Catching Up with ADP

Linda Merritt, HRO Research Analyst, NelsonHall

The recent passing of long-term U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg reminds us of his early role in the formation of what became ADP, a founding member of HR outsourcing. In the early 1950s he was engaged in selling insurance and sold a policy to two young New Jersey businessmen, Henry and Joseph Taub. The Taub’s were pioneering a then new concept; payroll outsourcing. The brothers knew payroll processing and Lautenberg knew sales and marketing. Lautenberg took a risk and joined the Taub brothers and together they created a new industry.

Establish Operating Principles

By the time the company incorporated in 1961 the three leaders established principles that still guide the company some 60 years later. Following are a few of the principles they put in place.

Focus on Business Markets that Offer Significant Growth Opportunities

ADP has always pursued growth through new market opportunities, both by expanding it service lines and by entering new geographies. Much of the early growth was through acquisitions, as well as organic growth. Lautenberg retired as CEO from ADP in 1982 having made over 100 acquisitions!

Over time, ADP became a global player. An early acquisition was GSI, a large payroll and HR services company in Europe. The latest 2013 acquisition is Payroll S.A. to expand LATAM payroll capabilities to Chile, Argentina, and Peru. In the last few years major acquisitions included Workscape (benefits), The RightThing (RPO) and SHPS (benefits).

Embrace Technological Change to Enhance Product and Service Offerings

By the early 1960s ADP had moved from manual operations to the pre-computer punch cards and on to leasing its first computer: an IBM 1401 mainframe. That willingness to continue to embrace the new is seen in ADP’s successful launch of a series of cloud-based SaaS HR technology and BPO service platforms, including Workforce Now (1k-20K employees), Vantage HCM (50-3k employees), and GlobalView for multi-nationals. Together, the three services support more than 40k clients.

The company has also launched extensive mobility options, including RUN powered by ADP for small business mobile payroll and ADP Mobile Solutions for access to a broad range of information and transactions spanning time and attendance to benefits and pay cards.

Attract and Retain Motivated and Talented People

ADP has grown into a $10bn global outsourcing business with one of only four remaining AAA credit ratings in the U.S. With ~570k clients across 125 countries, we know customers support its line-up of services and proprietary developed technologies. What about people? A few recent awards tell the story:

• Ranked second on Fortune’s 2012 list of America’s Most Admired Companies in Financial Data Service
• Ranked in the Top 50 on IDG’s Computerworld 2012 list of the 100 Best Places to Work in Information Technology (IT)
• Named to the 2012 Working Mother 100 Best Companies, for the third time.

We therefore need to ask the question of prospective purchasers: does your prospective or current HRO service provider have long-term guiding principles and can you see evidence of them in action? Because ADP does.

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Bridging Talent Management and Workforce Management with HRO

Linda Merritt, HRO Research Analyst, NelsonHall

One of the hottest topics in HR and HRO has been talent management (TM), including everything from recruiting and RPO to performance management and employee engagement. Major ERP vendors have snapped up TM software leaders to strengthen HR product lines, e.g., SAP and SuccessFactors; Oracle and Taleo. Very good moves and very on trend, but let’s not forget about the less flashy powerhouse: workforce management (WM).

TM and WM are both critical components of human capital management (HCM) and depending on definitions and models, there can be a lot of overlap. For my purpose here, TM is about the individual and the capabilities for a specific job position and WM is about groups of workers and managing multiple positions.

TM involves attracting, retaining, and developing people with the required capabilities according to requested volumes and performance management. WM involves workforce planning and forecasting the capabilities and volumes needed and day-to-day scheduling and time and attendance. It takes both processes to have the right number of people, with the right skills, in the right places, at the right time.

