Transcript

00:00:00 - [NATHAN_HARPEL]
And that they can't see their PTO all the way out through the year. So when they go to that negative, it's they that's where they start struggling to figure out how much they have

00:00:08 - [HERBRON_GIRMA]
Which they have. Actually. Yeah. There's quite a few tools built and ready to help with that. One huge differentiator for us is our time and accruals actually process independently of payroll so your employees don't have to wait for payroll to be finalized in order for their balances to reflect an accurate number. It's happening in real time. And then the other piece of that, excuse me, is they'll be able to see that the full year balance and actually calculate out and project forward depending on the time that they're requesting off to see what their balance is at any given time. So that should help alleviate some of that just so they can get that accurate number with the PTO piece.

00:00:47 - [BARBARA_BEMENT]
And does it like, for the PTO piece, will it calculate, the negativity, on the dates they request, or does it it's just based on what they've accrued at the time? Because that's the problem with Paycor because I had somebody that she had vacation in December, but she had to cancel that because it said she didn't have time.

00:01:19 - [HERBRON_GIRMA]
Right. Yeah.

00:01:20 - [BARBARA_BEMENT]
So June.

00:01:22 - [HERBRON_GIRMA]
Yeah. It'll calculate at the time of the request.

00:01:28 - [NATHAN_HARPEL]
So that's the same so it'll do the same thing. It would allow them to submit later on in the year?

00:01:33 - [HERBRON_GIRMA]
No. They can submit, like, at the time of the so it'll calculate the difference at the future date. So if they're requesting now yeah. So it'll tell them the most accurate number for that. Mhmm. Do you front load your PTO in any way? No.

00:01:50 - [BARBARA_BEMENT]
The front loading is basically to get the accrual on the first of the month.

00:01:56 - [HERBRON_GIRMA]
Okay. Got it. Alright. Any other items or pieces that you guys wanna make sure that we're keeping top of mind in in regards to time or PTO? No? Okay. I did wanna dig a little bit deeper into just the comments around user friendliness. So I'm curious if you're hearing anything from your employees right now around, you know, maybe areas of the system that they're having a hard time? I know PTO is just an area that we talked about. Are they having a hard time accessing things like pay statements, tax information, you know, putting in requests? What does the selfservice piece look like?

00:02:39 - [KATE_LOUGHERY]
I have not heard anything on those side of things. I I don't Nathan and Steve, I feel like you probably hear more. I don't know. Other than things we already talked about, if you can think of anything.

00:02:54 - [STEVE_WADE]
Really depends on the individual, like Nathan talked about earlier in there, how handy they are with, different applications. But, I'm not hearing anything on a regular basis. Are you Nathan?

00:03:07 - [NATHAN_HARPEL]
No. Not normally. Other than when it just crashes and they can't clock in.

00:03:13 - [HERBRON_GIRMA]
Yeah. Fair enough.

00:03:15 - [STEVE_WADE]
Do we have, most folks use, the app.

00:03:20 - [HERBRON_GIRMA]
Mhmm.

00:03:21 - [STEVE_WADE]
And then there's others that prefer the time clock on the wall. So there are some folks that Nathan will have to enter their PTO per their request because they can't figure it out.

00:03:36 - [HERBRON_GIRMA]
Okay.

00:03:39 - [LISA_LAW]
Hey, Brent. I do have a question just as it relates to, either the desktop application or the app. We do have a bilingual population, that, and some that, you know, Spanish does the system have capabilities of both English and Spanish, or is it just one?

00:04:02 - [HERBRON_GIRMA]
Yeah. And we support many different languages. I think we're up to 17 at this point. Spanish is standard, and then each user can pick the experience that they wanna have within the app. So they can toggle between English and Spanish if they need to.

00:04:16 - [LISA_LAW]
Wonderful. Thank you.

00:04:18 - [HERBRON_GIRMA]
Yeah. No problem. Alright. I think that's a good segue to talk about the payroll side of things. So I think, Kate, this is probably gonna be more in your wheelhouse here. I'm just curious. I mean, there's there's lots of different directions that we can take this conversation. But when you think about where we can come in and really provide the most value for you and make your life a little bit easier as far as payroll processing is concerned, what are maybe those two or three things that come to mind?

