Sourcing Advisors, LLC Blog

Sourcing Advisors will be releasing its’ own free vendor database very soon. This database will give you the ability to generate a list of viable vendors by searching by the type of product or service that you are looking for, the states that your business units are located in, and by the vendor’s target employee size. You will be able to access the database from our website at www.sourcingadvisorsllc.com.

Vendors who are interested in becoming listed in the database, should send an email to marketing@sourcingadvisorsllc.com requesting the Vendor Directory Survey.

1) Executives must be supportive.

The executives within your organization must support the use of a time and attendance system (labor management) from the beginning. If they do not, it will be difficult, if not impossible for the project to succeed. Executives have to be willing to enforce the use of the system, and stress to all levels of the organization their support of the policies on system usage.

2)Provide communication to the organization before implementation.

Time and Attendance (Labor Management Systems) have benefits for all levels of the organization. It is important for the sponsors of the system to send out communication that is tailored to each level of the organization, prior to the implementation. These memos should stress the positive aspects of the system for that employment group. For example, frontline employees want to be treated fairly, and paid correctly. A memo addressed to the employees should stress these benefits to them. Management, for example, may have part of their performance reviews and compensation linked to how well they manage their labor budget. Likewise, a memo to management should share how the implementation of the system will help them achieve their goals. Stress the positive aspects of the system for each employee group. Get them excited about the new system.

3)Train both employees and managers on the proper use of the system.

To ensure the proper use of the system you should train your employees and managers on how you want them to use it. Often times, organizations just invest in training the Administrators of the system. We recommend your train everyone. Your training should be tailored to meet your organizations policies and procedures. The normal generic training that vendors provide is a good, but not enough.

4)Incorporate training for the system as part of your on-boarding process.

By incorporating the training with your on-boarding you are making the system part of your culture. Teaching new hires how to use the system, and enforcing the use of the system through policies and procedures, will lead to a quicker adoption by the workforce.

5)Develop and enforce policies and procedures for using the system.

Many organizations miss this step. Developing policies and procedures is important in ensuring the proper use of the system. People shy away from things that are unfamiliar. Enforcing your policies and procedures is equally important. If your employees and managers do not feel the policies and procedures will be enforced, they will not embrace the system. Enforcement is the key to ensuring adoption. In every organization there are managers and employees who will oppose the implementation of time and attendance systems. They will try to claim it takes too much time, it doesn’t work right, and the list goes on. It is vital that you enforce the use of the system, and do not cave to their complaints. This is when the executives must be supportive.

In Part I of our article, “Why is Buying Criteria Important?” We discussed that buying criteria is the roadmap that an organization must use in its selection process. We outlined what happens when an organization enters into an evaluation of vendors without criteria, and we touched briefly on broad criteria. Now we will discuss developing effective criteria for one’s evaluation.

Every organization is unique. There are similarities between some types of organizations, such as school districts, but nevertheless, your organization is unique. Therefore, the buying criteria used should be unique. Do not use the criteria from another organization, take the time to develop your own set of criteria that is specific to your organization.

The first step in developing criteria is to start by documenting your goals for the solution. Outline what you want the solution to do for your organization once implemented. These goals should align with the initiatives of the organization. For example, if as an organization the directive is to cut costs, and you are in the process of evaluating to acquire an HR solution. The stated goal may be that by implementing this HR solution, we will reduce our benefit budget by an estimated $X.

The next step is to document your requirements. It is important to know all the functions and task within your current processes. This can take some time, because it requires detailed conversations with each of the employees who perform the various functions and task. The mistake many people make is not getting enough detail, or not probing “why” they perform the task a certain way. Once you have gathered all the information from subject matter experts, then you are ready to draft a requirement document.

The third and final step in developing you buying criteria is to link your requirements to the stated goals. It is important to test your links, to make sure that by accomplishing or meeting the requirement, it will give you the ability to reach the goal. Using our example from above, where one of our goals for evaluating an HR solution is the ability to reduce our benefit expense, I have listed some sample criteria that will give the ability to reach the goal. One thing to note is that the criteria in some cases will be part of the requirements, but the requirements should be the detail for evaluating the criteria.

Goal – Reduce benefit cost by $X.

Criteria
• Provide carrier feeds to X, Y, Z.
• Maintain eligibility rules for plans
• Generate change report for reconciliation

This article was written by James Fields, Senior Advisor for Sourcing Advisors, LLC. Sourcing Advisors assist organizations with the acquisition of software and services in the areas of HR, Payroll, Benefits Administration (Health & Welfare), Recruiting, Time and Attendance, Travel and Expense, PEO, and Administrative Service Offerings (ASO).

Somewhere in the first meeting with a sales representative, the question about how the evaluation committee will evaluate or select the right solution or service is asked. This is a vital question, yet many people enter that meeting not knowing what they are looking for. They may tell the sales representative, that they are going to develop the criteria as they go along, once they see what is available. Others have generic criteria such as; ease of use, reporting, customer service, and price. This series is designed to give organizations a better handle on buying criteria. In Part I of this series I will discuss the importance of Buying Criteria, and Part II will cover, developing sound criteria.

