Cost-Conscious Businesses Struggle to Find HR Solutions, Study Finds

ADP releases a set of tools to help budget-conscious businesses with their HR and payroll and benefits needs, along with a survey revealing only 8 percent of midmarket companies use the same provider for HR, payroll and talent management.

Automatic Data Processing (ADP), a provider of human resources, payroll and benefits administration services, announced the enhancement of ADP Workforce Now to include talent management capabilities aimed at small to medium-size businesses. The solution offers HR resources, benefits administration, payroll, time and attendance, and talent management functionality designed for midmarket organizations with 50 to 999 employees.

"When it comes to making sure the right people with the right skills are in the right positions, midsized companies have just as much at stake-perhaps more-than larger ones," said Regina Lee, president of ADP major account services and small business services. "ADP Workforce Now provides the tools that midsized companies need in order to focus on business growth, not business administration."

A recent study by ADP titled "Automated Talent Management: The New Strategic Imperative for Performance Efficiency," released in March 2010, found that the majority of midsize organizations continue to manage their talent manually, with 82 percent of respondents doing performance management manually, 81 percent managing applicant tracking manually, 78 percent managing compensation manually and 74 percent managing background checks manually. The study found that because there is such a lack of easy-to-use, affordable and integrated solutions, only 8 percent of midmarket companies use the same provider for HR, payroll and talent management.

Sixty-two percent of respondents were final purchase decision makers for major new HR systems or services, ADP noted. Four in 10 heads of HR who responded to the study expressed a desire for help in building learning curriculums and providing job-relevant, instructor-led and online self-study courses. The biggest challenges identified in learning management are scheduling/finding the time for learning, lack of learning and identifying learning needs.

About a third of heads of HR are interested in help with performance reviews, building competency models, performing regular audits of their performance review process, creating a competency library and creating companywide goals that tie to employee goals. The biggest challenges respondents face in performance review processing are the timeliness of reviews (managers doing them on time/finding time to do them), participation (getting the managers to do them), consistency/uniformity and accuracy/ honesty of the comments contained. 

Prior to using ADP Workforce Now, Coconut Grove Bank in Coconut Grove, Fla., used three different systems and a variety of manual processes to manage HR, payroll and talent. "We were looking to improve organizational efficiency, streamline the number of vendors involved in our HR systems and elevate our strategic contribution to the bottom line," said Ana Ishii, HR director at the Bank. "With ADP Workforce Now, we will meet our needs across the employee life-cycle with a single solution, single service experience and single provider."