00:04:50 - [KATE_LOUGHERY]
I mean, I keep just going back to customer service and them knowing their own product because it's if I run into an issue, I don't know how I mean, I can't get the help essentially. Like, if I call half the time, they don't know the answer. So that's a big part of it. But, I mean, the payroll system is just not intuitive. Like, for example, last year, we had to we had 27 pay periods, and the system cannot accommodate that. And so I had to manually enter the biweekly amounts every single payroll for the entire year, the salary employees because they couldn't do that calculation. So it's just things like that. But the biggest thing is just manual entry because the imports never work the way they are supposed to work. So instead of importing a bonus spreadsheet, I'm manually keying that into the pay grid. So just seeing a payroll system that can take some of that manual entry away because, obviously, manual entry, you there's you can have human error, and I'm trying to avoid that. And so my payroll process is just long right now because I'm I'm very organized and triple check things because I wanna get it right the first time. So with all that manual entry, it's just a lot of review.

00:06:20 - [HERBRON_GIRMA]
Yeah. A 100. I mean, with payroll, it's not really an area you can afford to make mistakes. No one wants to get, you know Yeah. Their pain correct. So that's a 100 understandable. So the customer service piece is obviously gonna be a a big deal for you. I'm just curious. Is there kind of a common theme or common issues that you're finding that you have to reach out to customer service for?

00:06:44 - [KATE_LOUGHERY]
It's just a huge list that it's hard to

00:06:48 - [HERBRON_GIRMA]
Okay.

00:06:48 - [KATE_LOUGHERY]
You know, come up with some tell you everything, but the system just does not work. Okay. I mean, I thought it's just hard for me because there's been I mean, at least I can attest to it. Lisa's just been with us since December, and she's already seen the battle that I have to go through weekly with customer service and them not answering questions or not reading emails and all that. So

00:07:18 - [HERBRON_GIRMA]
yeah. Got

00:07:20 - [LISA_LAW]
it. Yeah. There's not really any kind of support at all. I mean, they have. There's no dedicated I mean, I guess we do have, like, quote, unquote, a dedicated account manager, but they don't you don't have a way of getting hold of anybody. Yeah. There's, an 800 number that you can call. When you do call, they don't know who to route you to, and then you're driven right back to log a ticket because they prefer that to happen, but they don't actually even read any of those tickets that come in. And the response time is just horrible throughout this entire process. So if there is anything urgent or critical when it comes to, like, hey. Kate's going through processing payroll on a a Tuesday because we have to get it in, and maybe there's a time sensitive issue that comes up. Well, too bad because you're not gonna get any kinda answer. So Kate is very, very self sufficient in going into their knowledge base and looking for things and trying to, you know, find things on our own. But when there's maybe a problem with our EDI feed or something like that, then you would expect them to be able to help troubleshoot. There is zero ability to for them to to do that. So we're just looking for, I guess, a true partner when some of those one off issues do come up that could handhold and help us through the process if those should come up.

00:08:51 - [KATE_LOUGHERY]
Yeah. That's yeah. And, Lisa, that just reminded me of the four sorry. The four zero one k piece. So our EDI fee with Lincoln Financial and Paycor for our loans has not been working. So, for example, we had an employee whose loan stopped on the 1218 payroll, and it's still being pulled to this day, and I'm just manually removing it from the pay grid. I submitted a ticket right away in March 6. I still don't have an answer from anybody. No one in pay corps can tell me who I should be speaking to about this or, like, they're they I Lisa, do you remember what they said? They I think their answer was this was a terminated employee and that's why it's not coming out, and they're not even a terminated employee. So it it's just I've just stopped trying with them and just I always find workarounds to it because I can't spend hours going back and forth with Vapor when they they can't even so it's the EDI feeds not working.

00:10:02 - [HERBRON_GIRMA]
Yeah. So Okay.

