Norwich City FC scores with Cascade HR & Payroll  

Norwich City Football Club is a professional football club with a proud history and a strong community presence, committed to excellence both on and off the pitch. To support its operations and manage a diverse workforce, Norwich City FC uses IRIS Cascade to streamline payroll and HR processes, saving time and improving access to essential employee data. 

Driving operational change through trusted systems 

Paul Cunningham, Head of Payroll at Norwich City FC, brought over two decades of experience in payroll when he joined the club in 2019. At the time, Norwich was running payroll through IRIS Team Spirit – an older system approaching its end of life. This created both a challenge and an opportunity. “We were told Team Spirit was being retired, so we went through a full tender process. But we didn’t just want a like-for-like switch – we wanted a system that could take us forward and make a real difference,” says Paul. 

The team considered several potential platforms, scoring each on functionality, flexibility, cost, and future potential. With a busy payroll covering around 1,200 staff – and just two payroll team members – efficiency, customisability, and integration were essential. After a rigorous selection process, Cascade was selected for permanent staff. “What really stood out was how customisable Cascade is. We were able to build additional functionality into the system – it wasn’t limited to what it could do out of the box. We could create tailored reports and develop new processes from scratch to fit our needs,” explains Paul. 

From spreadsheets to smarter, integrated processes 

Before Cascade, many HR functions were handled manually, with spreadsheets and paper-based records used across departments. 

With Cascade, Norwich City FC introduced a fully integrated HR and payroll platform, bringing everything together in one place. Employee records, absence tracking, holiday management, and reporting are now centralised and accessible to both HR teams and line managers. “The biggest difference for HR is visibility. Everything is in the system now, on mobile or desktop. Instead of digging through spreadsheets, it’s all there, whenever you need it.” 

One of the most significant improvements has been in payroll processing speed. What used to take a full week can now be checked and integrated into the system easily, saving time and capacity. Whilst each month is always different, Cascade saves the team a full day of processing, allowing them to focus on other objectives. 

Bringing staff on the journey 

While the transition to Cascade has been embraced by teams at the club’s Carrow Road site, adoption at the training centre has been more gradual. Many staff work irregular hours and are often off-site, which creates challenges in building new habits. “The system is there to help – especially with holiday planning and absence tracking. We used last season as a soft rollout, but now looking forward we’ll be making sure Cascade is being used as much as possible.”  

Holiday management has been a standout success. Previously handled via departmental spreadsheets, informal emails, or verbal agreements, it’s now unified in Cascade, allowing Payroll, HR and managers to track and plan leave effectively across the club. They have also built and implemented processes in absence management, performance development, probation, holiday purchases, DBS tracking and toil management. 

Choosing IRIS: Reputation matters in the sports world 

A major factor in Norwich City FC’s decision to go with Cascade was the strong reputation of IRIS across other sports teams. The team spoke with other clubs already using IRIS software and took reassurance from consistent, positive feedback. “One of the reasons we chose Cascade was because we knew other football clubs were already using it. We spoke with other HR and payroll teams to understand how the system worked for them, and what we heard was really positive.”  

For Paul, the trust placed in IRIS by peers in the industry was just as valuable as the platform’s functionality. “Hearing only positive feedback from people in similar roles really helped influence our decision, it gave us confidence that Cascade would meet our needs too.” 

“If another club asked, I’d absolutely recommend Cascade providing it met their requirements. The system is on its way to delivering everything we hoped for, and we aim to improve and build new screens frequently. We are definitely more efficient, better connected, and we’ve got the confidence that comes with a platform that’s tried and tested across our industry.”