Handling day-to-day HR functions

The Challenge

A Central Pennsylvania law firm was informed that their HR professional was leaving.  This presented an urgent challenge, as this HR professional served over 200 employees. The law firm wanted adequate time to recruit for the role, while ensuring their internal customers were not affected by the change.

The Solution

TREW was engaged to handle HR management services, including transaction services, onboarding, offboarding, disciplinary action, employee relations, performance management, benefits administration, 401(k) plan liaison, compliance, and recruiting.  TREW met with senior leadership to discuss the strategic plan for the HR department, and to become familiar with their company policies, procedures, and culture.

TREW completed an HR audit to determine the best way to tackle the strategic plan. The initial projects were changing the time recording process and transitioning all employee files to an electronic filing system.  TREW also reviewed and revised their handbook to ensure the policy language complied with federal regulations. We ensured policies were in place to reflect current employee numbers, such as FMLA, ADA, or EEO.

TREW assisted with recruiting by posting open positions, screening candidates, presenting qualified candidates to the hiring manager, scheduling interviews, and acting as the liaison between the candidate and hiring manager during the offer process.

TREW handled the day-to-day operations of group benefits programs, including group health, dental, vision, short-term and long-term disability, worker’s compensation, life insurance, travel, accident plan, flexible spending plan, and retirement plans.  As part of this process, TREW regularly investigates new benefits programs, improves existing programs, and monitors benefits administration.

The Results

TREW seamlessly handled the HR services for the law firm to ensure they didn’t feel the absence of their previous full-time HR professional.  TREW tailored our HR services to meet their needs, provided daily transactional support, and assisted with strategic planning.  We were happy to help them recruit for a full-time HR person, while serving as a stopgap in the meantime.

The Challenge

Recently, TREW HR was brought in to help three companies merge into one. All three firms had about 50 employees and therefore, they did not have a fully staffed HR department. The resulting company would have over 140 employees in multiples states which would be uncharted territory for the HR function at any of the firms.

While leaders at all three firms were looking forward to the strategic and operational value that merging would bring, they didn’t have the time, staff or expertise to manage the process of merging three payrolls, benefits, sets of HR policies, or all the systems and vendors that come along with modern HR. And most importantly, they were not able to communicate how each decision would affect the employees.

Failing to manage the process in an orderly, timely manner, while communicating critical information would start the new company off on the wrong foot, potentially to leading many disengaged workers.  Employee turnover is an expected component of mergers, but minimizing it was key. How do you focus on the strategic considerations while minimizing disruptions to keep productivity at expected levels?

The Solution

TREW immediately launched a change management process that began with clear, concise communication to employees of the upcoming merger. TREW’s role in this merger was to act as the liaison between employees and leadership, answering questions and identifying areas of concern. TREW also outlined what operational tasks needed to happen and when it would need to be completed by to ensure that all companies remained up and running from an HR perspective. This included upgrading the new firm’s human resources information system to a full-service platform that would be able to accommodate the volume and complexity of a 50 employee firm.

While managing the process of upgrading from paper files to a digital system, TREW was also able to audit the new company’s employee files to ensure compliance with any laws and regulations, saving time, money and avoiding potential enforcement actions, while making the most of the change process internally. TREW is a full-service HR team and was also able to handle employee status changes that occurred including promotions, lateral changes, terminations, or new hires.

During and change, every employee is deciding whether the change is for the better or for the worse. TREW was able to partner with the merging companies to provide a professional, detailed, timely transition that communicated confidence to the employees that the merger was a step forward.

The Results

Following the merger, the new firm engaged TREW to revise their handbook, handle a range of ongoing HR needs like benefits administration, employee relations, performance management, and serving as 401(k) plan liaison. Additionally, TREW will provide manager training to equip the firm’s managers to handle conflict resolution, difficult conversations, disciplinary action, conducting performance reviews, professionalism, team building, bias training.

What’s the best way to deal with multiple, complex HR initiatives?

The Challenge

A local construction company needed help with its recruiting needs. The client had over 500 employees scattered across Pennsylvania, but their HR leader was struggling to keep up with both urgent needs, like recruiting, and important needs, like updating the employee handbook and implementing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) training. They needed a knowledgeable, responsive, and efficient way to not just tread water, but to take a step forward.

The Solution

TREW immediately met with hiring managers to discuss their roles in further detail. This knowledge exchange ensured that our recruiters thoroughly understood the roles. This would allow TREW to find the perfect candidate with not only position knowledge but also a cultural fit.

