Four Problems, One Help Desk Solution

New York-based Hudson Highland Group provides professional staffing, recruitment and talent management solutions to clients worldwide. Within North America, 5,000 Hudson employees and contractors rely on the payroll department for accurate, timely paychecks. And Peg Bramble, Hudson’s Director of Client Services, isn’t about to let them down. "It’s a fast paced environment with a very short window," says Bramble. "One of our payrolls runs weekly, and we have to turn it around in two hours. So, if we can find a tool to help expedite our processes, it’s a welcome thing."

IssueTrak Proves Its Worth with Major IT Project

Bramble first became familiar with IssueTrak when Hudson’s IT team used it for a major PeopleSoft project during 2004. "People who were involved were located throughout the country," she says. "We used IssueTrak to manage issues encountered during development, implementation and maintenance. It helped us stay in tune with the whole project, allowed us to work with internal and external teams, and it gave us much needed visibility."

Flexibility and Ease of Use Helps Payroll Comply with Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX)

That project altered Hudson’s operational procedures, with payroll (previously housed in the Shared Service Center) being re-located to 50 front offices nationwide. "Staff members at those offices had a learning curve as well as additional job responsibilities," says Bramble. "With payroll processing, we needed a way to track adjustments. Some corrections would impact payroll, affecting employee pay, while others affected billing, cash applications and credit." Prior to IssueTrak, Hudson used Excel spreadsheets to track adjustments, but they had difficulties making sure everything was recorded. "It’s easy to correct the problem, but then to forget to log it," says Bramble. "You want to move on to the next issue, but you still need to manually put this into the adjustment spreadsheet." When Sarbanes-Oxley pushed Hudson to seek a better solution, the company gave IssueTrak a try. Payroll’s first IssueTrak system enabled staff to request corrections, monitor the progress of its requests and build

a repository of changes to ensure proper controls were met and metrics captured. "IssueTrak streamlined our process," says Bramble, "and allowed us to get to the crux of items that had to be addressed quickly."

Knowledge Management Helps Ensure Approval Processes Are Followed

Hudson found IssueTrak’s knowledge management feature extremely beneficial. "We can attach process flow documents, flow charts and all kinds of things that are important to the process." Adjustments require one or more approvals, "but approval layers are not something people always keep in the back of their minds," says Bramble. "We created a grid of approvals so when there’s a change, they can quickly go to the knowledge base and see who needs to approve it."

A Tool to Manage Communication with Local, State and Federal Governments

"With such an expansive operation, we had a high volume of crossjurisdictional tax issues that had to be managed," says Bramble. "The payroll team needed a place to store all of this detail and settle these items. IssueTrak was the obvious choice. It provides us with the management tools to keep notes on the progression of each tax issue, and it’s a convenient way for us to communicate and refer to issues. Also, the reports we generate keep upper management informed."

Secure, Centrally-Housed Storage a Big Plus

Protecting employees’ personal information and preventing identity theft are high priorities for Hudson. When the company implemented a pay card system to process travel advances and direct deposits, it needed a way to record the issuance of the cards. Hudson now uses IssueTrak to record this information so payroll can load/ re-load the cards with funds. "Using IssueTrak also helps us monitor payroll deductions for travel advances issued through the card," says Bramble. "And of course, storage is always an issue. IssueTrak’s secure, offsite housing of our data was a key selling point."

Customized Reports Give Management Much Needed Visibility and Metrics

Payroll’s latest IssueTrak system helps Hudson monitor and communicate issues relating to deductions. "If an employee in our Houston office discovers that there is no benefit deduction on his payroll check, he’ll contact his local front office, who will in turn notify payroll of the error," says Bramble. "We then have to notify the benefits department, who will tell us how much we should deduct from the employee’s next pay check."

Rapid Implementation Leads to a Winning Solution

"I must say that I was amazed at how quickly everything was deployed," says Bramble. "We literally went from design, to implementation, to launch within days. Our first system was out within weeks. We did a staged rollout, and within a two-week period, all 50 offices were on the system. With all the changes taking place at Hudson, many departments were scrambling to keep their arms around their operations. IssueTrak gave us the operational processing edge to help payroll perform at its highest level."