ROSELAND, NJ--(Marketwired - Jan 7, 2016) -
- Employees rave about transformed benefits open enrollment system.
- Upgrading tax filing solution kick starts implementation of integrated human resources solutions.
- Automating time reporting and payroll pays dividends in time savings.
Sharp Electronics Corporation is a company known worldwide for improving people's lives through the use of advanced technology and a commitment to innovation, quality, and value. So it should come as no surprise that they recently implemented solutions from ADP ® to ease benefits enrollment, automate time reporting, and speed employment verification.
Choosing ADP for these solutions was an easy decision for Sharp, which has been an ADP client for more than 35 years. Using ADP more efficiently and implementing additional ADP systems has allowed Sharp to automate manual functions and improve business processes. These upgrades began more than a year ago with the implementation of ADP's tax filing solution and blossomed into the addition of benefits enrollment, automated time reporting, and employment verification. That work is complete across Sharp's 40 U.S. locations while deployment of health compliance and general ledger solutions is nearly complete.
In the course of implementing these new solutions, it was the transformation of the benefits open enrollment process that got rave reviews from employees.
"The employees said they loved it!" said Susan Osgood, vice president of Human Resources at Sharp. "We now have a portal employees can go to that's very user friendly. It's very intuitive and makes sense to them. They like the fact that all their information is in one place. The previous system only showed medical, dental and if an employee was enrolled in a Flexible Spending Account. They never saw the corporate cost and contribution. Now they have more visibility, which was very positive for Sharp and for our people."
"Sharp is a perfect example of a company that understands the value of transforming an employee's user experience with a wide range of services that touch their lives on a regular basis," said Mark Benjamin, president of ADP's Global Enterprise Solutions business. "As Sharp's business changed and evolved over the past 35 years, so did their need to transform the way they meet the needs of their workforce. I'm delighted they continue their journey with ADP by their side to help them do just that."
Osgood said that the transformation began when Sharp realized it wasn't using its existing ADP capabilities to their fullest.
"Everything ends up in payroll, but data collection starts in HR recruiting or benefits," Osgood said. "As we looked at automating payroll processes, we realized we had to automate everything that flows through to the payroll system. The more we looked at payroll, the more we realized we really had to touch every aspect -- fix every process -- to make it run as smoothly as it should."
Once that was complete, Sharp turned its attention to upgrading its time reporting processes.
"That was a bigger change for employees," Osgood said. "They used to do everything on paper. Time cards were a sheet of paper. They'd write in their time and their vacation, and their manager signed it and faxed it to the payroll department. Time-off requests for exempt employees were submitted in the form of an email to the department administrator and then tracked on an Excel spreadsheet.
"Employees have really embraced the new time reporting system," Osgood said. "And the mobile application allows them to see their allotments and accruals and enter their time if they're a field employee. Our employees are seeing there are easier ways to do things. Now, they can go online, and their managers can review and approve their time sheets."
In working with ADP, Osgood said it became apparent that providing a better user experience for employees and HR practitioners would contribute to Sharp's business success. Implementing employment verification was a good example of this.
"Implementing an employment verification solution seemed like quick, easy, low-hanging fruit," Osgood said. "Employment verifications can be very time-consuming. Processing them can divert attention from other tasks and they can be a distraction to the payroll department -- especially when they're trying to process payroll!"
"Our management was completely onboard with a process clean up," Osgood said. "However, we needed to show them the benefits of a system-based, outsourced solution. We showed them the cost analysis of utilizing ADP's suite of solutions versus adding on ad hoc products and the cost of integrating them with ADP's payroll system. With the help of ADP's HR products, we could succeed in improving our processes without adding headcount to a lean department.
"We also illustrated the benefits of an integrated solution," Osgood explained. "We had a choice. We could implement best-in-breed solutions for payroll and HR and benefits -- all individual systems -- or we could use ADP more efficiently. ADP is already linked with our other systems. They all talk to each other. Integration is already there. It's that ease of use and implementation that convinced us we wanted to stay with one, integrated solution."
So, what's next?
"We're implementing ADP's health compliance solution so we'll be compliant by the IRS deadline," Osgood said. "Here again it makes sense to have ADP do this for us because all of our data is already accessible in ADP's system. We didn't want to deal with trying to feed that data out to another solution provider and we want our employees to get their Form W-2 and Form 1095-C from the same portal and as quickly as possible."
Osgood said that the positive experience they've had from working with ADP continues to bolster their confidence and reinforce their decision to rely on ADP to help them build a better workforce.
"Having a project manager oversee and help with the implementations and solutions -- one person who knows the entire scope of what Sharp is doing -- has been a key resource for us," Osgood pointed out. "We needed someone to make sure that a change to one implementation or system doesn't impact another. It's great to have that peace of mind.
"Our ADP solutions have made everyone's job easier," Osgood concluded. "The information that's being shared between HR and payroll is cleaner and that has relieved some of the manual touch points where we were seeing errors."
About ADP (
About Sharp Electronics Corporation Sharp Electronics Corporation is the U.S. subsidiary of Japan's Sharp Corporation. Sharp is a worldwide developer of one-of-a-kind home entertainment products, appliances, networked multifunctional office solutions, LED lighting, and mobile communication and information tools. For more information, visit SharpUSA.com .
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Media Contacts: Kate Rankin ADP 201-452-1803 Kate.rankin@adp.com Sarah Sanzari Peppercomm for Sharp 212-931-6175 ssanzari@peppercomm.com
