Spectrum helps CBIZ Streamline, standardize its HR Processes

When a company uses a payroll system as its primary HR system, odds are there will be challenges in today’s data management-driven world. When that same company is growing exponentially, those challenges are likely to be even more profound, as inefficiency and confusion can eventually overwhelm the people responsible for managing the company’s HR issues.

At least that’s how it felt to Terri Bruce, Vice President of Human Resources for CBIZ Inc., a Cleveland-based, multi-layered provider of professional business services to U.S. companies in areas such as accounting and tax, employee benefits, IT and HR consulting, and medical-practice management. “Very early on, the situation became overwhelming,” Bruce says. “Before we decided to add an HRMS in 2003, we had grown to 64 business units, all operating somewhat independently when it came to HR and HR systems. We desperately needed a ‘single source of truth,’ but we really had 64 points of truth.”

That was more than two years ago. In the intervening years, CBIZ decided to align the HR information, transitioning to Denver-based Spectrum Human Resource Systems Corporation’s iVantage^®, a web-native HR system. The objective was to use iVantage as a primary technology tool to help CBIZ HR bring all those disparate “silos” together under a single roof.

According to Bruce, CBIZ had three critical goals in mind when it decided to implement major change in the way it handled its HR policies, procedures and strategies. Those goals included adding a single, company-wide HR system, creating HR standards across the CBIZ family of companies (and using technology to implement them), and finally, minimizing data-entry errors via the new HR system’s single-point-of-entry process.

“We were growing quickly through acquisitions, but we did not require our new organizations to comply with all standards when it came to HR,” Bruce says. “And that situation eventually created inconsistencies. An initial goal was to consolidate and centralize HR practices.” That’s a challenge when you have a decentralized entity with 5,000 employees scattered throughout 160 offices across the country. Of course, it also had to be done without an overabundance of financial and human resources.

The newly acquired companies typically have employee populations ranging from 10 to 200. But the available tools were hardly enough to manage the HR aspects of growth. “Aside from using the payroll system to manage employee data, we used Excel spreadsheets,” says Wendy Dayton, Manager of HRIS/Payroll at CBIZ.

Bruce and her staff knew serious change was needed, so it made a strong case for a new HRMS to senior management, which returned a major vote of confidence to her team. The initial option was to move to a large ERP-based HR module, which CBIZ already purchased in 1999 when it added the ERP to handle company financials. But when CBIZ really took time to consider its HR system needs in 2003, the ERP offering wasn’t the right solution. “When we finally caught our breath, we looked at the capabilities of the ERP HR system,” Dayton says. “When we re-evaluated it, we decided it was going to take a huge amount of work to establish and maintain the infrastructure.”

CBIZ looked at several other large HRIS vendors, but found those offerings not flexible enough. They all had good functionality, but with CBIZ’s complexity, customization could very well lead to a “very expensive” implementation. There also was the need for a user-friendly HR system, one that would allow people to use it with minimal training. CBIZ found Spectrum’s iVantage HR system fit the bill. iVantage provided ease-of-use in several areas, especially in terms of standard HR reporting, says Dayton. Further, she adds, the system’s “back end” (where much of the data management takes place) was very well-structured. “iVantage is very easy to use, and the information is well-organized in the database,” Dayton says. “We wanted to create a few new tables and data fields for some customization, and then we wanted to implement manager and employee self-service.”

For Bruce and Dayton, another iVantage selling point was its open architecture. CBIZ needed to integrate the HR system with the company payroll system, and be able to pass data back and forth between the two, a factor Dayton calls “a big consideration” in choosing iVantage.

Before adding any new technology, creating the new HR standards across all 64 CBIZ entities came first. Once the new standards were established, Bruce, Dayton and the HR team defined and consolidated the data, and made sure the company’s new standard HR policies and procedures were tightly integrated into iVantage. “We had to make sure when we built the system that we had workable standards in place and a way to enforce the new standards,” Bruce says. “Senior management supported us, and the support continued for manager and employee self-service as well.”

For example, until 2005, CBIZ companies operated on several different vacation and sick-leave policies. The company instituted a single vacation/sick-leave program, and every company had to eventually migrate to that new plan. “Spectrum’s HR system supported that gradual migration, so that no employee was hurt through the transition,” Dayton says. “It gave us the flexibility we needed during a critical change-management process. It was very important that the system worked appropriately in those two areas.”

Another example of how Spectrum’s HR system supported CBIZ’s quickly changing HR environment came with CBIZ’s Certification for Professional Education module, an important part of the company’s licensing program currently used for accountants — and now resides on CBIZ’s iVantage system. Future use is intended for sales professionals, accountants, attorneys and other professionals within CBIZ who must take annual education courses to continue to practice.

“The system had to be flexible to support different practices because we have so many different types of professionals within CBIZ,” Bruce says.

Finally, there was the nagging problem of data-entry errors. With 64 units entering data separately into the company’s payroll system, there wasn’t much in the way of quality control. Dayton says that controls on people entering data into a payroll system are not as rigid as on an HR system. But with iVantage, data accuracy is assured because it serves as the main data-input location, which means tighter control and much cleaner, accurate data.

“Today, we have a very high accuracy rate in our payroll system,” Dayton says. “In fact, several different company systems are now updated from our HR system.” She cites the corporate directory is one such system that now uses the HR system’s data to stay current.

“At the outset, we wanted HR to have a ‘single source of truth’ for HR,” Bruce concludes. “We needed to ensure we could look at our HR system and believe the data. iVantage has made sure we can say that with confidence.”

Case study produced on behalf of Spectrum Human Resource Systems Corporation.
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