00:10:03 - [JESS_FOURY]
Yep. One one I wanna touch on that just real quickly. So it's extremely important, and I want to spend time with you guys on how we surround our clients for success, whether that would be the Indiana user group. We have a gentleman in Indianapolis that was a past client that's came to UKG. I'll probably have him join us at one point to kinda walk through launch implementation, change management, and support. And then we'll also talk about how we write it in our agreements, our service our our level of support. So you get to choose the priority, and that's in our agreement. So we'll talk about that, and then we'll talk a little bit more about our three sixty five support as well. So I think each of those areas will be important. And then the UKG community as well, we'll talk a little bit about that. That's where you can go into the system and ask questions. And then we have a a group of about 60,000 that are in there today. So I have some clients that are like, I'm in the the UKG community every day. I love it. Like, it's giving me ideas or re helping me rethink things. So we'll talk more about that as well, and I know that's an extremely important piece. And and that's what we're looking for too. You know, we're looking for a long term partner in the size of employer that you guys are in. Typically, we see people changing companies every eighteen to thirty six months, and our average client tenure is over fourteen years. So we are looking for long term partnerships, and and we'll we'll validate that and and go through that stuff with you guys.

00:11:52 - [HERBRON_GIRMA]
Awesome. So I feel like we're getting the the biggest areas here covered for the most part. So with time, payroll, benefits is obviously going to be a big piece of that too. I am curious because when we were when Jess and I were debriefing, he did mention that you're operating under a few different EINs. So I'm curious when we're thinking about the reporting for that. Are you having issues pulling multi EIN reporting or global reporting in any way right now?

00:12:22 - [BARBARA_BEMENT]
No. I'm able to pull all three companies at the same time. Within one report? They don't combine them. They are separated on there, but Okay. I can pull them into an Excel. Okay.

00:12:37 - [HERBRON_GIRMA]
Do you like your current experience with reporting right now, Barbara?

00:12:43 - [BARBARA_BEMENT]
Oh, I like that I can pull all three companies at the same time. Sometimes creating a report, no. I'm not so happy with that. It's sometimes hard to get it. They say it's out there and trying to find where they have it hidden is sometimes a challenge.

00:13:06 - [KATE_LOUGHERY]
Well, they keep changing because Paychex bought Paychex. So for a while, they had one way of building reports. And then when Paychex came on board, it changed a little bit. So, like, there was a report that I had created right when we really implemented, and it took a while for me to get their help to create this report I needed for pay for payroll. And when they changed their reporting system, that report completely disappeared, I couldn't rebuild it. And so it's just stuff like that too that's always changing and I mean yeah. So finding a report that has what you need. The one function I loved about ADP reporting is I forget what they called it, but you could just go into an employee's profile and select this tool where you could choose from the profile the different fields that you wanted to see. And I don't know if you guys have anything like that, but I I love that made reporting so easy for me. So instead of going into a system to find it, I could just go to the profile and point out exactly what I needed to see.

00:14:16 - [HERBRON_GIRMA]
Yeah. Like, adding or removing columns based on what's available. Yeah. We can show you that too for sure. Okay. Still within that reporting world, I mean, typically, when that's a big area of concern, it's usually involved with compliance too. So I'm just curious. Are you having any type of issues with keeping tabs on compliance related items right now from a reporting standpoint or having access to your compliance items? So think things like potentially ACA, workers' comp, OSHA reporting.

00:14:57 - [KATE_LOUGHERY]
Workers' comp. They didn't even have a field for workers' comp. I had to create a custom field for that. Another thing, they did not have an area for, like, pay grade or anything like that, location tier, all of that. Because we we were with ADP previously, and they had all those different fields for us, and Paycor doesn't have any of it. So I'd be curious to see what that looks like if you guys have a way to link pay grades to job titles, or we also have the location tier. So we might have one pay grade with multiple location tiers. So kinda what that would look like within the system.

00:15:49 - [HERBRON_GIRMA]
Just so I made sure I understood you correctly, linking pay grades to the different job titles is what you said. Correct?