TREW then met with the HR Director to discuss their handbook goals and objectives. Next, TREW performed an in-depth, comprehensive compliance audit on their handbook.  During the audit process, we first ensure that your handbook complies with federal, state and local laws; we also provide recommendations on policies you should have in place based on your industry.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion training also starts with our in- house DEI practitioner discussing the goals for the activity. We pride ourselves on meeting clients where they are in their DEI journey. Our practitioner researches the company and local community demographics to understand how to tailor the training to your staff. Any DEI training aims to make systemic changes in the company and ensure that DEI is interwoven with the company’s strategic plan. TREW can also consult on how to handle difficult conversations. The client needed training on how to embrace and value differences in the workplace.

The Results

TREW successfully assisted with recruiting efforts, provided a comprehensive compliant handbook, and completed DEI training for their management team.

When you are an HR department of one, it’s truly a balancing act when trying to maintain your internal customers, making sure your company complies, and starting your HR initiatives. So how do you continue this balancing back and ensuring that your HR initiatives follow your company’s strategic plan?

An outdated, clunky onboarding and training process could be impacting your retention

The Challenge

TREW HR was engaged to help a healthcare organization improve its onboarding and training process. The current new hire process was outdated and created significant delays in the onboarding process.  New hires were tasked with printing and scanning important paperwork or having to bring the paperwork with them on their first day of work. Onboarding was taking 3-4 hours on the first day and interfering with the new hires being introduced to their new team and training on their new position. Inundating new hires with paperwork and information overload on the first day can lead to an overwhelming experience, and ultimately give them a bad first impression of the organization.

In addition to an improved onboarding process, there was a need for job-specific training and development within the organization to increase retention and engagement. With many managers being promoted for technical skills, first-time manager training had to take place to understand the responsibilities of managers and the crucial role they play in the employee life cycle.

The Solution

TREW met with management and HR to transition the current physical paperwork process to electronic so employees could complete all new hire paperwork without having to print and scan back to HR. Employees no longer had to meet with HR the first day to elect benefits, review the handbook, and confirm all paperwork had been completed.  New hires could immediately begin engaging with their teams and start the training process.

TREW also researched and implemented a learning management system (LMS) for the company’s required annual compliance training. The goal of using a LMS was to find software in which the onboarding process could be integrated with their existing system to make the process for new hires more efficient, and efficiently track paperwork.

Additionally, TREW met with each department manager to create job-specific training for new and current employees. TREW implemented 30-, 60-, and 90-day performance reviews for managers and their employees to set goals with ongoing progress check-ins.

TREW also created annual performance review templates and trained managers on how to conduct performance reviews with employees. Performance review metrics were defined according to the job description for each employee.

The Results

TREW helped this company streamline their onboarding process.  New hires could begin job training on the first day, and managers could communicate clear expectations of the role and specific goals for success.

With the addition of the new LMS, required annual compliance training is taking place and being reported according to federal requirements.

Job-specific training and ongoing employee development assisted with increased retention and higher engagement within the organization.  Employee’s had positive feedback on the new performance review process and enjoyed defining goals and expectations with their managers.

Organizations with seamless onboarding processes vastly improve their new hire retention rates.  A strong onboarding and training process can help employers win the loyalty and commitment of new hires.

A compensation strategy should improve retention rates and remove ambiguity around fair pay

The Challenge

A Detroit-based non-profit company needed compensation reviews for 11 members of their leadership team. Compensation reviews had not been conducted in five years, and the company wanted to ensure they paid their employees equitably. Often, non-profits have limited budgets and ensuring fair wages can be tricky in this sector.  This company wanted to retain their top employees and ensure their compensation aligned with others in the industry and location.

The Solution

TREW met with the HR manager to discuss compensation benchmarking for their leadership roles compared to nonprofits in their area.  First, TREW professionals worked with the HR manager to set local boundaries to ensure we received the most comparable and relevant data. TREW benchmarked 15-20+ additional compensation and compiled the data for reliability and validity. Finally, we provided the client with a minimum, average, and maximum salary per position. This data gave the client insight into where they might lag and lead with their wages.

The Results

The client’s goal was to ensure they paid their leadership wages equitably, and the data showed they were paying above market salaries comparatively.  The client was excited to have this comprehensive and detailed data from TREW to put them at ease regarding their current compensation structures.