Let’s consider two more elements, HR analytics and ROI, that will also benefit from seamless HR systems and processes, which our dear HRO community can enable and deliver. Timely and accurate workforce data is a foundation block upon which HR is built. At least part of the drive for multi-country payroll has been to get better employee data, and there is an important feeder into payroll: time reporting. Today’s leading time and attendance systems offer great flexibility in capturing the detailed data needed for payroll plus analyses of productivity, labor costing, pricing, project billing, workforce planning, etc.

Everybody wants to tie HR and HRO to ROI. Lowering the cost of HR operations alone is not enough. We must show real impact in measurable business results. Simplifying a bit, TM supports improved business results through customer satisfaction and revenues generated; WM supports improved business results through optimizing SG&A via operations and reducing losses.

Many HRO offerings come in basic and advanced levels. HRO providers– ensure you offer both levels of time and attendance, scheduling, and attendance management services. Buyers – take the time to determine whether advanced workforce management services will not only provide better data, but will pay for itself through reductions in overtime and the impact of absences. Also, for many positions and industries, ensuring all customer-facing seats are filled at the right capacity, capability, and time has a direct link to productivity and revenues. Finally, don’t forget about compliance with wage, hour, and labor regulations where accurate records and proactive scheduling are a great defense against fines and losses.

HR and HRO in partnership can be the bridge to strengthen TM and WM across the entire human capital value chain.

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WorkForce Software Fits with HRO

Linda Merritt, HRO Research Analyst, NelsonHall

“Let’s elevate the discussion on workforce management.” That’s how Kevin Choksi, CEO of WorkForce Software, kicked off the company’s first analyst day. Workforce management, with time, attendance, and scheduling at its heart, is not the most exciting topic, even when it is designed on open systems, is fully configurable, addresses all employee types, and can be deployed globally. But when you have passion for your products, the heart can beat with the energy and excitement that keeps the three founders on board after 13 years and attracts top talent to take the company to the next level of growth.

The inflection point for the company was late 2010 when the SaaS version of the core product, EmpCenter, was introduced. New clients selecting the SaaS option quickly grew to 80% compared to the licensed on-premise or hosted system options. Revenue growth has also accelerated dramatically and Workforce Software has increased the average size of its clients, total users, and services in 30 countries.

The live demo showed how clients can use the flexible rules engine to self-define and update calculations for workforce policies, labor/union requirements, etc. The flexible Advanced Scheduler can create schedules based on a wide range of customer defined requirements and can even directly contact employees to fill in empty shift positions according to availability, skills, seniority rules, etc.  

Two additional modules, Absence Compliance Tracker and Fatigue Management, are available as standalone services or can be integrated with EmpCenter, adding to the differentiation of the workforce management up-and-comer that is in a market currently dominated by the much larger Kronos.

Absence Compliance Tracker supports leave intake, leave determination, and case management. The system provides a recommended leave determination and supporting rationale based on the employee’s eligibility; company policies; and for the U.S., the more than 300 state and federal leave laws and regulations, improving consistency of policy application and providing evidence of compliance.

Fatigue Management helps prevent scheduling fatigued employees, something that is already a requirement in industries such as nuclear power, transportation, oil and gas, pipelines, etc. It will also accommodate industry, labor/union, or company best practices, all of which can address compliance and safety needs.

Making money does cost money. The good news is that WorkForce Software has secured its first infusion of external capital to ensure it can keep up with growth and its development roadmap. Look for it to add staff, geographies, and service locations over the next couple of years as well as adding more BYOD (bring your own device) mobile access and enhanced services.

Expanding is always easier when you have friends, so the company is working to enlarge its partner network. Recent additions include SuccessFactors, Oracle Fusion, and Patersons. WorkForce Software would do well to increase its connections to the HRO vendor community too, as even major HRO vendors sometimes integrate or refer clients to best-of-breed preferred partners.

It was refreshing to spend time with a company not only succeeding, but accelerating in this economic environment. It made even my HRO analyst heart beat just a bit faster.