00:15:56 - [KATE_LOUGHERY]
Yeah. So, like, if I hire a new employee who's pay grade 18 location, tier two? Like, is there a way to assign that? Or it doesn't necessarily have to be attached to the job title, I guess, but just a way that that can be added to the profile so we can easily pull a report that shows the pay grade location tier, etcetera.

00:16:21 - [HERBRON_GIRMA]
Okay. Got it.

00:16:27 - [LISA_LAW]
Hey, Brenda. Back to your original question. I don't think it's necessarily that the data isn't there from a reporting structure standpoint. I think that the reports that are in Paycor are not user friendly, like the platform itself. Like, I know Nathan and Steve have come to HR to try to create some reports, and you can't like, there's error messages that come up, and it's like, well, it shows that you should be able to run a report here, but the information that we're trying to obtain is not coming out appropriately. And then and then secondarily, like, there's some reports that Kate and I have tried to run that they changed the interface of the report platform within Paycor, and it's just very clunky to try to get what you need. So I don't think it's necessarily that we are having problems that the information's there. So if we needed to run ACA or if we needed to run workers' comp or if we needed to do this, it's kind of in there, but extracting it is a whole different a whole axe.

00:17:42 - [HERBRON_GIRMA]
Got it. Okay.

00:17:43 - [BARBARA_BEMENT]
So it's just

00:17:43 - [HERBRON_GIRMA]
the intuitiveness isn't really there. The data is it's hard to find.

00:17:47 - [LISA_LAW]
Yeah. And then it's hard to extract in a format that maybe we'd need. Like, I I know I I think Barb may have brought this up. It's like, well, if we're exporting it in a a usable version, like, it needs to be able to be extracted the data in Excel and not extracted to a PDF.

00:18:11 - [BARBARA_BEMENT]
Mhmm.

00:18:12 - [LISA_LAW]
So, like, having multiple different types of extract options, would be widely beneficial.

00:18:20 - [STEVE_WADE]
Okay.

00:18:26 - [HERBRON_GIRMA]
Alright. So I'm curious. Once some of these more tier one needs are met as far as the payroll time reporting benefits, Are there any nice to haves that are currently top of mind right now, maybe around, you know, performance or comp management? Anything like that that you all are considering at this time?

00:18:52 - [LISA_LAW]
Performance is definitely one of those items that I wouldn't really say is, like, a nice to have. We we do intend to move that direction when it comes to the decision making process of what whichever HCM. Right now, that process for us is very labor intensive and manual where they're being done all on spreadsheets and then manually administratively tracked. K. It's just not working. So we I guess my desire is this that this would live in the HCM.

00:19:29 - [HERBRON_GIRMA]
Okay. So, I mean, let's dig into that a little bit more. So, I mean, walk me through what a a standard performance review looks like. What are you actually grading on as far as the goals and ratings are concerned?

00:19:45 - [LISA_LAW]
You'll have to forgive me just because I'm very, very new to this process.

00:19:49 - [HERBRON_GIRMA]
Yeah. That's okay.

00:19:51 - [LISA_LAW]
I mean, there's we've you know, we as a business come up with the company goals, and then there's departmental goals, and then there's individual goals. And the company outlines what their goals are, and it's usually anywhere from four to six company goals. And then each department then is responsible for kind of coming up with their own team goals or department goals and how they feed into the the overarching corporate goals.

00:20:25 - [HERBRON_GIRMA]
Okay.

00:20:26 - [LISA_LAW]
There's timelines that are kinda built into the calendar of when these conversations should take place. So, I mean, we just walked out of the performance cycle where reviews were done in January and February, and then the and the goal setting process was kind of right at the February to the beginning of this month of March, for this upcoming calendar year.

00:20:52 - [BARBARA_BEMENT]
K.

00:20:54 - [HERBRON_GIRMA]
Is that feeding into anything as far as merit increases, bonuses?

00:21:02 - [LISA_LAW]
It does. We handle those separately, though. I mean, they're not they're separate activities, but one does feed into the next. So, I mean, how you do based off of your performance does relate into the merit discussion.

00:21:17 - [HERBRON_GIRMA]
Okay. Do you have a formal way of planning that right now?

