UNLOCK

THE TRUE
POWER OF HR
Discover the six pillars
that drive HR success.
INTRODUCTION

Welcome
There's The HR department, with its diverse mix of skill sets

Never
and its unique perspective on business operations,
is positioned as never before to add strategic value
to businesses on critical issues across the employee

Been a
lifespan, from recruiting and onboarding to talent
development and retention.

Better
But is Your Company Missing Out?
Many organizations don’t see the tangible returns on

Time to
investing in modern HR. As a result, HR teams are often
limited by inefficient, manual processes. The goal of the
HR Center of Excellence is to change that.

be in HR Get Started
The HR Center of Excellence (HR COE) is your action
plan, grounded in Paycor’s data, experience, and
research, designed with a singular focus on helping
small-to-medium sized businesses (SMBs) optimize HR
to make a lasting impact on their organization.

2
INTRODUCTION There are two fundamentally

How
different views of HR.

Does Your Admin HR VS Strategic HR

looks like: looks like:
Company Recruits by project Recruits by data analysis:

Think about
management: Collects Analyzes data (e.g., referral
paper resumes, scans source and time to hire)
and shares with hiring to design a candidate

“People?”
managers, logs applicant experience that attracts
data into spreadsheets, etc. more qualified talent.

Manages employee Develops, trains, grows

profiles: Keys new hire data
The Million Dollar Question into payroll, walks the hall
to find employees whose
We’ve all heard that “people costs” are
forms are illegible.
an organization’s greatest expense. But
as long as an organization thinks of labor
costs merely as overhead HR will be mired Gets lost in the weeds:
in the administrative and clerical duties of From open enrollment to
“managing the herd.” compliance, is constantly
trying to stay current,
manage the details, and
a answer a barrage of
employee questions.
3
employees: Researches
and implements employee
development programs
like onboarding and
continuous learning.
Thinks big picture: Finds
time to work with other
departments to solve big
problems. (E.g., works with
Finance to evaluate and
optimize labor costs.)
TABLE OF CONTENTS

The Six Pillars

of HR Excellence
Recruiting 8 People Management 28
HR’s most important Unlock the true potential
and toughest challenge. of your people.

Benefits 15 Compliance 34
What (really) motivates The topic everyone wants
your employees? to ignore but HR can’t.

Labor Costs 22 Employee Experience 42

How are you managing your The pinnacle of HR excellence
company’s greatest expense?

4
INTRODUCTION
Where to Begin
Start by understanding the six pillars
of HR excellence.
We found that 75% of successful, high-functioning HR
teams spend their time on six main areas or “pillars”
of HR: Recruiting, Benefits, Labor Costs, Compliance,
People Management, and Employee Experience.
In this guide, we walk through each pillar by describing
how mastery of them evolves through three key phases.
5
P hase 1: Assess
HR looks at what’s working and what’s
not. Where appropriate, HR teams
automate and streamline workflows.
P hase 2: Optimize
HR experiments with new ways to
track and share results to the broader
organization, including executives.
P hase 3: Excel
HR becomes a competitive differentiator,
offering critical business insights and
collaborating with executive leadership to
drive company strategy and enhance the
employee experience.
INTRODUCTION
Visit the Website Subscribe
After you get familiar to the Newsletter
with the pillars, dive
Next, you can subscribe
into our detailed plans
to our HR Center of
at paycor.com/hrcoe.
Excellence newsletter
that will give you practical
advice and inspiration as
you continue on the path.
6
Talk to us
Finally, you can always
reach out to us with
questions. Unlike many of
our competitors, Paycor
first seeks to learn about
and understand your
business. We won't push
technology that doesn't fit
the mold of your particular
organization. Rather we
use a consultative process
built on a model for HR
excellence.
INTRODUCTION

