ADP’s Meeting of the Minds, not just an Ordinary Event

I attended ADP’s Meeting of the Minds (ADP MOTM) that happened last week March 11 to 14 in Dallas. This was my first time attending, and I didn’t quite know what to expect until I arrived—well, how about ~900 enthusiastic ADP clients. This is an annual event of which ~30% of attendees were first timers.

Sure, there were a few ADP presentations and demonstrations on ADP’s latest products and services, but many of the sessions were not conducted by ADP and were instead facilitated by HR practitioners and clients. Professional development would be a good way to summarize it. As they say, everything is bigger in Texas—how about ~170 sessions that you could attend to learn about everything from Healthcare Reform to Payroll taxes, to RPO, to best practices across a number of services, and functions including shared services, recruiting, change management, etc. There were also hands-on training sessions, of which I attended Learning, part of ADP’s Talent Management.

I could write my entire blog talking about the keynote speaker, Emmitt Smith, and the fun social events, but I’ll shift gears to talk about HRO to keep with our blog focus.

To begin, it’s important to share ADP’s three priorities, as stated by CEO Carlos Rodriguez, that are important to advance ADP as a:

• Technical leader
• Service leader
• Global leader.

Regina Lee, president of ADP’s national and major accounts, GlobalView, and ADP Canada, spoke about four key areas of investments that were made by ADP:

• Integrated Human Capital Management: including Vantage HCM and Workforce Now
• Talent Management: including the integration of performance management, succession planning, and learning. ADP’s talent management platform has over 100 clients
• Benefits Administration and Healthcare Management: having acquired Workscape in 2010 to strengthen ADP’s benefits administration capability, in addition to Workscape’s talent management and compensation capability. On March 8, ADP announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire SHPS Human Resource Solutions (rationale is below)
• HR BPO, including the acquitisition of The RightThing in October 2011 (further details below).

I’ll finish my blog focusing on Benefits Administration and RPO.

The Workscape acquisition has proven to be a success, with ADP adding ~100 additional benefits clients annually. SHPS will further strengthen ADP’s benefits administration offering with capabilities including:

• Eligibility and enrollment
• Spending accounts administration
• COBRA administration
• Absence management
• Benefits advocacy.

SHPS will strengthen ADP’s leave administration and reimbursement account administration capabilities, including HSAs and HRAs, which have become increasingly important as more employers offer high deductible benefits plans to their employees. You can read about this in my recent blog.

The RightThing – coming off its best year in 2011 – was ranked by NelsonHall in its 2011 RPO report as the top U.S. RPO provider in terms of North American revenue, bringing in ~80 clients. Prior to the acquisition, ADP provided recruitment administration and technology, but it is now a full end-to-end RPO services provider. Expect an RPO contract announcement soon and much more to come as RPO will continue to be provided as a standalone service and now also in combination with ADP’s multi-process HRO services.

Gary Bragar, HRO Research Director, NelsonHall

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HRO, Shared Services Centers and the HR COO

Oh the things you can find when you wander the Web. One link leads to another and you can find shiny new ideas that catch your eye. Wandering may be a sign of a short attention span, I prefer to considerate it part of having an open mind searching for relevance. My latest Web find is Deloitte’s Human Capital Trends 2011 study.

HR is challenged to meet a myriad of needs and provide ever more value within constrained resources. Cost remains a top priority and business leaders also want HR to be less tactical and more strategic. The HR tactical work must get done to keep the organization running and HR regulatory compliance issues grow ever more complex, necessitating even more tactical tracking and reporting requirements.

In response, HR shared service centers (HRSSC) have emerged in larger organizations, especially multinationals, driven by the need for cost reduction and the efficiency and compliance benefits of better integrated systems and consistent processes.  Outsourcing some of the shared service processes and/or technology support is also a typical part of HRSSCs.

The HRO community touts the benefits of cost optimization, improved processes, improved compliance and reporting, meeting SLAs, and high user satisfaction. By role and nature, vendors focus on the performance of the areas of their own accountability. Therefore, if only a portion of the HRSSC’s processes are outsourced and multiple vendors are involved, it is a challenge to ensure that overall HR delivery services are effective, efficient, and cost-controlled.

One “revolutionary” trend for HR from the Deloitte study is the need for a HR Chief Operating Officer (COO) to focus on the design, development, implementation, and delivery of HR services. This leader needs to be a great organizational, process, and systems designer and manager. I would also add the HR COO needs to be able to determine from a capability and cost perspective where outsourcing is the most viable option and how to integrate HRO into the overall operation.

It is important to not get lost in the tactical aspects of shared services. The HR COO should be a strategic leader, well-versed in both HR and the business. Adding in the art of building and selling business cases, including capabilities in communications, networking, and even marketing would add value.

Tracking cost and process efficiency are necessary parts of managing an HRSSC. So is collaborating with HR generalists and business leaders to create results and provide data-based information for workforce decision making. Promoting HR and the value of the HRSSC is also important – deliver, create awareness, and buy-in for the next cycle of improvement!

Buyers – the HRSSC leader can be a key partner in both operations and strategic HR transformation, invest and select wisely.

HRO vendors – the state of HRSSC leadership, capabilities, vision, and current operation is a component of the HRO Maturity Continuum.

Linda Merritt, Research Director, HRO, NelsonHall