When I started this HR Technology consulting practice within Lockton in early 2008, I knew we’d start out focusing on Benefits Administration. After all, around the nation employers were looking to their brokers to help them handle their skyrocketing healthcare costs and to help them get rid of all their old technology and paper forms, which were so prone to error. (This was right when the annual rise in healthcare inflation was breaking through double digits.) Lockton was already an unstoppable force in the employer benefits space and I was bringing them some extra firepower. (Can firepower be geeky? I’m not sure that word picture works.)
Soon after setting up shop, I started building relationships with Benefits Administration vendors and diving into PHI regulations [Protected Health Information for you blissfully unawares out there – groan!]. What I didn’t expect was how very quickly after I hung out my pocket protector for Benefits Administration business, we had employers pulling us over into the HR/Payroll space as well.
Don’t throw me into that briar patch!
(I’m not the only one who remembers Br’er Rabbit, am I?)
This was pretty exciting for me as I’d started my career in the more typical HR/Payroll space with Kinko’s ProBusiness system back in my HR days right out of college. Later on, I helped build integrated HR, Payroll and Benefits systems as a product manager for a major vendor. Very quickly, our business at Lockton spread across all HR Technologies as employers discovered that we could help in all sorts of ways outside of just their online enrollments. Since all of these systems were interrelated and shared data back and forth (or at least that’s what the sales brochures promised!), helping out in one area often led to helping out in another discipline.
Our arena slowly took shape as we drew boundaries around what was in our sandbox and what was outside of it. The graphic below is our rendition of our world. (Yes, we are that geeky that our world is all HR, Payroll and Benefits!) We placed accounting and finance out of bounds (for now) and made other choices as to what was in or out of scope.
What’s exciting is that our mix of business is pretty diversified. You would think we’d be mostly Benefits Administration since we’re housed within a benefits brokerage – but we were only 52% benefits when this year kicked off. Right now we’re a little higher (69%) as we’re in the midst of implementation for a lot of online enrollment systems for the fall, but that will quiet down soon as we shift gears from benefits to payroll.
The only problem is that the only codeword the majority of my Lockton co-workers know is “HRIS.” Everything’s an “HRIS.” Tax filing… HRIS. Benefits Administration… HRIS. And, of course, HR/Payroll = HRIS. I spend the first 15 minutes of most phone calls from my offices trying to figure out what slice of the HR Tech world frustrates their employer client. I always sound like some courtroom legal team.
“So, when you say HRIS, would you say this is mainly for benefits or is payroll involved? I know you have strong feelings about ADP’s HRIS, but what’s the actual name of the system we’re talking about here? Is it PCPW, HRB or HWSE?” [Yes, that truly does mean something to us – we speak the true code.]
In case anyone’s paying attention that would like to slow the graying of my roots, stay tuned for my next post where we’ll run through how I would proclaim for all HR questions everywhere. (Although I truly wouldn’t waste my one Genie wish on something as work related as this – especially when I could have unending, calorie-free pecan pie and lemon sweet tea!)
To be continued…