SAMpeople

Welcoming SAMpeople and FusionHR to Arbor

I’m really excited to welcome the schools, trusts, products and teams behind SAMpeople and FusionHR to Arbor today. 

SAMpeople and FusionHR are education HR specialists. Their HR and recruitment software, payroll bureau, and HR advice and consultancy helps over 1,700 schools and trusts stay ahead of critical people tasks, confidently navigate challenges, and create outstanding places to work and learn.

I wanted to explain why we chose to acquire SAMpeople and FusionHR, and what this means for the schools and trusts we work with.

Why are we bringing school MIS and HR together?

At Arbor, our mission is to transform the way schools work for the better. And we’ve always believed the best way to do that is by building software that makes a meaningful difference to the working lives of school and trust staff. 

We’re really proud that over 6,000 schools and 400 trusts use Arbor everyday to understand their data, work better together, and manage operational work.

But getting the right MIS in place is only one part of the puzzle when it comes to supporting happier working lives in schools. With over 950,000 staff working in schools, getting an easy-to-use HR system, and HR advice you can trust, play an equally important role in shaping the wider culture of a school, and improving the day-to-day experience of teachers, support staff, and SLT. 

In particular, we know that MATs require people software specifically suited to their needs to help them grow and scale effectively – and MIS systems do not have the right functionality for this as MATs scale. As a result, far too often the schools and trusts we work with tell us they’re still using spreadsheets or paper-based systems to manage their teams. 

So we’re thrilled to welcome SAMpeople and FusionHR into the Arbor family today to change all of that. By working together, our goal is to help MATs bring a best-of-breed HR system into their ecosystem – helping them manage their full people experience from recruitment, to onboarding, to staff development, to cover management, and much more. Importantly, using Arbor’s Data Warehouse, MATs will finally be able to see all their data in one place, including HR, recruitment and MIS data side-by-side, giving leaders a single view of your trust. 

Why SAMpeople and FusionHR?

We wanted to work with SAMpeople and FusionHR because they uniquely blend education HR expertise with leading people management software. Their core product, SAMpeople, is the fastest-growing HR system for schools and trusts. Thoughtfully designed by in-house people specialists with years of experience supporting trusts and schools, it brings together everything you need to get oversight and visibility across your trust, centralise policies and processes, and make life easier for staff and HR teams alike.

The team behind SAMpeople also share our passion for changing the way schools work for the better, making them the perfect partners for this next step. We have been really impressed when meeting with the team to see how much we’re aligned about wanting to make a lasting, positive impact on the sector. Doing the right thing for customers is absolutely ingrained in what we do, and I’m delighted to be working with such genuinely mission-driven people. You should see this in your interactions with them and us.

What does this mean for Arbor and the schools and MATs we work with?

With SAMpeople, TimeTabler and Arbor Finance in our group, Arbor can now offer a family of best-of-breed management software to schools, trusts and LAs. All of the products in our group already integrate deeply with Arbor MIS, giving school and trust teams an easy way to manage staff data and workflows across their organisation, and one place to visualise their data. We’ll be working next on bringing our products together into an integrated suite of tools.

Ultimately this means Arbor can help save staff time with an even greater proportion of back-office operations, helping schools to transform the way they work for the better. We’re particularly excited about the possibilities this unlocks for flexible working, simpler cover management, and easier staff onboarding. We’ll also soon be able to provide better insights to school and trust leaders on the interplay between budget, staffing, school management, and scheduling. Watch this space!

Will we continue to offer SAMpeople to MATs using other MIS software?

Absolutely. We strongly believe that all schools deserve to use the best tools and software, and that they should have choice – regardless of which MIS they use. 

We will also continue to support schools and MATs using Arbor with a different HR system.

What will happen next?

We plan to use our increased size and scale to focus on improving product innovation and support across all our brands, and customers should see a marked increase in value as a result.

I’m excited for this next stage in our mission, and look forward to hearing your thoughts!

P.S. Interested in seeing SAMpeople? Click here to book a demo with their team


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