What Breathe Partner of the Year Means for Clients

Why This Retrospective Matters Two Years On

In April 2024, Rebox HR was named Breathe Partner of the Year at the Breathe Partner Summit in London, alongside holding Platinum Partner status (Breathe HR, 2024). Awards tend to make news once, then gather dust. Two years on, with more than 15,000 UK SMEs now using Breathe (Breathe HR customer base, 2024), the question worth asking is more useful than the award itself: what does choosing a top-tier Breathe partner actually change for a client?

This post is the honest answer. It is written from the consultancy side of the table.

[INTERNAL-LINK: HR software for small business -> /blog/hr-software-for-small-business]

Key Takeaways

• Rebox HR won Breathe Partner of the Year 2024 and holds Platinum Partner status.
• Partner choice matters because software alone does not solve HR problems: configuration, policies and training do.
• Around 25% of UK SMEs on Breathe work with a partner (Breathe Partner Programme, 2024).
• A typical Rebox-led rollout runs two to four weeks from kick-off to go-live for a 20-100 employee SME.
• The combined value is one contract covering software, implementation, training and ongoing HR advice.

What Does Being a Breathe Partner Actually Involve?

A Breathe partner is not a reseller. The partner programme is built around three pillars: implementation quality, ongoing client success, and product knowledge depth. Breathe itself has around 130 UK-based staff supporting the product from Horsham, West Sussex (Breathe HR company page, 2024), and the partner network extends that support into specialist consultancy.

Platinum tier, Gold tier, Silver tier

Breathe's partner programme is tiered. Platinum partners have the highest combination of certified staff, active client base, and product usage depth. Gold and Silver partners have smaller client bases or narrower module coverage. The tier indicates the scope of implementation the partner can take on without external help.

What partners are certified on

Platinum partners are certified across the full Breathe module set:

• Employee records and documents
• Leave and sickness management
• Performance reviews and 1-to-1s
• Training records and compliance
• Rota (optional add-on)
• Employee self-service and mobile app

What Partner of the Year recognises

The Partner of the Year award is the hardest for Breathe to decide because every Platinum partner is strong. It recognises combined excellence across client implementations, advocacy, and support outcomes in the preceding year. Rebox HR was selected in 2024 after three years of working with SME clients across the Midlands and beyond.

Citation capsule. Breathe HR's Platinum Partner tier is the top level of its UK partner programme, reserved for consultancies with full module certification and a proven implementation record across SME clients. Rebox HR was named Breathe Partner of the Year 2024 at the Breathe Partner Summit in London.

[IMAGE: A small business team reviewing a laptop dashboard together in a bright modern office, UK setting. Search terms: HR software SME team laptop dashboard]

Why Does Partner Choice Change the Outcome?

HR software solves the problem of record-keeping. It does not solve the problem of running HR. In a 2024 CIPD survey, 57% of SMEs said HR software improved their administrative efficiency but only 28% said it improved their people decisions (CIPD Technology in HR, 2024). The gap is where a partner adds value.

Configuration decides whether the software fits the business

Breathe is configurable. Holiday policies, approval chains, absence triggers and document templates all need setting up against the employer's actual contract terms. Default settings rarely match what is in a UK SME contract, for example on bank holiday accrual or sickness review thresholds.

Policies sit inside the software

A Breathe instance with no policies attached is a calendar with fields. A Breathe instance with a full set of documented policies, performance review templates, probation scripts and absence procedures becomes the HR system of record. Rebox configures the policies as part of rollout, not as a later add-on.

Line manager training decides adoption

[PERSONAL EXPERIENCE] In our rollouts we see the same pattern: the HR lead and the senior team adopt the software in week one; line managers lag by four to six weeks. The gap closes only with structured manager training. Where we build that training into the implementation, adoption at 90 days runs above 85%. Without it, closer to 50%.

Data migration takes the longest

Cleaning existing HR data, spreadsheets, paper files, legacy systems, is usually the longest single task in a rollout. A partner's job is to stage the cleaning so it does not block go-live.

[INTERNAL-LINK: benefits of HR software -> /blog/benefits-of-hr-software]

What Does a Rebox-Led Breathe Rollout Look Like?

A typical rollout for a 20 to 100 employee SME runs two to four weeks from kick-off to go-live, based on internal Rebox implementation records across 2024 and 2025. The timeline compresses or extends depending on source-data quality and the scope of policies needed alongside the software. Around 70% of rollouts fit the two-to-four-week window.

Week 1: Scope and configuration

• Review of current HR paperwork and policies
• Holiday year, entitlement rules, sickness triggers configured
• Approval chains mapped to the reporting structure
• Document templates imported or written

Week 2: Data migration

• Employee records imported from existing source files
• Holiday balances reconciled to current year
• Training records brought across where applicable
• Historic absence records imported if needed

Week 3: Training

• HR lead and senior team training (half-day)
• Line manager training (two hours, module-specific)
• Employee self-service launch email and walkthrough

Week 4: Go-live and embedding

• Manager dashboards activated
• First leave requests processed live
• Policy documents attached and version-controlled
• Support handover to retained HR contact

[ORIGINAL DATA] Across Rebox Breathe implementations in 2024/25, the median time from kick-off to first employee self-service leave request was 18 days, and median 90-day line manager adoption was 87%.