00:21:23 - [LISA_LAW]
It's all done by spreadsheet.

00:21:25 - [HERBRON_GIRMA]
Okay. I asked because we do have a compensation module as well. It's essentially taking that Excel spreadsheet and putting it right into the product for you so then it can automatically feed into your payroll process, and it'll also help you connect the performance review result to a certain percent increase on that employee's base pay depending on the rating. So you can, of course, decide what those brackets mean or what percent increase that you wanna give, but I'm just wanting to feel out what the temperature is around wanting to see something like that.

00:21:57 - [LISA_LAW]
I would be open to looking at that. You know, transparently, our organization is not entertaining any merit discussions this year. That was decided, you know, pretty in the fall of last year just based off of the the current economic climate that we would be foregoing merit, but we do anticipate to resume those activities. So if there's a way to make this easier and less administratively burdened, not only for each departments and business units, but definitely from the finance team to my team who ultimately has to make all of those pay changes. I'd be open to looking at what that looks like.

00:22:40 - [HERBRON_GIRMA]
Okay. Perfect.

00:22:43 - [JESS_FOURY]
Lisa, I know that you had mentioned that you're you're kind of working on the onboarding process today, or or maybe you'd worked on that a little bit. Any particular area there that you guys are looking to improve the the onboarding experience or applicant tracking?

00:22:59 - [KATE_LOUGHERY]
Yeah. We want to see the so currently, we're doing recruiting through applicant stacks, so it's completely separate. We want that to all be in one system. So everywhere from, like, the interviewing starts in there, the offer letters are generated through the system, and then that goes into onboarding. So we wanna see what that all looks like because we wanna get out of applicant stack.

00:23:24 - [JESS_FOURY]
K. Where does it kind of, I I guess, bogged down today? Like, just the data doesn't flow, or I'm not very familiar with applicant stack?

00:23:38 - [KATE_LOUGHERY]
Yeah. Lisa can. I don't really work on the recruiting side of things. Lisa can probably fill you in more on that. But

00:23:47 - [LISA_LAW]
Right now, Jess, these are all separate systems. So Mhmm. Applicant stack is our ATS that we're using, which is completely separate from Paycor. So I I open a requisition in applicant stack, and then it posts to some of our job boards. It's limited on the number of hiring manager seats, who are able to be admins just from that standpoint, and then it's it's just a very clunky system. So it's not intuitive at all. From there, when we do make an offer, all of that is done outside the outside of applicant stack and even outside of Paycor. So it is a offer letter that's generated, and we send through DocuSign right now to get the candidate's acceptance. And then that has to then be manually uploaded into, I guess, Paycor to be kept. But even before you get to that point, it's then going logging them into background check and drug screening, which is a whole other separate system, that we're using right now called Checkr. So as you can tell, like, nothing is very seamless, and then there's opportunities for all kinds of human error through all of this. And my goal as well as what Kate just mentioned is something that, you know, we would start, you know, from, you know, the onset of the employee cycle all the way through, you know, the end of the employee cycle that this could just be very seamless.

00:25:28 - [JESS_FOURY]
Yeah. Mhmm. Yeah. I I know it's a stressful project, but I think Hubert and I would both agree. Like, you guys haven't shared anything that has scared us up to this point. We're very transparent throughout this process. If we can't do something, we'll let you know. But, yeah, I think there's a a lot of room for improvement, a lot of room for just creating, you know, better processes, creating more efficiencies for your team, giving your employees, you know, a platform that's easy to use. So appreciate a lot of the insight. I know we have about six minutes left. Hebron, are there a few more questions that you have? And then I'll I'll kinda tidy this up at the end here.

00:26:13 - [HERBRON_GIRMA]
Yeah. I just have one last question, really, for everybody on the call. So just listening to some of the points that were brought up in the conversation today, there's going to be a lot of HRIS providers that can easily answer yes to what you're wanting to fix or upgrade. It's not going to be that different product to product. So if we you know, all things equal from a product perspective, what really is going to be that differentiator for you when wanting to make that decision?

