Headquartered in Erie, Pennsylvania, Child Development Centers (CDC) is committed to nurturing and teaching children in a safe, healthy and creative setting across 15 child care and early childhood learning centers. With almost overnight growth and payroll penalties and citations piling up, Child Development Centers (CDC) recognized they had outgrown their payroll vendor, Paycor, and needed an integrated payroll and HRIS platform. Human Resources Director Marie Kuhn, decided it was time to transform CDC’s HR and payroll processes, and turned to ADP Workforce Now to make it happen.
Paycor was only a one-stop shop for payroll.... Once we moved to ADP, we were able to make everything electronic, saving tons of time and money and eliminating human error.
Marie Kuhn,
Director of Human Resources
Child Development Centers
Challenges
- Child Development Centers’ payroll processes were highly manual, relying heavily on spreadsheets and paperwork.
- Child Development Centers relied on multiple vendors and had fragmented processes for payroll, employee onboarding, and employee surveys.
- Child Development Centers faced difficulties in navigating the complex tax laws of Pennsylvania.
How ADP Helped
- Since implementing ADP Workforce Now, Child Development Centers has transformed its HR and payroll processes, empowering their employees and enabling the finance and HR teams to better manage HR and payroll needs across their multiple locations.
ADP Solution
- ADP Workforce Now®
From disconnected to centralized
Since transitioning to ADP, Child Development Centers has experienced a remarkable transformation in its HR and payroll processes, demonstrating a clear advantage over its previous provider, Paycor. According to Marie, “Before ADP Workforce Now, our data collection was all manual, and because of accidental human errors, we were fined. Data was scattered across three counties in Pennsylvania, leading to inefficiencies and delays.”
“Paycor was only a one-stop shop for payroll. Our HR functions were managed through Excel. We were handling so much manually, and we needed a solution that could do more. Once we moved to ADP, we were able to make everything electronic, saving tons of time and money and eliminating human error. Now everything is centralized,” explains Marie.
A complete system that meets their needs ADP’s integration as a complete HRIS has been a game changer. With features including onboarding, employee self-service, Voice of the Employee and performance management, CDC has consolidated multiple vendors into one streamlined platform. “We used to juggle multiple systems for employee surveys, learning management, and 401K administration,” says Marie. “Now we’ve consolidated everything into ADP, which has saved us a lot of money and time. Employees no longer spend time trying to remember passwords for a dozen different sites.“
ADP Workforce Now’s tax dashboard has also contributed substantially to the payroll process and clearly outlines, step by step, what needs to be done quarterly and at year-end. Marie says, “ADP Workforce Now has helped my team, and I look like rock stars, especially regarding payroll. We can process it quicker than I ever imagined, and I know we’re processing it accurately.”
That’s no small feat when you operate in a complex tax state like Pennsylvania, but with ADP, Marie is much more confident about their payroll tax filing. She shares, “ADP helps us stay compliant. Pennsylvania is one of the most difficult states regarding taxes, if not the hardest. The system prompts us if we enter something that doesn’t look right and flags potential errors for us so we can correct them before they’re made.”
Elevating the employee experience
With the help of ADP, Child Development Centers has significantly improved employee engagement, particularly in their onboarding and self-service processes saving an average of 10 hours per employee. Marie explains, “The employee onboarding experience through ADP Workforce Now is seamless. Employees get information sent right to their cell phones or computers, allowing them to see exactly what documents we need them to sign.” This streamlined approach has reduced onboarding time from hours to 30 seconds of Marie’s time and enabled her team to focus on creating personal connections with new hires rather than carrying out tedious onboarding tasks.
In addition to onboarding, ADP’s Voice of the Employee survey feature has been a game changer for gathering staff feedback. “Voice of the Employee has been the biggest surprise not only for our HR team but our staff too.” The ability to send out engagement surveys and capture responses has replaced ineffective tools like SurveyMonkey and Google Forms, allowing for improved security and a higher response rate. With valid email addresses tied to ADP accounts, the centers can ensure that all employees receive and respond to surveys, resulting in actionable insights for the future. “We use ADP Voice of the Employee to develop our future decisions,” says Marie, noting the feature’s role in continuously enhancing workplace culture and employee satisfaction.
Doing more with user-friendly reporting
When it comes to reporting, Marie emphasizes the impact of ADP’s user-friendly analytics. “ADP has helped Child Development Centers make better data-driven decisions. I can tell exactly how many people we hire and lose throughout the year, which is crucial for staffing decisions.” The ability to effortlessly generate reports has enabled CDC’s leadership to review staffing needs weekly, ensuring they can meet the needs of the families they serve.
“It has saved us so much time. ADP is so intuitive, and with tools like Field Grabber, I can find exactly the data I need, and it will give me that information in whatever format I choose to send to whoever is asking for those reports. ADP’s reporting is probably one of my favorite things and something Paycor did not provide.”
Providing transparency with performance management
The shift from a paper-based employee evaluation process to a streamlined electronic approach has been transformative for Marie and her team. She shares, “ADP gives all of our managers more transparency in what they do with their employees.” Performance evaluations are now standardized and accessible, enabling employees to review their assessments anytime quickly. It has also made the process much easier and faster for managers conducting the reviews. “We have standardized our evaluation process through ADP like we could have never imagined before,” says Marie. “This would never have been possible with our previous paper-based process.”
A life-changing decision
Marie wholeheartedly recommends ADP to other organizations considering a change. “If you are considering ADP, I would definitely say go for it. It is life-changing,” she asserts. The platform has not only transformed the way Child Development Centers operates but has also empowered the team to focus entirely on their mission —to provide quality early childhood education — rather than administrative burdens.