What are criteria? Businessdictionary.com defines criteria as the “Statement of needs, rules, standards, or tests that must be used in evaluating a decision, idea, opportunity, program, project, etc., to form correct judgment regarding the intended goal.” That means that buying criteria must be the criteria used to form the correct purchasing decision to reach the intended goal.

Let’s explore what are the potential challenges of entering into an evaluation process without solid criteria. Since we know that criteria are used to guide us in our decision-making process, not having criteria will lead to an evaluation committee selecting a solution that will not satisfy the intended goal or objective. Rest assured that if you enter an evaluation with a vendor(s), and do not have any criteria, every vendor’s sales representative will be more than happy to provide you with their criteria. The criteria that they tend to present usually favor that vendor. The vendor’s criteria are typically a strength for that vendor, and relevant to the acquiring organization or industry. Since any criteria provided would be a strength for the vendor, if an organization adopts the vendor’s criteria, the evaluation is slanted in favor of that specific vendor. Should an evaluation committee use a combination of vendor criterion to form their criteria, then whichever vendor gets the most criteria on the list, typically wins. So the vendors are competing to get their criteria selected. The result remains the same, the evaluation committee makes a selection which most of the time does not align with the needs of the organization.

Having broad criteria for your evaluation can lead to problems. Take, for example, the criterion, ease of use, or reporting. These are common requests by evaluation committees or users. Every software system is going to claim ease of use, or have reporting capabilities. Remember, criteria are the set of rules, needs, and standards that will lead to making a correct decision regarding meeting a goal.

Remember buy criteria is your roadmap to selecting a solution that will assist an organization in meeting a goal or objective. Not having criteria is like driving without a map. Unless one is very familiar with the area, and knows where they are going, it is in their best interest to have a map to guide them. Being lost, or arriving at the wrong place can be frustrating time consuming ordeal. With selecting a solution, it can also be an expensive.

This article was written by James Fields, Senior Advisor for Sourcing Advisors, LLC. Sourcing Advisors assist organizations with the acquisition of software and services in the areas of HR, Payroll, Benefits Administration (Health & Welfare), Recruiting, Time and Attendance, Travel and Expense, PEO, and Administrative Service Offerings (ASO).

The IRS released a list of e-filing providers that have passed the IRS Assurance Testing System and/or Business Acceptance Testing requirements. If you are looking to engage a vendor for payroll processing or tax filing, take a look at this list. The providers are not listed in any specific order.

James Fields PHR, Senior Advisor

Please note that most companies and sales professionals hate reference checks. Not necessarily because they do not have good references, for some companies that could be the case, but rather because they do not have an easy way of finding a client that meets the request. I know of one global organization with over $1 billion in revenue, which did not have a reference database. When a sales person needed a reference they had to ask their counterparts, or send an email nationally to find a reference. You should also know, that veteran sales professionals are going to screen their references before they give them to you. As a former sales professional, the saying around the offices were, no one is going to knowingly give a prospect a bad reference.

That being said, it is still a good idea to conduct reference checks on vendors before you implement their solution. Below are some suggestions that will help you get the most out of your reference checks.

1) Ask for a list of clients that have similar needs as yours, that you may contact if needed. This list should be separate from your list of references.
2) Develop a list of concerns regarding the project and/or vendor(s). Formulate your questions based on that list.
3) Tell the sales representatives from each company the areas in which you want the references to be prepared to discuss.
4) Ask for four-five references from each of your vendor finalist, and contact the references for all of them.
5) Make sure to ask for at least one or two of the references to be clients who recently implemented their solution.
6) Ask the reference open ended questions that will invite them to talk in depth about the vendor. Do not be afraid to explore further based on the conversation.
7) Ask the vendor to ask the reference to set aside a specific amount of time to answer your questions. Be mindful, that if you ask for 10 minutes you may only get 10 minutes.
8) If the contact at a reference is unable to address your questions, either ask for another contact within that reference’s company, or ask for another reference from the vendor.
9) Have other members on your evaluation committee listening to the conversation and taking notes. Debrief following the conversation, to go over your notes.
10) Contact one or two of the clients that were listed on the client list, and see if they would be willing to talk with you and share their experiences.

For more information or to get further guidance in this area, send us an email at info@sourcingadvisorsllc.com or call us at 866-472-7165.

James Fields PHR, Senior Advisor

Sourcing Advisors was founded to do something that most consulting firms are not well equipped to do, coach their clients through the process of selecting and effectively managing their sourcing relationships from the perspective of having been across the table from them as sales professionals. At one time it was our responsibility to sell the solutions that we are now helping our clients acquire, or manage. Imagine having an advisor who has sold the various solutions that you are looking to acquire or manage?