HR Technology – The Core of Strategic HR

Do you feel as if your human resource department has turned into a mess of administrative work?

Are your core processes muddled with paper-based, manual systems?

Is senior management questioning how HR adds value to the organization?

Is it becoming harder to get additional budget assigned to your department?

If yes, is the answer to any of these questions, it may be time to look at getting out of the “paper pushing” business and take that leap towards functioning as a truly strategic department that adds value to the overall business approach. HR departments alike strive to focus their attention on key elements deemed as “Strategic HR”. This includes recruiting top talent, training/development, and organizational development strategies that focus on employee retention and succession planning. HR departments that can effectively strategize and implement these core functions are truly maximizing the value of human capital. The first step towards this end is the deployment of the right HR technology. Without access to meaningful HR related data, a business cannot measure or analyze trends within their organization. One of the key reasons that companies struggle with gaining visibility into the organization is because data is contained in multiple systems thus limiting any reporting capability needed for analysis. The right HR technology strategy is paramount to deployment of “Strategic HR” as it will minimize administrative processes, easily ensure compliance, and allow access and create meaningful reporting capabilities.

Implementing an end to end HRIS which includes employee and manager self-service is necessary for a business that is striving to become fully paperless. Since payroll is the most accurate data in any organization, it only makes sense to build an HR database off of this data. To maximize the benefits of automation and ensure data integrity, fully integrated or single database for Payroll/HRIS system is the answer. Most systems on the market today deploy role based security which allows designated employees including managers, employees, and non-HR executives to have unique access rights to certain data points that are core to their role in the organization. The system becomes a universal tool that benefits the entire workforce, not just HR. Self- service gives employees, managers, and executives instant access to the information that otherwise was only accessible by the HR department thus eliminating the time consuming requests made on HR. This alone promotes productivity and makes for a compelling ROI for implementing a new system. Explore the benefits that are realized by using an integrated system and the features to look for as your company evaluates the applications on the market today. For a no cost evaluation of your company’s needs or for assistance with a vendor selection process, contact Centripetal Consulting Group at 214-824-4439 or at www.gocentripetal.com.

Key Benefits of an Integrated Payroll/HRIS:

• Improve responsiveness to employees and management with a workflow process that streamlines HR record-keeping and maintains proper audit trails
• Maintain a competitive workforce by simplifying and speeding up hiring, training and retention programs with an accessible, integrated database
• Gain greater control real time payroll processing by eliminating the need to transfer files back and forth, reduce errors and payroll corrections
• Ensure government and payroll tax compliance with automatic updates that keep you up-to-date on the latest regulations
• Plan for talent succession by indentifying top talent and key positions for keeping the business fluid and healthy
• Increase employee retention by deployment of self-service tools that keep employees involved with the employment lifecycle
• Enhance your reporting capabilities with workforce decision data that helps you lower benefit costs, spot organizational trends and take clear action
• Containment of costs including insurance premiums, controlled labor expenses including overtime, Travel and Expense, IT and disparate system related costs
• Improve employee communications through centralized intranet portals and employee survey capabilities
• Create and leverage a standardized infrastructure that will enable executives to better analyze costs associated with their organizational structure for budgeting and forecasting purposes

Key Features of an Integrated Payroll/HRIS

• Applicant Tracking that interface to outside job boards and company website
• Electronic On-Boarding
• Time and Attendance
• Payroll Processing
• Benefits Enrollment and Administration
• Performance Management and Compensation
• Salary Planning and Budgeting
• Automated Learning/Training Management
• Employment History and Succession Planning
• Employee/Manager Self-Service
• Effective Dating
• Open platform for easy integration and import/export to third party systems

Open Enrollment Process- The Three Approaches

The fact is that the open enrollment process is evolving, especially for small to mid-size employers. It is migrating from a stand-alone, manual process to an automated, integrated environment where the latest technologies combine to make open enrollment as efficient, effective and productive as possible. Current research shows a migration from older, more obsolete methods of processing benefits applications to web-based initiatives that greatly streamline and enhance the entire process, thus creating a compelling employer ROI and more favorable employee experience.

