Making sure payroll and benefits enrollment are up to par was not a concern back in 1922 when Diamond Parking Service was first established in Seattle, Wash. The innovative parking business, established as the Ford Motor Company was continuing its early dominance over the automotive market, failed to keep up with advances in human capital management systems. After staying 15 years with one provider, Diamond Parking turned to well-known industry source known for its ability to automate data processing.
The complexities of managing payroll, talent as well as benefits enrollments and performance appraisals, were a constant pressure for the parking company, which has over 1,700 locations in eight states. Tatiana Cass, payroll and benefits manager at Diamond Parking Services, explains that it chose ADP Workforce Now to streamline all HR processes due to the inequities of its previous provider.
“The existing system prior to ADP Workforce Now was in place for 15 years and the software was severely outdated,” she says.
According to the parking company, which states that it makes “parking easy,” its goal is to assist customers, patrons as well as property owners and building managers to “maximize their parking potential.” It has nearly 1,000 employees that are dispersed throughout the country, making it a difficult task to maximize HR management.
The business outsourcing and human capital management solutions provider says that the ADP Workforce Now platform made things more reliable and efficient for Diamond Parking’s payroll and HR departments as well as its field managers.
“Integrated Human Capital Management platforms like ADP Workforce Now help companies like Diamond Parking Services more efficiently manage their workforce, supporting the full spectrum of HR needs – from recruitment to retirement and everything in between,” says Jessica Saperstein, division vice president of ADP’s strategy and business development.
With a specific design for companies with 50-999 employees, Saperstein explains that mid-sized employers who use the system can “gain greater visibility into their businesses to help mitigate risk related to regulatory compliance, drive employee productivity and optimize talent management processes.”
Talent management was listed as a concern by Cass. For Diamond Parking, seasonal fluctuations in employment are a normal occurrence, leading the company to implore for additional hiring. The company is constantly used for sporting events, baseball games and other large events where individuals will likely drive their car.
“Our labor control and our labor management is very important part of it, so to be able to give some of the controls to the management as a different sub-service and different reporting system, that definitely increased our productivity right away,” Cass explains. She notes that being able to handle labor and benefits was a vital addition.
“We have to be able to, and our field manager had to be able to see and control labor and benefits, and everything related to the labor movement,” she explains.
Benefits and appraisals
While Diamond Parking utilized six months to implement ADP Workforce Now – a bit longer than accustomed to prior installations for midsize companies – Cass states that the connectivity of all self-service and mobile functionalities was a seamless transition.
Now, as field managers and payroll and benefits personnel at its Seattle headquarters have the capacity to log onto the platform and make decisions, timing issues have been eradicated. A lot of it has to do with the old, slow-paced system, Cass explains.
“The employee didn’t know if [he/she] was enrolled and the manager doesn’t know if the employee was enrolled in the benefits because there was no visibility in the system for them to check this information,” Cass states. “Now, they do have this option. So its much more control in giving to the operations.”
Performance appraisals and performance evaluations for staff have also gradually become a norm for Diamond Parking. Previously, employees and field managers were not cognizant of the review process, but now the automated nature of the ADP program “makes it so much easier,” Cass says.
This freedom and transparency to seamlessly disseminate information to employers and employees can be traced back to ADP Workforce Now’s creation in 2009. After achieving its 200th client in January 2010, the Roseland, N.J.-based company hit 10,000 clients in February 2011 and 20,000 less than nine months later. Today, the system is utilized by more than 45,000 companies, Saperstein confirms.
“ADP Workforce Now supports clients as they expand across state and national borders with not only technology, but also service and expertise in a single, customizable offering,” Saperstein explains. “ADP Workforce Now also is a continually evolving platform that ADP enhances regularly with the latest technology and HCM best practices.”