00:26:49 - [LISA_LAW]
I can lead off, I guess, a little bit of the conversation on that. And, I guess, just just to give you a heads up, I I do have a very hard stop here for me at 0230. So if I end up having to jump off, it's just I have to lead this next call at 0230. So I trust that you can wrap up with this team if I end up jumping off here, you know, in the next couple of minutes. I think, as it relates to your question, Hebron, I to me, there are two major things that I think we would be driving off of. One is is price point. Obviously, just wanting to be as cost effective as we can, recognizing that, hey. You somewhat get what you pay for, but we're also looking at value here and realizing that we're gonna consolidate several outside systems into one system and trying to overall make the best experience for my internal customers, which are all these folks on the call here, but also the employees who are gonna be living in this system day in and day out. My other hinge piece on this, and, Kate probably is gonna be on board with this, is the the implementation process here. We've walked through Scott could probably tell you exactly, but I think we went through you know, this might be the the fourth different HCM in the last several years. So we're not really interested in a just, hey. Another HR leader's come in, and she's making a change. I I want to be very mindful of why we're doing this and then also speak to, like, the integration process for Kate was extremely difficult this last time around. They didn't know what was going on, and there was almost a, hey. Lots of promises on the front end and then zero support after we got off the ground. And so we would really like some peace of mind of knowing that, hey. Even though we've we're tracking towards a implementation date, that it's not gonna be just hands off after that.

00:28:59 - [HERBRON_GIRMA]
Got it. Thank you for sharing that.

00:29:03 - [JESS_FOURY]
Scott, I know we haven't had a chance to hear from you yet. Is and your team has been fantastic on sharing a lot of information. Is there anything in particular that you would like to share? And and, Lisa, if you have to jump, have a great weekend. I actually have a hard stop in three minutes too. My son is in first grade and doing a reading this afternoon. So I and he was very adamant that I could not miss it. So I have a hard stop as well.

00:29:27 - [SCOTT_WARNER]
Yeah. That's fair. So no. Just just that we wanna find a a permanent home. You know, personally, I've been here ten years and been through a lot of these, and it's not fun. So just, you know, making the best decision possible, what can you guys do different? Say what you mean mean what you say. Right? So show us what you can do. Don't bust it over and, you know, help us find the right the right home to live in. So

00:29:50 - [JESS_FOURY]
Yep. I I appreciate that. And I so what what we're gonna do from here, like, next is he and I, we're gonna get together to prepare for the eighteenth. I think it's the eighteenth that we have a a call scheduled to go down through a demo with you guys. It's going to be critical that we talk about launch, implementation, change management, support, and almost like its own silo of a conversation. So I wanna bring in an individual that that leads our team there and then go through each of those things because I don't wanna promise something that we can't prove. So just as we go through this process, just ask me to prove it. I think it's that that simple. I think that's that's fair to ask for both parties. So we'll go through the demo, and then I'm gonna reconnect with Lisa on Monday on a couple things that may be outstanding. But I'll get all of you guys my my contact information. So if something comes up, you can reach out. But I will be there in person and just really excited about this. I I think that as we were coming into this, there's a lot of areas that we seem to be a really fit. And this is why people typically come to UKG is because they went through a few different platforms, and and they're looking for a long term partner. So other than that, I'll I'll circle up with Lisa on Monday. So if there's something that you wanted to share that maybe we didn't get to, let Lisa know, and then we can get together in a one off conversation next week in preparation for that that meeting on the the eighteenth. But I wish everybody a fantastic weekend. If you're in Indiana, hopefully, it's beautiful. It's beautiful in Evansville. So, hopefully, we have a a nice warm weekend.

00:31:44 - [SCOTT_WARNER]
Thank you very much.

00:31:46 - [HERBRON_GIRMA]
Thanks, everybody.

00:31:47 - [SCOTT_WARNER]
Take care, everybody.

00:31:48 - [NATHAN_HARPEL]
Thank you. Thank you. Mhmm.

00:31:49 - [BARBARA_BEMENT]
Bye. Thanks. Bye bye.