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Technology Powers ADP HR

To keep this ‘human touch’ alive, we have been making a lot of efforts in scaling up the organization digitally through Automatic Data Processing HR Technology Lab

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Automatic Data Processing, Inc. famously known as ADP is a leading provider of human resources management software and services with a proud history that can be traced back to 1949.

ADP India – the global in-house center of ADP Inc. started in 1999. Till 2011, ADP India had 4,000 associates and 65 HR associates onboard. Ten years down the line, a small team of ~90 HR employees delivers a consistent employee experience for 10,000 ADP India employees for the full lifecycle of HR functions… by leveraging robust technology to build unique solutions!

Simultaneously, ‘Human touch and creating a Personalized Experience’ formed the core of all the HR practices at ADP. According to Forbes, the technology and software suite that are currently available in the market can deliver a predictive accuracy of 80%. We, as human beings, need to address the 20% and make the actual decision.

Therefore, it will be very important for HR to partner with machines, adding empathy, creative problem-solving and judgment to technology powered analyses.

To keep this ‘human touch’ alive, we have been making a lot of efforts in scaling up the organization digitally through ADP HR Technology Lab. Please read through to know some of our key wins and how ADP aims to make a difference in the industry:

1. Digital Recruitment

We have been extensively leveraging technology to source, attract, evaluate, select and hire candidates for vacant positions.

In addition to reaching out to talent through job boards, career websites, and social media, our Talent Acquisition Business Partners have been making the best use of virtual collaboration platforms and online assessment tools to find the best talent for ADP.

A few years ago, this wasn’t as easy as it was. The documentation process and validation of the candidate’s details were manual and cumbersome. Key stages in the recruitment cycle was also scattered and the linkage was disparate.

To begin with, our Talent Acquisition Business Partners made efforts to look at their processes from a digital lens and identified several opportunities to simplify hiring.

Our first win was the development of a Centralized Talent Acquisition tool integrated with payroll and downstream applications. We then identified technology for screening and assessments with real-time Cloud Based Assessment & Recruitment Tool.

With these enhancements, we linked 7 different processes – background verification, IT, provisioning, payroll, onboarding, mail desk, space management – for end-to-end hiring cycle.

This preparedness proved to be very helpful to us at the onset of the COVID pandemic. Since all our ERP systems were talking to each other, we could quickly develop a Digital Employee Application that is linked to our ERP database. This application is an amalgamation of Recruitment CRM, Applicant Tracking System, and enhances the process through:

o Easy access for TABP

o Simple navigation

o Simple method to Edit/Delete/Flag inaccuracies/insufficiencies

o One click communications to candidates/TABPs on status updates

o Enhanced Candidature tracking

o Integrated Background Verification

With the help of such tools, we could not only make 1400+ offers during the pandemic but also reduce the hiring cost by ~200% per hire.

a. Campus Interview Scheduling

Through ADP HR Technology Lab, we recently digitized Campus Interview Scheduling for our HR team in the US.

Earlier, TABPs had to schedule Interviews manually in Recruitment Management tool for all the candidates. This process involved TABPs tracking candidate's application in RM, and manually updating details for several candidates in a short period.

After digitizing, the BOT picks up the candidate’s and interview details and schedules the interviews in the RM without any manual intervention.

2. Payroll

Our biggest win was Payroll enhancement.

Earlier, the reconciliation of each pay component for all employees was a mammoth exercise undertaken diligently by 4 HR payroll professionals.

Today, ADP India has one HR employee who manages the entire payroll data input and validation with the help of automation, and there have been 'zero' error payrolls month-on-month for the last 2 years.

ADP leveraged Robotics for automating the source data for error-free payroll input and thereby giving more bandwidth for audits and making the process faster/efficient. Also, this allows ADP to process payroll of new hires who join even towards the end of the month. This means, new hires get paid right from the first month, regardless of their joining date, thus, further enhancing employee experience.

3. Performance Management

According to a 2020-2021 Annual HR Systems Survey, over 70% of survey respondents use performance management technologies.

At ADP, we have enabled our leaders and the HR team with technology that streamlined our performance evaluation methodology.

Before 2018, our HR professionals had to maneuver through multiple touchpoints and tools in the administration of the performance management process to ensure our associates’ performance are rightly calibrated and aligned with our Pay for Performance practice.

In 2018, ADP launched the StandOut performance management tool as part of the acquisition of The Marcus Buckingham Company.

With the introduction of StandOut, we could immediately address challenges in communication by front line leaders and eliminate multiple touchpoints, leading to an enhanced associate experience.

Through weekly check-ins and quarterly Engagement and performance pulses, which are developed to assess and realign the expectations of the leaders with the strengths of the employees, we have enhanced how we evaluate performance. Seeing progress toward business objective, feedback, and employee performance reviews data in one place, we could provide 100% transparency around performance to our employees.

Simultaneously, our HR team is better able to address complex problems instead of spending time tracking down trends and outliers.

As a direct outcome:

· Associate perception about fairness improved by 5% on engagement survey – a result of training provided to managers

· HRBP team saved 1600 man-hours saved on communication and training

· Onboarding front line leaders on performance management and feedback quickened and became more consistent

4. HR Shared Services

A survey report from 2020 showed that 42% of HR Shared Services organizations not yet using Artificial Intelligence but were planning to, and only 3% had implemented it.

Another report suggests that 40% of Millennials/Gen Z typically resolved issues using messaging. What’s more interesting is that employees of 80% companies have access to HR Portal and 76% employees have access to a Self-Service feature for creating cases.

Improving our HR Shared Services using technology has been ongoing at ADP HR since 2018. We have been leveraging Robotic Process Automation to simplify redundant manual work for our Shared Services employees while enhancing everyday employee experiences with HR through the ADP HR Technology Lab.

E.g. – we innovated On-Demand digitally signed Verification of Employee self-service for our employees in India. After the successful launch, we enabled this for our employees in the US, Canada, the Philippines and many other ADP global locations. Through this service, employees have been finding it easier to generate their VoE on their own without having to go through the time taking process of raising a request with the HR team and for the HR team to manually feed data and send hard copies.

This is a simple enhancement that saves a lot of time, especially in countries like the US, Canada and the Philippines where VoE is essential for almost all the services, including medical insurance claims, subscribing for network connections, banking purposes etc.

a. Our most recent win in the Share Services space was Vaccination Confirmation BOT that we built for ADP global locations.

As part of RTO (return to office), we are required to track vaccination status for the employees in the US. The HR Technology Lab team jumped in and designed, built, tested and deployed a bot within 20 hours.

The BOT helped to automate the processing and easily deliver rapid confirmation of receipt for our associates. Since the launch, the BOT has sent over 4250 confirmation emails to employees.

To date, ADP HR Technology Lab has commissioned 70+ BOTS and digitized 127 HR processes. This led to more bandwidth for HR employees to do higher-value activities.

Furthermore, these unique, profound solutions were customized for other countries in which ADP operates. Many of these solutions helped acquire new clients and generate $1 million annual recurring business for ADP. These further strengthened the position of ADP as the world leading HCM Technology and Solutions provider.

The wins give us great confidence to dive into the future. As we encourage our HR employees to look at their processes through the digital lens, I’m hopeful that we will innovate more path-breaking HR technology that will reshape the world of Human Resources with a human touch.



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