A Little
About Us
Who We Are
More than 30,000 SMBs trust Paycor to help
them manage their most valuable asset — their
people. At Paycor, we deliver a unified human
capital management platform with modern, intuitive
recruiting, HR and payroll solutions at its core.
What distinguishes us from other HCM providers
is our singular focus on helping business leaders,
entrepreneurs, partners, and HR professionals make
a real, lasting difference in their organizations. Our
personalized support and scalable, user-friendly
technology streamlines every aspect of people
management, giving our clients the peace of mind
to focus on what they know best: their business and
their mission.
How We Created the HR COE
To create the HR COE action plan, we’ve
supplemented our nearly 30 years of experience
with user group sessions, one-on-one interviews
with HR professionals and business leaders, a
deep dive into 3rd party research, and ongoing
analysis of our own proprietary data. We’ve also
surveyed hundreds of HR departments, represented
by thousands of professionals at every stage in
their careers. The result is this: The HR Center of
Excellence. Welcome to an exciting journey.

7
 PILLAR 1
RECRUITING

HR’s Most 40%

of SMB organizations
45%
of SMB HR leaders

Important rated their recruiting

process as average
point to recruiting the
best talent as their

and Toughest
or below i top challenge ii

Challenge

8
 PILLAR 1
RECRUITING

HR’s Most Important is fierce, so recruiting is necessarily a fast-paced

game. And yet, if you move too fast, the cost of a
and Toughest Challenge bad hire can be substantial. The good news is, you
It’s no wonder that many HR teams struggle with can win the recruiting game. You just need a plan.
recruiting and hiring because there are so many
ways to get off track. All it takes is a slow response
time, one manager who doesn’t show up for an
interview, or a weak pipeline of candidates, and the
whole process is derailed. Competition for top talent

9
 PILLAR 1
RECRUITING

Take the
Recruiting
Benchmarking
Quiz 

10
 ACTION PLAN
1 | ASSESS
It’s no surprise that HR leaders say recruiting
is their toughest challenge. The labor
market is tight, recruiting workflows are
complex, and many HR teams don’t have
an established recruiting process. If you’re
trying to “win the war for talent” with manual
and/or paper workflows, no clear leadership,
and no repeatable process, you’re fighting
an uphill battle.
11
Action P lan:
ASSIGN OWNERSHIP
Most smaller organizations share the recruiting
function across several people. In some cases,
we’ve seen that managers of other departments
are left on their own to do much of their recruiting.
HR needs to take ownership of recruiting and
partner with hiring managers to get it right.
If Your Recruiting Process
is Broken, HR Can Fix it
GIVE RECRUITING THE TIME IT DESERVES
Owning the process of recruiting—really giving it
the leadership it deserves—takes time. So after you
define ownership, the lucky “owner” needs time to
do the job. Here’s how to make that happen:
Find Time to Lead:
HR & Recruiting
continued
 ACTION PLAN
1 | ASSESS

MAKE A CASE TO INVEST IN AN

APPLICANT TRACKING SYSTEM (ATS)
If you’ve determined that your company’s recruiting
process is broken, and if one of the primary
problems is lack of ownership, and if you’ve come
to the decision that HR needs to fill that leadership
vacuum, then it’s time to make a case for investing
in an ATS, or switching to a new ATS if your current
one isn’t helping.

5 Questions to Ask BEFORE

You Invest in an ATS

4 Steps to Convince Your

Boss You Need a New ATS

12
 ACTION PLAN
2 | OPTIMIZE

When you take a “the buck stops here”

approach to recruiting and you invest in the Action P lan:
right technology, you’re going to see a dramatic
IT’S ALL ABOUT KPIS
increase in the effectiveness of your recruiting
efforts. But if a tree falls in the woods...and if Recruiting is more than just a numbers game,
as it draws from all of HR’s skillset. But the right
only the HR team knows about the dramatic
recruiting metrics are not only key indicators,
improvement, will it count? Fortunately, an ATS
they’re key descriptors, that can help you tell the
gives you the data you need to demonstrate to
story of how your HR team optimized recruiting.
stakeholders and the executive team just how
The first step is to understand the key performance
much improved your recruiting process is. So,
indicators (KPIs) that tell the story.
the next step toward recruiting excellence is to
show (don’t tell) your executive team just how
Recruiting KPIs:
much your recruiting efforts have improved.
A Real Simple Guide

