For example, a museum worker might earn $18 per hour when working as a tour guide, later in the shift she may move to $12.50 per hour as a cashier, and the next day she may come in as a $21 per hour shift supervisor. The math is simple, but the equations become complex when you have to calculate pay and worker’s comp for a dozen or more ‘floating’ staff. And, the time spent on simple math is enormous, creating a perfect opportunity for errors.

Couple that scenario with several teachers, classified as an exempt employees, who double as swim instructors, bus drivers, and other non exempt jobs and you’ve just added hours to a simple task.

If you find yourself dealing with a multiple job/multiple pay rate nightmare, you know the struggle.

Calculating payroll and worker’s comp, and determining how much a worker actually costs the organization has HR heads spinning.

Where typical payroll systems only collect the hours worked, forcing the payroll administrator to do the calculations in these types of situations, Lyceum’s payroll services are made for the way your organization works, capturing hours and applying job rates for each employee, automatically calculating payroll amounts, efficiently tallying charge-backs, and producing near-instantaneous reporting for decision makers. A harried payroll administrator is quickly relieved of a manual-time consuming chore, not to mention a sleep-depriving nightmare.

Request a live demo of Lyceum’s web-based payroll solution.

At Lyceum, we tailor your payroll system to fit the needs of your company and your workforce, giving you a simple, automated solution. Now that’s more like it.

Gawandealso writes that the simple checklist is powerful and analogous – it can be used for everything from saving lives to improving your work performance. So let’s apply the vital signs checklist to your human resources and payroll functions. As these areas of business become more and more intricate, you may discover that some of your HR department’s most obvious vital signs have been performing poorly but gone unnoticed amid ancient technology or a growing mountain of responsibilities.

Pulse Rate:

Does your payroll system respond to the “pulse” of your organization by offering calculations and processing unique to you to your business? Businesses can no longer abide by the one-size-fits-all payroll system.

Lyceum’s web-based payroll and tax processing system increases the ease and efficiency of your payroll department by rising to your company’s very individual needs with customized features. Pulse rate: managed.

Blood Pressure:

How’s your ratio of systolic to diastolic pressure when your management wants reports immediately (or, rather, they want them yesterday)? The stress associated with reporting to management is eliminated with Lyceum’s online reporting in real-time – you have the ability to produce a readable, clear report (historical or otherwise), anywhere, anytime, and in a secure manner. Blood pressure: 120/80.

Respiration:

Is your HR department regularly short of breath as they wade through paperwork, emails, and phone calls to collect timesheets from employees, get vacation approvals from managers, field phone calls from employees with questions about making address changes, and so on? Lyceum Truly Custom is your total workforce solution so that everyone gets the information they need in a timely manner without causing panic attacks. Respiration: normal.

Temperature:

How high does your temp skyrocket as you try to manage the copious number of transactions it takes to implement monthly payroll? Are you able to bundle transactions across payroll and HR systems? Are you handling transactions that could be pushed out to employees like address changes, direct deposit changes, benefits enrollment? Our integrated add-ons create one-button solutions and give you a flexible HR environment that allows you to outsourced to other departments where possible. Temperature: 98.6.

Level of Pain:

The overall level of pain related to the payroll process often comes from trying to adapt to a one-size-fits-all solution. All HR departments are not identical. Our tailored payroll and HR solutions will give you the standard features you expect, but will also include customized programs to suit your company, employees, and payroll methods. Pain level: 0 – no pain.

If your blood pressure, respiration, pulse, temp, and pain level are way, way up in your HR department, it’s time to accept that your payroll process may need an intervention from an expert. Lyceum’s tailored payroll solutions take HR and payroll to the next level – a level where you breathe easy.

See if this situation sounds familiar: You’ve invested so much into your current payroll system that you’re less likely to search for or change to another payroll system (even if you’re less-than-satisfied with what you have at the moment). That means you’re locked in.

Or this situation: You incurred large setup costs making it unlikely that you’ll ever move on to another (better) payroll system, especially if you’re faced with a cost to switch, not to mention the whole idea of starting from scratch with your time, money, and effort. That means you’re locked in.

You’re not alone. In business, it’s natural for companies to try to “lock you in” – they know how difficult it will be for you to leave, even if you’re in the midst of a subpar payroll solution. After all, no employer wants to spend more hours and more dollars just because the fine print on the contract that they now regret skimming over is suddenly standing out in bold letters.

Unlocking the payroll tangle:

If you think you can’t get out of your “lock in,” ask yourself if you’re truly willing to get out of it, because a superior solution does exist, a solution that is tailor-made for your unique environment, a solution that erases the functional gaps and lets you extricate yourself from the doldrums of payroll processing. And that solution is implemented by the provider, not by you! You’ll be up and running in 30 days or it’s free.