 

The current state of “open enrollment” is a spectrum of 3 main approaches:

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Do We Need An HRIS?

Success in the human resources profession requires fast and easy access to information — and that requires an automated HR information management system. Too many times companies think they are too small of an organization to justify an HRIS.

To this, I must say that a company is never too small to automate processes. If a company develops sound processes early on, they are poised for growth and may potentially be able to avoid or prolong hiring additional resources in the future.

Selecting an HRIS is a major decision. Getting approval for such a system is often difficult as well.

To start, HR managers should assess and outline how activities are currently being performed within the organization, and, in particular, within the HR department.

An HRIS generally should provide the capability to more effectively plan, control, and manage HR costs; achieve improved efficiency and quality in HR decision making; and improve employee and managerial productivity and effectiveness.

When conducting an analysis, I suggest looking at looking at the business challenges that you are trying to solve FIRST as opposed to the features and functions of a particular software application.

The following questions are designed to assist HR professionals in putting together the facts, the figures, and the business case to convince senior management that the expenditure for an HRIS makes sense.

• What information are people requesting?
• How do you, line managers, the chief executive officer, and the chief financial officer obtain needed personnel information?
• How long does it take you to respond to a new request for information?
• What HR management needs are not being addressed and handled properly?
• How effective is your support to the budgeting and planning processes?
• Where do you stand in complying with COBRA, ERISA, FLSA, OSHA, and other statutes and regulations?
• What tasks are you being asked to do today? How well are you performing these tasks?
• What programs, services, and management support must you provide to help your organization meet its goals?
• What are the major tasks that you intend to accomplish and the results you plan to achieve in order to have a successful HR operation?

Answering these questions will provide you a solid foundation for evaluation of various HRIS products on the market. Because there are so many HRIS providers including in-house, outsourced, hosted, non-hosted, hybrids of these etc., it may make sense to look for an additional resource outside the company to help with your evaluation.

Benefits of an Integrated Payroll/HRIS

Outsourced vs. Inhouse Payroll?

If you are considering moving away from an outsourced model for managing payroll/HR, here are a few keys items to consider as you analyze the financial aspects. There are many advantages with outsourcing; however, it takes careful consideration of both hard and soft costs to make this determination.

Costs to Consider When Comparing In-House Payroll Software to Outsourcing

• The purchase costs of in-house payroll, HR, Benefits Administration, and Time and Attendance applications
• Annual maintenance contract to support the systems
• Upgrade costs
• Training costs
• Internal support costs such as IT department
• Server space and back up
• Annual costs for paper stock (payroll reports), check stock, envelopes, and postage
• Tracking and processing wage garnishment checks
• Printer maintenance that processes the payroll
• Toner for the printer (MICR toner)
• Time spent for check signatures or check imaging
• Time to stuff, seal, and sort checks
• Banking fees for direct deposit
• Time and materials for year end W2s and 1099s
• Time to calculate and prepare per processing, monthly, quarterly, and annual taxes
• Hard dollar costs responding to tracers
• Fines or penalties for tax filing errors
• GL costs for preparing, posting and updating
• Preparing and producing reports
• Time for reconciling the payroll account
• Paid time off liability if not calculated properly
• Time reading timecards or preparing time clock file for import
• Percentage of payroll costs for human error

• Time theft (buddy punching)

6 Criteria for Evaluating a Payroll Service

There are an array of issues to consider when choosing a payroll provider. Even though processing payroll doesn’t “add” value to the business, it can certainly create many problems if not done properly. An accurate and on time payroll are obviously the most important features but there are other key factors to consider when making this decision.

Key Factors for choosing a payroll vendor

Whether you are starting a new business that has never used a payroll service or considering a change in providers, you must consider all aspects. The first thing that you should do is create list of features that are “must haves” and “nice to haves”. If the vendor has functionality that you would have no use for, chances are you will be overpaying and the system will create user confusion. Once you evaluate and the basics have been met, look for additional features that you could implement into your current process that would save time and create more efficiency. I’ve created a list of the top 6 things to consider when partnering with a vendor.