13
 Action Plan
3 | EXCEL
When your recruiting process is streamlined
and efficient, and you’ve got the KPIs to
prove it, you can begin to dream big, and
one big dream worth considering is the
employee referral program. Job seekers
referred by current employees tend to be
better, more qualified candidates, who are
less likely to leave.
14
Action P lan:
HOW TO GET STARTED
First, learn about the wide-ranging benefits
of creating a culture of employee referrals. A
successful effort requires buy-in across the
organization, so to make it happen, you have to
be an evangelist. Next, learn the 4-step plan to
build a program.
How to Build an Employee
Referral Program
 PILLAR 2
BENEFITS

What (Really) 57%

of U.S. job candidates
84%
of employees

Motivates Your report benefits are

among their top
with high benefit
satisfaction report

Employees?
considerations before high job satisfaction
accepting a job iii iv

15
 PILLAR 2
BENEFITS
What (really) motivates
your employees?
You might have a tough time answering the question
if HR is tied up in administrative work, but one thing
is clear: benefits play a major role in attracting new
talent and retaining your best people.
Competition across the job market is more cut throat
than ever, and it’s forced employers to get creative
with benefits programs and incentives. It’s no longer
acceptable to offer status quo plans. The candidate
16
you’re dying to hire and that top performer you need
to retain expect and demand more. And the most
successful HR teams are using a complete benefits
experience as a competitive advantage.
But HR can’t lead the charge alone. Benefits Brokers
play a crucial role in supporting HR’s efforts to
educate employees while also assessing the current
landscape and offering plans that are in the best
interest of both parties – company and employee.
 PILLAR 2
BENEFITS

Take the
Benefits
Benchmarking
Quiz 

17
 Action Plan
1 | ASSESS
What does open enrollment look like at your
organization? If HR spends most of the
time printing out benefits documentation,
distributing it by hand to employees,
manually checking each form for accuracy,
and entering information into a carrier site
and payroll, you’ll have little left to educate
and guide employees through the fear and
anxiety that comes with open enrollment.
If your organization is relying on manual
processes, you need a way out.
18
Action P lan:
EVALUATE YOUR TEAM’S APPROACH TO
BENEFITS ADMIN.
Open enrollment is a necessary evil that
creates stress, panic and uncertainty across an
organization. And when enrollment is done manually,
the challenges increase significantly. Employees
face a myriad of plan options with little to no
guidance on which is the best fit because instead
of devoting their time to education, HR is correcting
forms and re-entering information into the system.
There’s a better way.
The Pitfalls of Manual Open
Enrollment
continued
 Action Plan
1 | ASSESS

IMPROVE EFFICIENCY WITH AUTOMATION

If you’re ready to revamp open enrollment, look
no further than technology. The right solution
can drastically change the way HR preps for and
manages open enrollment – placing more emphasis
on employee interaction and communication and
less on tedious admin. Here’s how HR can make it
happen.

5 Ways to Make Open Enrollment

More Manageable

19
 Action Plan
2 | OPTIMIZE
If you’re satisfied with your benefits
technology, you’ve mastered the
all-important first step to achieve
excellence. But the work has just begun.
Most HR pros are not benefits experts.
You’re well-versed in plan offerings
and are often the lifeline for employees
during open enrollment, but that’s a lot
of pressure on you to understand the
complexities of benefit offerings.
a
20
Action P lan:
FIND THE RIGHT EXPERT
Relieve your burden by partnering with a broker or
adding a benefits expert to your team who can help
make your company’s benefits package a key driver
of recruiting and retention.
Find Time to Lead: Partner
with a Benefits Broker
ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS
Unique and diverse employee benefits have become
a critical necessity to attract candidates and retain
your best employees. Because so much knowledge
is needed to prescribe the right plans for both the
organization and employees and resources are few,
HR is at a crossroads. That’s why many employers
are turning to benefits brokers for help. The right
technology and the right partner on your side can be
a game-changer, simplifying your job and providing
a broker with the valuable information they need to
best advise your organization.
6 Tips for Selecting the Right
Employee Benefits Broker
 Action Plan
3 | EXCEL