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ADP: Analyst Day Priorities

Last week, ADP held its annual industry analyst day in NYC. Its priorities for the event included communicating its identity and progress as a global HCM company, its innovations in talent management, and its benefit services. Of course no ADP analyst day would be complete without product demos.

To begin the day, Carlos Rodriguez, CEO, spoke about the company’s vision to become the global HCM market leader. With workforces expanding globally, talent shortages, and the need to be more strategic, the international HCM opportunity is huge and ADP is determined to be at the center of it all. Given its large client footprint for its payroll and time and attendance solutions, integrating talent management functions including learning, compensation, and performance will be paramount for global domination in the HCM market.

Well-timed with the analyst event was ADP’s announcement that it launched an integrated end-to-end platform for talent management. In addition to talent acquisition, compensation and performance management, and succession, the talent management suite now leverages advanced learning management tools, learning content from Bersin and Associates, and an enterprise competency framework, and will be available for both its GlobalView and Vantage platforms.

ADP’s HCM toolbox is loaded and ready to be used. The GlobalView platform is available in 81 countries; the general availability date for Vantage has moved up to June; and WorkforceNow, which includes integrated HR, payroll, time and labor management, benefits, and talent management will soon support Canada. On the back-end, it would be great to see some HR BPO opportunities beyond payroll arise, and the company has been busy making enhancements to this portfolio as well.

In addition to its acquisition of the The RightThing, which brought in RPO capabilities, ADP has been quite busy building up its benefits business. There is great potential for benefits outsourcing due to changing regulations and complexities, not to mention the fact that an HCM market leader would not be complete without a strong benefits offering. Investments began with the Workscape acquisition, and continued with Asparity (for decision-support tools, analytics, and reporting) and SHPS (for reimbursement account administration and absence management). Finally, it added a Strategic Advisory Services offering to provide value-added analytics and advice to clients.

Amy L. Gurchensky, Research Analyst, HRO, NelsonHall

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ADP has a Platform for HRO Success

Last week, many of us covered announcements from the HR Technology conference.  Among the new service news was ADP’s Vantage HCM SaaS and BPO platform, which was formally launched on October 3^rd at HR Tech.

Vantage HCM covers HR administration, benefits, payroll, time and attendance, and talent management. It is an enhanced version of ADP’s successful Workforce Now platform, which was launched in October 2009 and already has more than 10,000 clients. ADP is estimated to have invested 18 months and $600m in the new platform. General availability is slated for March 2012 to allow time for full testing of critical high volume HR activities such as annual open enrollment and end-of-year payroll with 12 pilot clients from a variety of industries with 1,200 to 20,000 employees.

I see a bigger story here: ADP has built a business platform to support execution of its strategies. Here are several elements I see in play.

Support the core. ADP is adding new services while protecting and enhancing payroll, its single largest revenue generator. Payroll is built into the core package of each multiple process HR (MPHRO) system.

Serve your main markets. In payroll, ADP supports every size organization. Now, it offers MPHRO platforms for nearly every size organization: Workforce Now provides core HR needs for less than 3,000 employees; Vantage HCM covers more robust HR needs and talent management for up to 20,000 employees; and Global View supports large, multi-country organizations typically with more than 20,000 employees.

Leverage acquisitions.  Vantage HCM talent management services include succession planning, performance management, and compensation management as the fruits of collaboration between ADP and Workscape, which was acquired last year.

Reuse development investments.  Vantage HCM uses “plug and play” design for fast and easy additions, integration of new modules, or preferred partners, such as Cornerstone for learning.  Access will be immediately available from multiple devices including smartphones, another benefit of development reuse.

Roadmap development and growth. Workforce Now and Vantage HCM are U.S. services. Both will be expanded to Canada, with Workforce Now ready in 2012. In the future clients will be able to choose the basic benefits module or Workscape services for more complex benefits needs.

