Streamlining HCM for a remote-first company
Wastewater treatment company consolidates personnel records and onboarding processes with PrimePay HR, leading to significant cost and time savings.
PrimePay HR is the one-stop shop for payroll and human resources,” says Mike Silver, VP of Operations and Human Resources.
A rapidly growing industrial wastewater treatment company
Solution Group is an industrial wastewater treatment company that transforms organic by-products into renewable energy using anaerobic digestion. Companies rely on their teams to treat, monitor, automate, and convert their wastewater into renewable energy while remaining compliant with industry regulations.
“We’re not a brick-and-mortar company,” says Mike Silver, VP of Operations and Human Resources at Solution Group. “We’re currently a team of 65, and still growing. I wanted to have all the onboarding requirements, health benefit information, and performance evaluations online so anybody with the right permissions could access them 24/7.”
Solution Group initially was a small group of family and friends — a team of four people who shared responsibilities and oversight. Over time, the demand for their services continued to grow. In response, the company expanded and now has four brands within the Solution Group: Environmental Management Solutions (EMS), Organic Solution Management, Opticlear Controls, and Aries Tek. The team grew to 65 staff members spanning across 13 states. While expanding, the company needed to hire executives, salaried and hourly staff, and 1099 contractors— which meant introducing payroll and employee benefits.
In the early stages of expansion, the company turned to PrimePay Payroll for its variety of employees. At the time, human resources was largely a manual process with signed employee contracts stored in an office drawer. When the team grew beyond 10 staff members, administrative employee tracking became challenging.
To solve this problem, the company searched for a 24/7 online HR system. Solution Group decided that PrimePay HR was their choice to address the diversity of workers and payment schedules it needed to support.
Remote workers and diverse payment schedules
With a remote workforce spread across 13 states, storing all personnel records in a physical office space was no longer an option for Solution Group. The company needed to retain its personnel records in the cloud to ensure that staff had access to them at any time, from anywhere.
Solution Group also needed the ability to manage different payment schedules and customize its staff compensation and benefits packages based on their specific needs.
“Every staff member comes to the table with different needs,” Silver says. “We have individuals who have faced tough financial situations. We try to understand what each employee needs and design our benefits package to help them build a strong foundation.”
When he learned about the PrimePay HR solution, he decided that the transition made sense, due to its integration with payroll and reasonable cost.
With PrimePay HR, Silver was able to store personnelbrecords in the cloud, manage different payment schedules and benefits, and integrate payroll.
Seamless payroll integration and intuitive navigation
The transition to PrimePay HR was kicked off.
“I know that all transitions are challenging no matter how user-friendly the end product is,” he says.
The Implementation Project Manager from PrimePay was vital in creating a positive platform migration experience. She jumped in with both feet, giving Silver and his team clear directions and walking them through each step to make the transition smoother. When questions arose along the way, she found answers quickly and brought subject matter experts into the discussion, when required.
“She brought the right people to the weekly meetings, held her team accountable, and did everything she said she was going to do,” says Silver. “She took an incredibly challenging transition and made it somewhat pleasant, and I never lost faith in the fact that she was going to get us downtown.”
In addition to the excellent customer service they received, Silver found the PrimePay HR user interface intuitive and easy to navigate. He appreciated the clean design and seamless integration with PrimePay Payroll, which fulfilled one of their primary requirements: All personnel documents are easy to find and retrieve.
PrimePay HR also allows staff at Solution Group to personally sign up for their benefits through the employee portal. This feature significantly saves time and gives employees more control over their own benefits.
“I had one new employee last week who just flew through it,” Silver adds. “It was quick and easy. It just walked him through a really nice workflow and showed him how much it was going to cost.”
What Silver liked most was the ability to seamlessly navigate between PrimePay Payroll and PrimePay HR. When users log into PrimePay Payroll, the single point login simultaneously logs users into PrimePay HR, allowing them to switch between both platforms effortlessly and seamlessly.
Bracing for growth and embracing transparency
Silver says that many features in PrimePay HR have been a significant improvement from the past. Solution Group previously sent out paper applications and would do all the work for employees in terms of payroll, benefits, and deductions. With PrimePay
HR, employees no longer have to print and scan applications and can easily find their way to the necessary forms and requests. There is also a lot more transparency — employees can see how much their benefits cost and how much Solution Group is contributing.
“We live in a different world,” Silver explains. “Printing and scanning application forms are no longer ideal. PrimePay HR is user-friendly and our employees can easily figure it out with a quick phone call. It’s all done seamlessly, and they don’t have to find a printer or scanner. They don’t have to ask questions like ‘Why am I filling this out?’ and ‘How do I get my benefit?’ All the information is there for them.”
Performance evaluations are a critical process for employee development and are required at 90-days and annually thereafter. Upon completion of the evaluation, Managers would normally hand over a printed copy of the evaluations to employees, only for them to misplace it. Evaluations are now stored online and made accessible to employees with the right permissions.
“I think the platform gives the team comfort,” Silver explains. “If they want to review their performance evaluations, they can access them 24/7 from anywhere.”
As Solution Group continues to expand its remote workforce, the company intends to keep its HR team modest — it does not foresee the need for a large HR department. The company will continue hiring various team members, and Silver is confident
that PrimePay HR will continue to fulfill its HR and payroll requirements.
“If there’s one thing you must get right, it’s payroll,” says Silver. “People rightfully get angry if their pay is delayed. PrimePay HR is the one-stop shop for payroll and human resources. As long as they continue delivering the service we expect, I see no need to explore other options.”
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