Now that you’ve selected the right benefits

advisor, leverage their expertise to design
benefit plans to ensure you’re balancing
your organization’s objectives and the wants
Action P lan:
of employees without compromising the BENEFITS CAN BE A POWERFUL
RECRUITING AND BRANDING TOOL
budget. As your broker understands your
strategies and objectives, they become a If your company becomes known for offering
valuable partner to your team, evaluating the great benefits, you’ll find it much easier to attract
costs and plan designs of various providers. and retain top talent. You may also find that your
And with the right HR technology, your company’s brand gets a boost. Learn how to build a
broker can utilize specific benefits data like competitive benefits package.
participant rates and satisfaction to assess
the effectiveness of your offerings and How to Build a Competitive
optimize plans to add greater value for your Benefits Package
employees. This holistic understanding of
your organization’s benefits structure will
allow you to project future expenses and
ultimately impact your bottom line.

21
 PILLAR 3
LABOR COSTS

How Are You

Managing Your 41% 15%
Company’s
of CEOs said labor HR professionals
spend is the most we surveyed only
important metric spend 15% of their

Greatest
organizations should time managing labor
measure v costs vi

Expense?

22
 PILLAR 3
LABOR COSTS
How are you managing your
company’s greatest expense?
Labor costs account for the highest percentage of
operating expenses for many organizations. That’s
why CEOs care so much—nearly half of the HR
professionals we surveyed said their CEO cares
most about labor costs. However, 62% of the CEOs
we surveyed rated their HR organization’s ability
to affect the bottom line as a 3 or lower on a scale
of 1-5.
23
Historically, HR has left labor cost analysis to
Finance. According to our survey, only about 7%
of respondents say HR owns cost management.
About 50.4% said it’s a shared responsibility
between Finance and HR. That means about 43%
of HR teams aren’t a part of the organizations' cost
management at all.
We think that's a miss because, in fact, HR can
contribute a lot to managing and predicting labor
costs. To “get a seat at the table” and contribute to
the one thing your CEO cares most about, here’s
what you need to do.
 PILLAR 3
LABOR COSTS

Take the
Labor Costs
Benchmarking
Quiz 

24
 ACTION PLAN
1 | ASSESS
HR typically thinks about things like this:
finding the right people, getting them
to join the team, onboarding, coaching,
career development, and keeping everyone
engaged and productive. These are all
mission critical activities, but they’re also
well within HR’s comfort zone. But what
happens when you take a step back and
look at your business, and your employees,
from the CFO’s perspective? What things
can you see that they might not?
25
Action P lan:
START THINKING ABOUT HOW TO
MAXIMIZE LABOR SPEND
From your CFO’s perspective, human capital is an
expense and profitability of the company is the goal;
however, that goal is impossible to achieve without a
high-performing workforce dedicated to the mission
and vision of the company. That’s where you come
into play.
It’s important to start thinking about how different
categories of workers—salaried, variable, seasonal
—get paid and how best to maximize that spend. In
other words, you need to supplement your HR brain
with a CFO brain.
How HR Can Think Like a CFO:
How to Maximize Your Labor Spend
 ACTION PLAN
2 | OPTIMIZE
Action P lan:
IF YOUR COMPANY HAS PRIMARILY
SALARIED WORKERS:
partner with Finance to establish up-to-date
Learning to collaborate with Finance is an pay ranges
ongoing project. Depending on a variety
of factors—the size of your organization, How to Establish
the size of your team, the nature of your Salary Ranges
business—it may be best to start small with
a pilot program, or in some cases a more IF YOUR COMPANY HAS PRIMARILY
productive relationship between HR and VARIABLE EMPLOYEES:
Finance starts from the top. Here are some
partner with Finance to analyze overtime spend.
“starter” projects to consider.
(According to Paycor data, 53% of SMBs had an
overtime expense in 2016.)