Buy, build, and go. ADP prefers to buy or build for strategic growth services. It chose to build its own proprietary MPHRO systems. It acquires complementary service lines and players in geographies to quickly establish a beachhead with top tier players. Once it identifies a target, it moves fast, integrates new acquisitions and captures synergy savings.  (ADP just announced acquisition of The RightThing for RPO. Acting fast indeed!)

Go your own way. Most MPHRO providers offer HR analytic packages as an added cost option. ADP is building in related data views, dashboards, metrics, and integrating workforce analytics use right at the point of need.

Do you have a business platform as broad and consistently used as ADP’s?

Linda Merritt, Research Analyst, HRO, NelsonHall

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NorthgateArinso Proving Success with Legacy Convergys Clients

When NorthgateArinso acquired Convergys’ HR management business in March 2010, my first reaction was that this was a really good deal for NorthgateArinso because it would be gaining some big brand name clients in the U.S.  Some wondered whether NorthgateArinso would be successful in retaining these legacy clients, but I was optimistic for two reasons.

First, it is mainly the same legacy Convergys employees supporting these clients, most transferred to NorthgateArinso with the acquisition.  It is well-known that the most successful ingredient in an outsourcing relationship is how well the client and service provider can work together and have an effective relationship / partnership.

Back in October 2008, I attended the Convergys Industry Analyst Day in Cincinnati where Thomas Neltner, VP of HR at Fifth Third Bank, was a guest speaker.  Thomas spoke about why Fifth Third chose Convergys, its services outsourced, and benefits obtained, including 99% utilization of employee self-service and 40,000 transactions turned paperless.  So it is no surprise to me that this week Fifth Third agreed to extend its contract with NorthgateArinso for an additional seven years.

The original contract with Fifth Third was signed in October 2003 for five years.  Services provided to the bank’s 20,000 employees included:

• Payroll administration and processing
• Compensation administration
• Performance management support
• Benefits administration
• Time and attendance management
• Implementation of recruitment technology and a self-service web portal.

In May 2007, the contract was extended for an additional five years for 21,000 employees and services were added including recruiting and specialized staffing and employee and manager self-service.  Now, the seven year extension through 2019 also includes upgrading the banks current SAP HCM platform to NorthgateArinso’s euHReka technology platform.

euHReka is also based on SAP but is a preconfigured multi-tenant platform that is fully integrated in providing HR and payroll services. In addition, it is used as a multi-country payroll solution, although that won’t be needed with Fifth Third, but you never know what the future may bring, which brings me to the second reason why I was optimistic about NorthgateArinso’s ability to renew legacy Convergys clients.  That is, similar to how customer service is a core competency of legacy Convergys, the same is true for technology and systems integration at NorthgateArinso.  This is a strong combination that NorthgateArinso can capitalize on when other contracts with marquee clients such as DuPont and Johnson & Johnson come up for renewal in the years ahead.  It will also help with winning new business!

Gary Bragar, Lead HRO Analyst, NelsonHall

HRO and the Total Cost of Ownership

A top question for buyers new to outsourcing is how much will we save?  A legitimate question and one that can be hard to answer. Many studies have been done over the years tracking the subject, often asking respondents to estimate the percent of savings. In other words, asking for their opinion. Not exactly what senior business leaders are looking for!

ADP sponsors PwC’s Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Study and the 2011 results are in. The research covers the costs of payroll, workforce administration (HRIS), time and attendance, and health and welfare services and compares the cost of in-house managed services to clients that outsource to ADP. The 279 participants compiled a more complete picture of the following costs: systems (e.g., install, upgrade, and maintenance), direct and indirect labor, and direct non-labor (e.g., vendor fees, facilities, and other overheads), the cost of outsourcing was included for those using ADP.   

TCO for organizations managing the four services in-house, with no outsourcing, were $1,403 for larger employers (1k+ employees) and $1,953 for those with 100 to 1,000 employees.