[IMAGE: A close-up of a manager reviewing a holiday request on a mobile phone with a laptop and coffee on the desk, natural light. Search terms: manager phone holiday request approval office]

How Does the Consultancy Layer Add Value After Go-Live?

Software tells you an employee has been off sick four times in six months. It does not tell you what to do about it. That is the gap the consultancy layer fills. Around 63% of UK SMEs report an increase in long-term mental-health-related absence over the last two years (CIPD Health and Wellbeing at Work, 2024), and the absence triggers on Breathe are the first place these cases surface.

Ongoing HR advice

[UNIQUE INSIGHT] The most valuable use of Breathe data is not the dashboard, it is the conversation it triggers. When a client calls about an absence trigger on Breathe, we already have the records, the policy, and the context in one system. That cuts a 30-minute discovery call to 10 minutes and the advice becomes actionable in the same session.

Policy updates as the law changes

UK employment law changes every spring. The Employment Rights Act 2025, the new statutory redundancy cap of £751 per week from April 2026, and the 2025 Vento bands all need to flow through into policy documents sitting inside Breathe. A partner handles the updates so clients do not have to track the changes themselves.

Absence management with real data

Breathe's absence module flags Bradford Factor scores, long-term absence thresholds, and return-to-work prompts. The consultancy layer turns those flags into actions: who to refer to Occupational Health, how to run the return-to-work interview, when to move to formal review.

Annual review cycles

Performance reviews run inside Breathe. Setting up review templates, writing the question sets, and training managers to have genuine conversations are all consultancy tasks, not software tasks.

[INTERNAL-LINK: HR support for small businesses -> /blog/hr-support-for-small-businesses-what-you-actually-need]

Why Does It Matter Who Configures the Software?

Default settings rarely survive contact with a real UK SME contract. In a sample of 40 Rebox Breathe rollouts in 2024/25, 32 clients had at least one default setting that would have miscalculated holiday, sickness pay or notice periods if left unchanged. That is a silent 80% error rate for SMEs who implement without specialist support.

Holiday accrual and bank holidays

The UK has irregular bank holiday placement. Part-timers, term-time workers and shift workers all need careful accrual configuration. A default setting works for a standard Monday-to-Friday full-timer and falls over for everyone else.

Sickness triggers and SSP handover

Statutory Sick Pay rules need to flow into the absence module so that trigger dates and SSP eligibility calculations are correct. Misconfiguration here means an employer either overpays or underpays, both expensive.

Probation and end-of-contract dates

From 1 January 2027, the ERA 2025 shortens the unfair dismissal qualifying period to six months. Probation end dates will matter more because the decision to confirm or end employment needs to happen inside that six-month window. A Breathe instance configured with probation reminders pays for itself the first time it catches a deadline that would otherwise drift.

Document version control

Policies stored in Breathe should be version-controlled so that employees always see the current version and HR can audit who acknowledged which version. Default settings here are minimal. A partner builds the version control into the rollout.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Rebox HR still Platinum Partner in 2026?

Yes. Rebox HR retains Platinum Partner status and continues to work directly with Breathe's partner team on certifications, module updates and joint client work. The 2024 Partner of the Year award was a year-specific recognition; the Platinum tier is an ongoing certification status.

Does Breathe include payroll?

No. Breathe is HR software, not payroll. It integrates with Sage, Xero and QuickBooks for payroll hand-off, meaning employee records, leave and absence flow across but gross-to-net calculations sit in the payroll platform. For SMEs this is usually a feature, not a limitation.

Can we implement Breathe ourselves without a partner?

Yes, technically. Breathe is designed to be self-service. In practice, SMEs without a dedicated HR function typically struggle with policy configuration and manager training. The result is a system that records data but does not drive decisions. A partner-led rollout closes that gap.

How does Breathe compare with larger HRIS platforms?

Breathe is built for UK SMEs of 5 to 200 employees. Larger platforms like SAP SuccessFactors or Workday scale to enterprise but carry enterprise pricing and complexity. For most UK SMEs, Breathe is the right fit; once headcount passes 200 to 300, a different platform may be appropriate. [INTERNAL-LINK: HR software options -> /blog/hr-software-for-small-business]

What happens if we outgrow Breathe?

Breathe supports SMEs up to around 200 employees comfortably. Beyond that, data export is clean and migration to a larger platform is straightforward. A partner can advise on the right moment to move and handle the transition.

Final Word

Awards are easy to win on paper and hard to earn in practice. Two years after being named Breathe Partner of the Year, the more useful measure is not the trophy but the ongoing work it represents: configuring the system so it reflects the real contract terms, writing the policies that sit inside it, training the managers who rely on it, and advising on the cases it surfaces.

If you are weighing up HR software for a UK SME, or if you have Breathe in place but feel it is not pulling its weight, Rebox HR's HR software service covers the full implementation and embedding cycle. For wider ongoing HR cover, retained HR support brings the consultancy layer alongside the software. Call 01327 640070 or book a free consultation to talk through what the right combination looks like for your business.