Time and money are being wasted as you and your staff toil over administrative tasks on a monthly, weekly, or daily basis. At Lyceum, we’ve designed a replacement system for your payroll needs that streamlines the administrative process by automating once-manual procedures, and, as a result, reduces costs while improving accuracy and efficiency. The Payroll Complete solution is customized and integrated with your organizational policies and procedures to fit your business and your business alone – this isn’t a square-peg-round-hole solution. We tailor your payroll system to fit your company’s needs.

When you’re dealing with an inefficient system and suffering with time-sucking manual tasks, wouldn’t you be willing to invest in a new automated solution? Maximize your time. Eliminate administrative burdens. Communicate clearly summarized information to your staff rather than just meaningless data. Payroll Complete is the complete solution.

Learn more about payroll services made for the way you work.

What happened?

3 Reasons Your HR Software Has Failed You

We would argue that there are three main reasons your HR software has failed to deliver on its promises.

1. It failed to address the true source of your burdens.

Through long experience and research with businesses across a multitude of industries we’ve discovered that the true source of HR’s administrative burdens rests in the ‘gaps’ that are formed where systems overlap. And systems overlap where coordination across people, departments, or groups is required. Payroll, employee benefits, retirement and insurance administration are prime examples of processes that require such coordination. Yet most HR software has failed to address these middle-of-the-HR-funnel processes, leaving people in the organization to do extra work by patching in manual processes, adding lines of communication, or redefining policies and procedures to create workarounds. The true source of the burden still remains!

2. It failed to adhere to your business processes.

Every organization is unique and as a result, has unique processes and procedures that drive its HR programs and practices. So let us ask you: have you ever tried to change an entrenched process in your company? Not so easy, is it? Your HR software should adapt to the way your organization works – not the other way around. The failure of your current HR software to remove the burdens of your staff is due in part to the fact that most software is designed around someone else’s definition of what your processes should be.

3. It failed to integrate, automate, and communicate.

Many HR solutions will tout their ability to automate your manual tasks. Others will focus on their level of integration with other systems you rely on. Still others will point to the embedded communication features. In your search for HR software you’re likely to find companies that are good at one or two of these jobs, but what you may not realize is that you need ALL of them to truly address the administrative burdens that are leaving your staff overcooked. To truly resolve your burdens you need a solution that automates your manual processes, integrates with your policies and procedures, and embeds communication to keep all parties informed. It’s a tall order but without all 3, the suffering will continue.

Does such a solution exist? You can probably guess our answer. Of course it does. We built it.

At Lyceum we developed a single-source administrative cost control solution that enables you to uncover, control, and reduce the countless hidden administrative costs and streamline the processes necessary for your organization to acquire, compensate, benefit, protect, retain, and retire or terminate its employees. Our complete solution makes hidden costs visible, integrates the administration of key services, and allows your staff to better manage critical programs.

Learn about it by downloading our free Administrative Cost Control Blueprint. Also view our HR Effectiveness Fact Sheet.

“Hold on, let me just tally up how many vacation days you have left.”

“I’m hoping to have that Form 5500 ready to go in a couple weeks.”

“Sally Jones has requested pay stubs for the past 12 months. Does anyone have time to take care of that?”

“The executive team needs those payroll reports by Wednesday and I haven’t even started pulling all of the numbers.”

“Where are the timesheets for the west coast office?”

Ah, so THIS is the real purpose of those noise cancelling headphones!

Payroll and HR Systems Offer Administrative “Soundproofing”

It’s true that life in the HR department can be noisy. The noise we’re referring to comes from the repetitive and burdensome tasks and responsibilities that steal valuable time and energy away from the more strategic HR-related efforts that truly benefit your organization.

Payroll and HR systems that tackle administrative tasks, integrate key systems, and embed critical communication features can silence the administrative noise around your HR processes and free your staff to focus their time on more important matters.

Look for web-based HR and payroll software that integrates payroll and tax processing, employee benefits, retirement plan administration, and insurance to ensure your processes are fully integrated. With the right system, you will be able to reveal and control the hidden administrative costs behind your processes, while delivering a better employee experience around the programs that are designed to compensate, benefit, and protect them.

To learn more, we invite you to explore our administrative cost control solution.

It makes sense, according to the article, that CFOs would take on HR roles when you consider the economic downturn of the past several years. Companies had to cut costs. And personnel-related costs are a big draw. Thus, CFOs are involved. Plus, CFOs have a natural inclination toward compliance and process issues that make them a natural fit for dealing with many HR-related tasks.

“If CFOs take over HR, what will happen to the people?”

