HR and Payroll Outsourcing for a British Multinational Restaurant Chain
How Acadia managed HR, payroll, and employment compliance for a British restaurant chain's 1,000+ employees across Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou.
3 min read
A British multinational restaurant chain, with over 470 restaurants across the United Kingdom and 100 restaurants in Europe, Hong Kong, Singapore, and other overseas. Since their first restaurant opened in China, we helped them manage HR affairs and payroll outsourcing of nearly 1,000 employees in Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and other major cities.
The challenge for the Client in HR areas:
- They are not familiar with domestic Chinese labor laws and policies and need professional HR support.
- With rapid expansion, they must have a professional HR agency to handle hiring, termination, and payroll matters for them in different cities in China.
- Large number of employees and high turnover.
- HR affairs increasing and become overwhelming.
How do we help the client from 0-1?
- Our experienced team of HR advisors helped the client establish the employment contract, employee handbook, and internal HR policies in the early stages.
- We helped them understand salary benchmarks in the food and beverage industry and advised clients to offer competitive compensation and benefits to attract potential employees.
- We provided one-stop payroll outsourcing, from employee onboarding, payroll, social benefits management, and leaves to employee offboarding to support the needs of clients and employees at all stages of the employment life cycle.
- We applied flexible working hours and comprehensive working hours for the management team and restaurant employees in the labor bureau.
- We provided value-added services for the client to provide commercial insurance, annual medical checks for employees, expatriate employees, assistance with work visas.
- We helped the client deal with the labor dispute, work-related injuries, and redundancy.
Outcome
- Compliance at scale: Payroll and social insurance for nearly 1,000 employees across five Chinese cities was managed compliantly, with no fines or labour arbitration claims attributable to HR administration.
- Single point of contact: The client’s regional management team had one Acadia contact for all China HR and payroll queries, removing the complexity of managing multiple local agents in different cities.
- Labour dispute resolution: Acadia handled labour disputes, work-related injury claims, and redundancy processes correctly under PRC Labour Contract Law.
- Focus on core operations: By outsourcing the full HR and payroll cycle, the client’s China management team focused entirely on restaurant operations, menu localisation, and expansion.
- Rapid city expansion: As new locations opened, Acadia registered new social insurance obligations and updated payroll coverage within the standard lead time, keeping expansion on schedule.
Scale Your China HR and Payroll with Acadia
Managing HR and payroll for a multi-city China operation requires local expertise in each city’s social insurance rules, labour bureau procedures, and employment contract requirements. Acadia Advisory provides fully managed payroll outsourcing, HR advisory, and employment contract management for foreign-invested companies of all sizes. Learn more about our China payroll services, or request a consultation to discuss your China HR requirements.
Related services
- China HR & Payroll Services
Operate compliant employment, payroll, and social contribution workflows while improving accuracy and employee experience.
- China Employer of Record (EOR)
Hire in China without a local entity. Acadia as Employer of Record handles employment contracts, payroll, social insurance, IIT, and work permit support while you manage day-to-day work.