roadview, a leading New-York based M&A advisor and private equity investor,
operates a network of 175 employees and affiliates across North America, Europe,
Asia and Australia.
Among the firm’s business principles is the strong belief that employees are
the company’s most valued assets. To provide that asset with quality service,
Broadview needed to get a handle on its ability to manage employee human
resources data across different locations.
"We’d been using paper-based Excel spreadsheets, which didn’t give us nearly
enough functionality or the information that we needed," said Rene Kraenzlin,
Broadview’s managing director and chief administrative officer. "For example,
when we needed last year’s salary information for a particular employee group,
we had to track down the data and dump it into an Excel document to figure it
out. It took us hours just to perform this one task."
Broadview evaluated a number of HR management systems but soon realized most
were either too expensive or too complicated for their needs.
"We looked for a robust system that would be easy enough for every HR team
member to use; one that would enable our team to generate simple reports. We
found most HR systems were very difficult to use and very expensive," said
Kraenzlin. "We had a specific list of features we needed such as flexibility in
design, ease of use, reporting capabilities and strong benefits management. We
felt that most of the systems out on the market only met a few of our criteria."
Through research on the Web, Kraenzlin learned about
HROffice, an HRMS system
from Ascentis Software. HROffice allows companies to track employee compensation
and benefits ranging from personal data, benefits coverage, compensation
history, COBRA, FMLA eligibility and maintenance, OSHA tracking and more.
HROffice’s custom reports feature allows users to generate information within
minutes, saving days worth of work using manual report generation methods. The
system also allows flexibility in customizing features to meet benefits
management and tracking eligibility.
"Ascentis gave me a demo to play around with and I saw just how easy it was
to use and became sold on the product," said Kraenzlin.
Broadview implemented HROffice in 2002. "Implementation was very quick; I was
able to transfer existing data into HROffice in no time."
Reporting simplified
Gone are the days--and weeks--spent generating simple reports. Kraenzlin
cites reporting capabilities as a major advantage of HROffice. "Now, when we
need to run a report on salaries for the same employee group I mentioned
earlier, HROffice enables us to generate that report in two minutes," said
Kraenzlin.
With its ease of use and intuitive Windows-based platform, all of Broadview’s
HR staff are experts on the software and can run reports. "Before, in our staff
of five people, only one person was able to generate a report. Now, all of our
staff can perform these tasks and don’t have to spend days learning the software
in order to use it."
Solid benefits management equals cost savings
Kraenzlin also applauds HROffice’s strong benefits management capabilities.
With the ability to more accurately assess the company’s benefits costs,
Broadview can determine the true cost analysis of benefits and get more bang for
the buck.
"Previously, we had no way of summarizing our actual benefits costs in one
simple report.
HROffice gives us a better handle on the actual costs of benefits
and we can determine cost analysis. We couldn’t do this pre-HROffice."
"Now that all our HR and benefits data are in one place, we simply use the
wizards feature of HROffice to compare benefits. We can easily see individual
costs employees are paying and compare that with the amount the company pays.
This makes us much more knowledgeable and responsive since we don’t have to
scramble around for data."
Self-service functionality helps employees help themselves
Broadview’s HR staff is realizing significant time-savings as a result of
HROffice’s latest technology advancement: HROffice Self-Service, an employee
self-service module of HROffice.
Built on the Microsoft .NET platform,
HROffice Self-Service enables employees
to access and update their HR, benefits, attendance, and personal information
through a Web browser. With HROffice Employee Self-Service, Broadview’s HR staff
can focus on more strategic initiatives since employees are able to access and
update their own information. For example, employees can compare benefits plans,
look up vacation accruals and change their benefits information.
"By allowing employees to take charge of their HR and personnel information,
we no longer have to send out quarterly benefits summaries. This was a very time
consuming process that took our staff two to three weeks to compile since we had
to collect and verify data and then follow up with each employee," said
Kraenzlin. "Now, employees can view their own data and make changes. This saves
us printing costs associated with generating benefits summaries and ensures that
we are working with accurate information."
"HROffice is amazing. When you look at the price and features of the
software, it’s just unbelievable how much functionality you get for your money.
We’re in awe of
HROffice."
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