We can imagine HR managers and employees reading an article like this and wondering what in the world will happen to the people side of the business if CFOs are running HR. After all, it’s true that CFOs don’t always make the best “people-people.” They are thought to be so focused on costs that the human side of the resources equation can get lost.

In reality, if CFOs can address the right costs there should be no need to cut into the programs that benefit their workers. Payroll, employee benefits, insurance, retirement… the administrative processes required to run these programs are saddled with hidden costs that might surprise even the most prudent CFO. And these costs add nothing to the value of the programs. They simply weigh things down.

What CFOs need is a mechanism to reveal the hidden costs and control the sources of hidden costs within their HR processes. If successful, the reward can lead to as much as $30k per month in bottom line savings to the 250-person organization, not to mention the headaches that will diminish when repetitive and burdensome tasks are eliminated.

To do this, companies need to implement technology that integrates their existing programs, automates their repetitive tasks, and embeds communication tools, bringing all critical processes into a single source solution. Such a solution does exist.

The answer? HR Software Known as “Administrative Cost Control”

At Lyceum, we’ve created a payroll and HR system that allows you to control hidden HR costs and deliver savings of up to 50% per employee, per month, in administrative savings alone. Through a combination of Lyceum services and technology companies can maintain the services and programs employees deserve while still delivering bottom line savings to the organization.

In addressing HR costs, CFOs have turned to payroll, employee benefits, and pensions – making cuts that have unfortunate impact on employees and their families. And when that doesn’t go far enough, hardworking employees open their email to find news of yet another round of cuts. You’re doing what you have to do but with many unintended results. Employee morale suffers, commitment wanes, productivity declines, the business suffers, more cuts are required and the vicious cycle continues… Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Does a better way to approach cost cutting really exist? Yes, you just can’t see it.

Attack the Hidden HR Costs

The answer to cutting costs without sacrificing benefits requires you to control all hidden costs. Employee-related programs like payroll, benefits, retirement, and insurance have a surprising amount of unnecessary hidden costs lurking around them.

The costs we’re referring to are found in two key places:

• Within the SERVICES you pay (outside service provider fees and broker commissions)
• Within the ADMINISTRATIVE PROCESSES you rely upon (repetitive manual tasks, overlapping lines of communication, systems that lack integration)

These hard and soft costs add unnecessary bulk to your employee-related expenses. Yet, you haven’t cut these costs because they aren’t made visible by your current HR and payroll systems. And we all know it’s impossible to control a cost that you can’t actually see.

So, what if you could see these expenses? How much would you find? How does $30,000 each month for a 250-person organization sound? Studies have shown that hidden HR administrative costs can easily reach this number.

The Answer to Hidden HR Costs: Administrative Cost Control

At Lyceum, we’ve created a solution that allows you to reveal and control hidden HR costs and deliver savings of up to 50% per employee, per month, in administrative savings alone. Through a combination of Lyceum services and technology companies can maintain the services and programs employees deserve while still delivering bottom line savings to the organization.

Interested in learning more?

If you ask us, this just doesn’t seem right. How is it possible, with the incredible advances in technology to automate just about every other area of our lives, can we still be left with this? The infamous article published back in 2005 by Fast Company, “Why We Hate HR,” poked serious (and painful) holes in the notion that HR is becoming more strategic. The author referred to HR as neither strategic nor leaders; the corporate function that most consistently underdelivers; and even “not the sharpest tack in the box.”

Almost 7 years later, those words still hurt.

But they don’t hurt nearly as much as the pain you feel on a daily basis as you – the HR leader or administrator – play tug of war with the strategic initiatives you want to pursue and the administrative tasks you’ve been charged with. These tasks, which include activities like collecting time sheets, processing enrollments, managing vendors, running reports, communicating with employees, are tasks that clearly must get done. And HR is the perfect department to handle it all.

So you’ve tried putting in place technology to automate your processes, systems to integrate disparate programs, and lines of communication to keep everything flowing. How’s that working out?

If you’re like most HR executives we talk to, not very well. That’s because the systems you rely upon don’t talk to each other. The automation you were promised only goes so far. And the lack of coordination leaves gaps that must be filled by yet another set of administrative tasks. It’s a terribly vicious cycle!

Does this really have to be so painful?

Inefficient administrative processes drive up costs and impact your ability to deliver the value you’re capable of. It’s those processes that many vendors try to address but they fail to do so because their solution is a selfish one. It’s designed for their processes, not yours. To finally solve your problems and eliminate your administrative burdens you need a system that is responsive to YOUR unique business processes. One that turns the dials to the exact right levels of automation, integration, and communication to erase the gaps and let you get on with the strategic job of HR.