Posted by Robert West, Director of Employee Services, Priority One
Credit Union
Thousands of members rely on the convenient, efficient and affordable financial services provided by Priority One Credit Union. Looking to transform their HR and payroll processes, Priority One deployed HigherUp’s Rocket solution.
By automating HR processes that also provide new business insights, the HR department at this credit union is now working faster and more strategically to improve the company’s bottom line.
Priority One Credit Union: Improved Payroll and HR Efficiencies
With over 24,000 members and assets of $154 million, Priority One Credit Union provides its members with a wide-range of consumer lending and personal financial services that include checking and bill pay, financial counseling and mortgage services. Opened in 1926, the credit union has 3 locations and 50 full-time and 11 part-time employees. However, to handle payroll and human resource (HR) needs, only two employees were employed in HR, and in 2012, one employee was out on leave, resulting in just one individual overseeing all of the company’s HR functions.
According to Robert West, Director of Employee Services, Priority One had significant challenges with its existing payroll and HR systems. “I was frustrated with our old systems, which were time-consuming and difficult to manage. To get to even the most basic employee information, I had to access three different vendors’ systems with multiple passwords and complex authentication. And none of the systems could talk to each other. If I wanted to access and combine data from our different +payroll, benefits, applicant tracking, and time and attendance systems — I was out of luck.”
As a result of system complexities and lack of data integration from the company’s legacy HR systems, West resorted to creating his own manual spreadsheets. When he saw how much time he was spending on his paper-based systems, he began his search for a technology partner that could help him transform all of his HR and payroll processes.
Initiating the HR Transformation
with Payroll
Robert found the answer to his HR technology challenge with HigherUp and the company’s Rocket solution. With payroll being one of the most essential and time-consuming HR functions, Robert began his journey there.
Prior to implementing Rocket, payroll required three employees to work on payroll all day, amounting to over 20 hours of manpower each time payroll needed to be processed. With HigherUp’s solution, payroll now requires only two individuals and no more than 90 minutes on manpower.
West explains, “In the area of payroll management alone, Rocket has taken on all of the heavy lifting, reducing the various difficulties I was experiencing by 80%.”
Making the Most of
Workforce Automation
West quickly realized that HigherUp’s solutions provided a number of other new, innovative tools and resources that could be uses to improve business processes. “We added the Applicant Tracking and Onboarding modules of Rocket, and as a result, 95% of the most time-consuming tasks were taken off my plate and put in the hands of HigherUp’s software. We are now able to get more done in less time and with an emphasis on efficiency,” says West.
Furthermore, HigherUp has enabled Priority One Credit Union to decrease by 50% the company’s onboarding time of new employees and improved recruiting efficiencies from 90 days to 60 days. In time and with the help of HigherUp’s solutions, West expects to bring this down to 30 days.
Looking ahead, West anticipates increased usage of HigherUp as the company continues to advance its reporting and analytics capabilities, including the upcoming business intelligence dashboard. As West notes, “With HigherUp’s solutions, we can remove the drudgery of payroll and HR reporting off our plates and spend more of our time on proactive and strategic business issues.”
Working with a True Partner
HigherUp provided Priority One with 24/7 support through its team of in-house specialists who not only helped to deploy Rocket, but also, answer questions and trouble shoot. “Transitioning from many large providers to a more nimble, innovative and integrated approach was the right move for us,” explains West. “HigherUp proved to us that they not only talk about customer service, but they actually come though. They speak my language and were incredibly responsive, usually answering the phone by the third ring.”
“While I love the technology, I really appreciate the HigherUp staff,” adds West. “They are always accessible and ready to help. Sometimes I can’t believe I am not their only client.”
Lessons Learned from Priority One
The volume of new HR data has become astounding over the past couple of years. But at the same time it has remained largely inaccessible. Being able to harness and leverage that data is now critical to HR’s ability to add strategic business value.
Like Priority One, companies can begin with the simple steps of automating their payroll and HR processes. By choosing to do this with a single unified application, rather than cobbling together multiple legacy systems, all of the company’s valuable workforce-related data is available in one place. Then the real strategic business questions can be asked with workforce analytics from their data informing the answers.
