hiring process and reduced the time needed to fill new positions. Its team leaders now can easily see how their teams are performing and help employees develop their careers more effectively.

Starting with employee feedback

PropertyGuru was launched in Singapore in 2007 and later expanded to Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. It also has a technology development office in India.

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To improve its HR systems across these locations, Snowball and her HR team asked the entire company for their inputs to improve and streamline processes. They began by running human-centered design workshops to get first-hand insights and perspectives to better understand employee experiences and challenges, which helped shape meaningful survey questions.

“We sent out surveys to understand what our employees needed,” says Snowball. “Their feedback showed us the gaps and opportunities we had to tackle.”

The survey results highlighted three main areas for improvement. “First, we needed to make daily HR tasks easier for our employees,” says Snowball. “We also wanted to give our managers the information they need to make quick decisions about their teams. Finally, we saw an opportunity to simplify our HR processes to work more efficiently.”

At the heart of these efforts was PropertyGuru’s belief that an engaged and supported workforce was key to success. As part of the company’s Be More, Be a Guru employee value proposition, they strived to create an environment where every Guru could thrive, innovate and grow. By simplifying people-related tasks, they gave Gurus more time to focus on what they did best.

PropertyGuru then took a creative path to translate insights into action.

Instead of simply implementing Workday HCM as a standard software upgrade, PropertyGuru’s HR team organised workshops with 100 managers and team leaders from different departments and countries to rethink how they could improve work processes.

Over 600 ideas emerged from the massive brainstorming initiative to help shape the company’s new HR management system.

As a Workday Prime customer, PropertyGuru received dedicated support from Workday’s Professional Services team. Workday worked closely with the company to help bring their vision of an integrated system to life. This included streamlining processes across PropertyGuru’s multiple entities while adhering to local regulations. In addition, there was a focus on improving the employee and manager experience with Workday’s latest artificial intelligence (AI) dashboards and capabilities.

“All the way through, it really felt like a partnership with Workday,” says Snowball. “Their specialists weren’t afraid to question our ideas when they saw a better way to do things. They also shared their expertise to help us choose the most effective solutions.”

Bringing improvements to daily work

Thanks to the strong collaboration between PropertyGuru and Workday, the new HR system was implemented in just eight months.

To help employees adapt to the new system, PropertyGuru’s HR and marketing teams created an engaging internal campaign with the tagline: “We’re making it easier for you to do what you do best”, which creatively summed up the pivotal shift they were bringing about in the way they work.

Eye-catching posters that promoted the benefits of Workday were displayed across their internal communications channels, breaking down information about the new Workday system into simple, easy-to-understand steps.

In addition, team leaders received comprehensive training to learn how they could use Workday to track their teams’ progress, identify areas for support and help employees develop their skills.

The launch event to celebrate Workday going live across their offices in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and India was a success, with hundreds of Gurus joining – both online and in person – making it a truly memorable day.

The campaign was so successful that every PropertyGuru employee logged into Workday during its first week of going live.

The switch to the new system brought concrete improvements. Instead of needing four approvers, hiring now required just one person’s approval. The time to prepare new employee contracts dropped from seven days to four. An internal survey showed that HR team satisfaction with the system increased by 29 per cent.

“People were coming up to thank us all the time,” says Snowball. “They can now easily access their team information and manage leave requests themselves.”

Fabio Tiviti, group vice president for APAC and Japan field operations at Workday, noted that PropertyGuru’s growth required a more adaptable HR system and that the collaboration between the companies has simplified operations and increased efficiency.

“We are encouraged to see that Workday has helped PropertyGuru streamline its HR processes, making it easier for employees and leaders to access the information they need. Their rapid growth required an adaptable solution, and by working closely together, we helped simplify operations and improve efficiency. We look forward to supporting their continued evolution in workforce management,” says Tiviti.

This was just the first step in making HR processes better for PropertyGuru’s employees.

By mid-2025, PropertyGuru will add new features to its HR management system to help employees learn and develop their skills.

“Once we launch phase two, we’ll move from focusing on job titles to focusing on skills,” says Snowball. “This means we’ll be better at recognising, developing and using the specific talents our employees have. And we will have the ability to pivot from a role-based organisation to a skills-based one.”

Find out how Workday can help your business manage HR processes more efficiently