Guess what? Outsourcing saves money. Average savings of outsourcing over in-house is 18%. Employers with more than 1,000 employees save more due to good old-fashioned economies of scale, up to 27%.

Outsourcing clients sometimes feel they do not reduce costs as much as pitched by the vendor or planned in the business case. The ADP-sponsored study also identifies success factors that help maximize TCO savings.

The findings put real data behind what we intuitively know:

• Adding self-service is basic to reducing cost for HR and time for employee users.
• Comprehensive process transformation is needed to realize full savings. It takes more than new technology; process redesign, governance, and standardization are also needed.

Another finding confirms what I have long suspected: using one vendor and one service platform (outsourced or even in-house) saves more than using multiple vendors and platforms. There is added cost to using multiple, even “best-of-breed” point solutions for payroll, workforce administration, and time and attendance.

• Average cost of outsourcing the three services to one vendor on a common platform was $910 per employee per year, compared to $1,020 (+18%) for managing in-house on a common platform and $1,202 (+32%) for managing in-house using multiple vendors and platforms.

To understand total costs look at the “seams,” places where interdependent processes and systems must be integrated, interfaced, up-dated, and even manually coordinated when using multiple platforms and vendors. The cost can be as high as $200 per employee per year.

HRO works and significantly reduces TCO, but it takes time and effort of both the vendor and the client to achieve maximum benefits. I’ll cover more on that topic next time.

Also, I have some good NelsonHall news. The 2011 Targeting MPHRO study has just been released by our HRO colleague Amy Gurchensky, see more information at www.nelson-hall.com.

Linda Merritt, Research Analyst, HRO, NelsonHall

The Jigsaw Puzzle of Absence Management

Absence may make the heart grow fonder, but it causes employers angina. Companies are, of course, used to dealing with a certain amount of absence, both planned and unplanned…it is part of the cost of doing business. But the triple whammy of current economic pressures, leaner than ever staffs and unplanned absences, combined with planned absences, can cause a disproportionate impact on the total cost of labor.

In the just released 2009 Cybershift Trendline Survey of 1,200 American Payroll Association members, 76 percent of respondents estimated that up to 10 percent of their organizations’ absences were unauthorized. Add in the planned absences for vacations, the medical cost of absences and leaves due to illness and the cost of covering for those absences, e.g., overtime or use of temporary workers, and it adds up to real money. And we have not even estimated the impact on productivity or customer satisfaction.

Managing absence is a complex topic with many facets, some of which change depending on the characteristics of the industry and workforce, like one of those jigsaw puzzles with no clear, sharp edges. To isolate the puzzle patterns, the first step is to know the actual impact as soon as possible so issues can be addressed. The second is to apply absence and leave policies in a fair and consistent manner to balance employee care, regulatory compliance and the impact on productivity and cost. The third step is to proactively work to lower the total cost of absence.

As the Cybershift survey indicates, while many organizations are now using commercial time and attendance applications, others are still using older methods, including manual spreadsheets. Modern time and attendance systems are used to ensure correct and timely payroll. When a time reporting system is consistently used and time is properly coded, you also have a cornerstone piece of the absence management puzzle in place. 

The second piece is leave administration. There are an increasing number of tools and services available in this newly hot area, but many are limited to automating the process and processing the transactions. Important support to be sure, as this is a compliance area that can lead to grievances, lawsuits, audit problems and fines. And with regulations changing and varying from state to state and country to country, strong tools and HRO provider expertise will help organizations meet compliance requirements.

As noted above, the third major piece of the puzzle is proactively managing the total cost of absence. That role today largely falls to the company’s own managers and HR team. I think there is an opportunity here that lends itself to the world of multi-process HRO. The right set of integrated services, analytics capabilities and subject matter expertise to manage the total cost of absence could represent a new service offering that directly impacts the bottom line – a new piece of the absence management puzzle well worth figuring out.

Linda Merritt, Research Director, HRO, NelsonHall