1. Service. Make sure you understand who and how you will be serviced after you begin processing. In most cases, customer service inquires are considered urgent, so it’s important to understand how accessible the provider is in order to set proper expectations for your employees. Will your checks be processed locally or delivered via mail? Who do contact if you have a problem? Is this a call center? How quickly can you expect your calls to be answered and/or returned? What are the hours of operations? Are online inquires supported?

2. Tax Filing. One of the key reasons that companies choose to outsource is to shift liability for employer tax filing. Does the vendor file in all 50 states? How are tax inquires handled? How quickly are tax issues resolved? How are tax tables updated via the software? Is this tax software internal or the product/service of a third party?

3. Accessibility. Is the payroll tool software or web-based? If it is on the web, what is the uptime guarantee? Are you able to view gross to net totals prior to processing? Are reports available instantly after processing? If it is software based, is the tool only available on the PC that it is loaded on or can it be placed on a network server? Will upgrades to the system lock you out or will they be done behind the scenes? Will you pay fees for additional licenses?

4. Reporting. What reports are considered standard? Are you able to duplicate all the reports that you use today and then some? Can you create your own reports via a report writer or do you have to contact service if you have a special request? Are the reports delivered via the web or only in paper format? Can you export reports into Excel and PDF? Can multiple users create and run their own reports?

5. Interface Capability. Is there import and export capability to all necessary systems such as accounting and time and attendance? Who is responsible for creating the interfaces? Does the vendor charge extra for this?

6. Cost. You certainly get what you pay for but you certainly don’t want to overpay for features you don’t use. A bundled pricing model may not be the best solution simply because it is convenient. Make sure to ask for ancillary costs upfront such as new hire reporting, adding new states for taxes, W2’s ect.

With the increasing number of payroll providers, it is important to choose a partner that has a scalable tool that can grow with your business. The decision you made to outsource was to be more efficient, so you must ensure that the vendors is flexible enough to accommodate your unique needs.

For more information, contact Centripetal Consulting Group to help in the decision making process:

Contact Us:
Amy Grimmer
agrimmer@gocentripetal.com
(214) 824-4439

Paperless Payroll – Everyone Wins

Paperless pay means eliminating paperwork in every phase of the payroll process, reducing costs, and delivering faster, more convenient employee service. It also means eliminating paper waste and doing our part to preserve the environment. Electronic payroll: the first step Paperless pay means using today’s enabling technologies to pay employees without printing or distributing paper checks and advices. Although electronic payroll is at the heart of paperless pay, there are other essential components that collectively offer the prospect of eliminating every piece of employee-directed paper surrounding the payroll process. Gaining efficiencies throughout the payroll process Paper-based payrolls have many distinctive steps that earmark this traditional process as a great candidate for streamlining through automation. Payroll and HR executives are realizing that manual time collection, distribution of paper checks and the irritation of escheatment administration, all represent excellent opportunities for gaining efficiencies and reducing costs. Paperless pay uses electronic methods to replace paper and capitalize on employee self-service to reduce the need for manual labor in handling time reports, delivering conventional paper pay advices, distributing W-2s, and so on. Paperless pay is also a way to reduce the errors that plague paper-based processes, since real-time access to accurate data ensures employee-initiated transactions and inquiries are all validated and verified. Accessibility to all Today’s best-practice paperless pay solutions are available via the Web or telephone, so employees have convenient access to their pay information and employers are able to meet differing state requirements for accessibility. Incorporating the payroll card option means every employee can electronically receive their pay even if they don’t have a checking account. A well-designed paperless pay implementation plan can address each state requirement. Benefits for the employer and the employee The benefits of paperless pay initiatives are enormous. Cost reduction in the production and delivery of pay to employees is the key driver for many organizations. Employee service levels are also boosted by secure access to personal pay information as well as self-service transactions such as reporting time, managing direct deposit, or changing W-4 information. Paperless pay has come of age, with a mix of options that can eliminate the paperwork choking the payroll process. Even further, employers benefit from not having to house endless file cabinets filled with paper payroll reports. Employers can access the report they need via web without having to dig through the files. Many payroll service provides will also host and archive payroll reports – so the IT department doesn’t have to! I recommend Perquest Payroll’s “Go Green” service. For more infoClick Here