Follett Uses ADP DataCloud to Help Simplify Reporting,

ROSELAND, NJ--(Marketwired - Aug 18, 2016) -  

• Simplified reporting tool helps unburden small IT team to empower HR.
• Compiling reports in minutes versus days becomes an integral part of HR decision-making.
• Company plans to extend capability to 1,200 managers in retail stores.

Follett^® is feelin' the power -- the power of simplified reporting, that is. As champions of simplified reporting powered by the ADP® DataCloud, Follett is experiencing the ease, speed, and efficiency of this new tool that helps to make analysis of human resources data easier than ever.

That's important for a company like Follett, which provides education technology, services, and print and digital content to 70,000 schools. The company serves more than half of the students in the United States through more than 1,200 local campus stores and 1,600 virtual stores across the country.

"ADP's simplified reporting tool has transformed the role of the Human Resources Information Systems (HRIS) team at Follett from being producers of reports to enablers of decisions," said Cheryl Brand, vice president of compensation and HR systems at Follett. "We're now the people who put actionable data in the hands of our HR business partners.

"This capability has become our springboard to data analytics," she added. "We turned it on with minimal training, and it's so intuitive we can more quickly and easily set up reports, schedule them and then let our HR partners run them. Having this reporting tool also has freed a tremendous amount of time so the HRIS team can focus on supporting our HR business partners and their customers differently." 

ADP's simplified reporting feature delivers enterprise insights by using ADP DataCloud data to reveal critical people trends and business opportunities. Integrated within the ADP Vantage HCM® solution, businesses can equip managers and business leaders with information that can give them more confidence in their decisions -- because of the factual data it provides.

Introduced in May 2015, the ADP DataCloud allows business leaders and HR professionals from every part of an organization to generate actionable insights from the workforce data embedded in their ADP human capital management (HCM) solutions. ADP DataCloud helps boost business and workforce management goals, such as workforce productivity, talent development, retention and the identification of flight risks. A benchmarking feature that gives business leaders the ability to compare his/her own company's data with current industry averages -- including compensation, turnover and other workforce metrics -- was added to the ADP DataCloud analytics platform in October 2015.

"Collaborating with our clients to develop easy-to-use, intuitive, integrated tools that help them solve real business problems is why we focus so intensely on practical innovation that's easy to apply," said Dave Imbrogno, president of ADP's National Account Services group. "It's great to see Follett experience such immediate and tangible results."

Alex Kirkpatrick, the HRIS Manager at Follett who is largely responsible for directing the day-to-day use and deployment of the simplified reporting tool, says the real-time nature of the solution is saving his team time and helping them focus far more time and attention on contributing to business strategy.

"Reporting is no longer a reactive task for us," Kirkpatrick explains. "We can run a report in literally five minutes, making data analysis an integral part of the decision-making process. During meetings, we can instantly see trend data that, in the past, would take days to compile and require a second meeting to review. In addition, reporting used to be a function for only our most technically savvy practitioners. Now, the reporting analysis functions -- such as sorting, grouping, and charting -- help all users easily complete their own analyses and share their results with others."

Follett also uses ADP Vantage HCM to provide its managers and employees with HR and payroll services, such as benefits enrollment, recruiting and talent management, screening and selection services, electronic I-9 compliance screening, and tax credit services. The automated self-service nature of Vantage helps save Follett managers time and its onboarding capabilities allow leaders to deliver a consistent message to employees, while integrating them more quickly into Follett's culture. Together, these solutions are helping the company's HR team become a more strategic partner to the company's business leaders.

"ADP simplified reporting has provided our practitioners with direct, quick and easy access to all of our ADP Vantage data," said Kirkpatrick. "Using the two solutions together has made ADP Vantage an even more robust and intuitive self-service business tool.

"In addition, each year when school starts, our retail stores hire nearly 20,000 temporary employees to staff the stores during peak sales periods," Kirkpatrick continued. "The workforce for one store could double or triple in a very short time. 

"To plan for these seasonal fluctuations, many of our store managers will request reports that collate several factors, such as store location, headcount, employee profiles, performance, and payroll trends," he explained. "Before we were using ADP simplified reporting, all of those different reporting elements or values had to be manually 'joined' in order to generate a cohesive report. It required an intense amount of work to configure all the elements. 

"Now, with ADP's help, store managers are able to drag and drop all of the varied elements they need and run a report in minutes on their computer screen. Even more important, they will be able to focus on running the stores, not running reports."

About ADP (NASDAQ: ADP)
Powerful technology plus a human touch. Companies of all types and sizes around the world rely on ADP's cloud software and expert insights to help unlock the potential of their people. HR. Talent. Benefits. Payroll. Compliance. Working together to build a better workforce. For more information, visit ADP.com.

About Follett Corporation
For more than 140 years, Follett has been a trusted partner to preK-12 schools, colleges and campus stores, taking care of the critical details that make it easier for schools to run, teachers to teach, students to learn and fans to celebrate. A leading provider of education technology, services and physical and digital content, Follett currently works with 70,000 schools and operates more than 1,250 local campus stores and 1,600 virtual stores. With the 2016 acquisition of Baker & Taylor, LLC, Follett's reach also extends into the public library and global retail markets. Today Follett Corporation is the world's largest single source of books, entertainment products, digital content and multi-media for libraries, schools and retailers. Follett is a $3.6 billion privately held company headquartered in Westchester, Illinois.

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