Executive Summary
Empyrean Benefit Solutions Inc., The Houston-based benefits administration company was a growing company, that increasingly had problems processing its payroll. Empyrean often found itself overpaying taxes. “It seemed like something would come up every time,” said Angel Seufert, manager of total rewards for Empyrean. “The problems seemed to grow” as the company scaled in size. Seufert and the leadership at Empyrean knew that their problem was rooted in a technology challenge derived from their payroll platform.
As Seufert and the HR department started considering if they could find a better solution for processing their payroll, Empyrean’s finance team began questioning if they could get a more efficient time-keeping solution. Given that the company bills clients for hours worked, Empyrean needed a time-keeping system that efficiently allocated time to clients. So, Empyrean’s leaders decided to consolidate its payroll and time-keeping functions into a new human resource information system (HRIS). It went on to choose and implement Ceridian Dayforce HCM and related modules.
Client
Empyrean helps companies improve outcomes for employees and businesses through its benefits administration software, which integrates with most payroll and HRIS systems as well as with other HCM technology. A company can tailor Empyrean’s platform to its businesses' needs to conform to their organization’s plans, processes, and formats.
Founded in 2006, the company has grown to more than 600 employees, including 450 at its headquarters in Houston. It also has 110 remote workers across the US and offices in Nashville and Minneapolis.
Challenges and Objectives
Empyrean switched to Ceridian Dayforce because of problems it was having with its previous payroll software and HRIS. It seemed as if the company received notices of payroll problems every week. At one point, Empyrean had overpaid a total of $10,000 in taxes in four states. Not only were the payroll problems significant, but they also lingered. Unfortunately, through trial and error, Empyrean could not solve its payroll problems solved with their current payroll software and HRIS.
Meanwhile, Empyrean’s finance team wanted to find a more cost-effective and efficient time-keeping software. The new time-keeping solution would have to be able to allocate billable time to clients the way that Empyrean needed.
In addition to deciding to replace its payroll, HRIS, and time-keeping solutions simultaneously, Empyrean chose to add the onboarding module to their suite of HR software. They hoped to improve the employee experience while increasing organizational efficiency.
Empyrean would eventually implement the following Dayforce HCM applications:
- Dayforce HCM Platform to transform the employee experience and enable better decision-making.
- Employee Management to combine all data into a single record.
- Self Service to save time for HR by letting employees easily access and update their personal data.
- Payroll to continuously calculate net pay and speed processing.
- Time & Attendance to show people’s time worked while saving money and improving compliance.
- Compensation Management to provide more data that could be used in deciding how to reward and retain people based on factors that matter.
- Document Management to make storing and accessing files easier.
- Dashboards to combine workforce data to uncover trends, assess benchmarks, and create presentations.
- Custom General Ledger to improve accounting functions.
Providence Technology Solutions, a trusted Ceridian partner, assisted in implementing Ceridian Dayforce HCM and the related modules for Empyrean.
How Providence helped
Providence Technology Solutions helped Empyrean beat its go-live target of July 1, 2020, even though the implementation started later than anticipated. Empyrean had expected the implementation to start in early January 2020. But it did not begin until late February 2020.
The Providence team knew so much about Dayforce HCM that it took Seufert a while to realize that Ceridian had assigned an implementation partner to Empyrean. “It makes sense because every consultant that works on the product gets better with it,” she said.
The implementation started with Empyrean working with one project manager. But Providence replaced that PM early in the implementation. “We were struggling with her. But before we brought it up, we were told she was no longer there and that we had a new PM,” Seufert said. “The fact that Providence’s leaders were aware of the fact that it wasn’t a good fit and that they would take care of it without us pushing for it made a huge difference.” The implementation proceeded smoothly under new project manager Kevin Turner. “He was very good about keeping us on track,” Seufert said. Turner was so good at managing the project that Empyrean went live on June 24, a week before its targeted go-live date. “That had a lot to do with our team and getting things to everybody on time. But Providence also kept us updated,” Seufert said. “It made our project super-smooth.”
Providence quickly resolved any issues that arose. “Whenever we had something that we couldn’t figure out and needed more complex assistance, Kevin helped,” Seufert said.
A big help came when Turner saved Empyrean significant time and effort by creating an additional data pull from Empyrean’s systems. The additional data load drastically reduced the manual data entry required to maintain their current system and to keep Dayforce current after the previous data load in April. “That made a huge difference in implementation,” said Seufert, who had worried about the pressure that a prolonged period of parallel payrolls would put on her three-person team.
Seufert knew well the types of challenges that implementations could present. She had been through large implementations at companies that she had worked at before Empyrean. “I always tell people there is never a 100%-smooth implementation,” she said. But the implementation to Ceridian Dayforce was smoother than most, Seufert said. “In the grand scheme of things, people have been paid correctly, and benefits have been deducted properly.”
Any post-go-live problems were minor, like job titles that needed to updated.
Results
Employees and executives alike were pleased by the efficient transition to Dayforce HCM. “From the user perspective, they’ve forgotten we’ve done an implementation,” Seufert said.
Executives liked running the company’s first cycle of merit-based pay awards through the Dayforce Compensation Management module. The only request for improvement was to make the reward letters that employees receive improve from an aesthetic appeal. Leaders have also been adapting to the new Dashboards. Overall, the executives have given good feedback to HR, Seufert said. “We’re more nimble than we were before,” Seufert said. “We can work like we want to.”
The company’s payroll problems are gone and it is keeping time as efficiently as it would like.
Providence Technology Solutions is a certified provider of Ceridian Dayforce HCM integration and implementation services. Contact us online, by email at info@theptsteam.com or by calling 904.719.8264 if you would like to learn more about our work with Empyrean and to discuss how we could similarly help your organization through our Ceridian Dayforce Practice and HCM Implementation Services.