How to Fight the Hidden Costs

of Unplanned Overtime

26
 Action Plan
3 | EXCEL

Now that you’ve established guidelines for

managing variable-hour employees and are
closely monitoring overtime expenses, you Action P lan:
should begin to see an overall reduction UNDERSTAND THE LATEST TRENDS IN
in your labor expenses. The next step is COMPENSATION
to perform a salary audit and benchmark
Not ready to hire a compensation analyst?
your results against others in your industry
Well, then the alternative is to educate yourself
to ensure you’re offering competitive pay
on key trends shaping the near-term future of
ranges to attract and retain employees.
compensation.
Here’s where a compensation expert
could be a nice addition to your staff. This
individual is responsible for leading your
Test Your Knowledge
compensation strategy and evaluating
compensation structure across the
organization to ensure you’re providing the
proper compensation based on performance
and industry standard.
a

27
 PILLAR 4
PEOPLE MANAGEMENT

HR’s Biggest
Challenges
70%
of HR professionals
4
Top HR Challenges

Come from
spend 2/3 of their
time on “people • Onboarding
management” viii • Retention

Managing • Coaching/Performance
Reviews

People.
• Learning &
Development

28

PILLAR 4
PEOPLE MANAGEMENT
HR's biggest challenges come
from managing people.
Ask yourself this: is your time well spent? In 2017,
McKinsey reports that the typical HR department still
spends close to 60% of their time and resources on
“transactional and operational HR,” while the highest-
performing HR teams spend less than 40% of their
time on admin.
Perhaps more than any other pillar, people
management requires the most administrative work.
If you’re drowning in stacks of employee forms, your
inbox is overflowing with questions about pay and
time off requests, and employees are popping by
your desk to ask about the company’s 401(k) policy,
you—and your company—are missing out on the
significant upside of investing time and energy into
the management and development of people.
For example, consider that new employees who
are part of a well-structured onboarding program
are 69% more likely to remain at a company for
up to three years. The more time and energy HR
can devote to the more strategic (and measurable)
aspects of people management, the better off
everyone will be.

29
 PILLAR 4
PEOPLE MANAGEMENT

Take the People

Mangment
Benchmarking
Quiz 

30
 ACTION PLAN
1 | ASSESS
People management is the pillar most
HR professionals will feel most familiar
and comfortable with. That’s all the more
reason to take a step back and ask some
questions. What’s working? What could
be working better?
a Top 10 Ways
31
Action P lan:
EVALUATE YOUR TEAM’S APPROACH
HR can have an enormous impact on nearly every
aspect of people management, all of which ladders
up to a decrease in regretted turnover. Is your team
doing everything they can?
Why Top
Performers Leave
WHAT’S HOLDING YOU BACK?
If you feel HR is doing everything they can,congrats!
If not, what’s holding you back? If you feel like there
are just not enough hours in the day, then it may be
time to look at process improvement.
Find Time to Lead:
People Management
If you need inspiration, then check out…
to Retain Top Talent
 ACTION PLAN
2 | OPTIMIZE
HR is such an important element to
organizations that it needs to prove its
value in a variety of ways. Not everything
HR does can be measured, nor should
you try. However, because “people
management” impacts every aspect of your
business, it’s important to be able to talk
about (and sell) return on investment to the
organization's leadership.
a webinar
32
Action P lan:
SHOW DON’T TELL: HOW TO USE DATA TO
TRACK PEOPLE MANAGEMENT GOALS
If your CEO or CFO is most persuaded by hard
facts and figures, your job is to track key metrics
to help executives make informed decisions
about workforce planning. Here are two excellent
resources to get started.
4 People Management Metrics
Your CEO Needs to See
Why Turnover Is the Single
Most Revealing HR Metric
Watch the
 Action Plan
3 | EXCEL

HR technology has empowered you to shift

your focus from employee administration
to true people management. Now, you’re Action P lan:
investing energy and resources into TURN MANAGERS INTO LEADERS
key employee milestones like new hire
onboarding, training and performance Your organization’s greatest resource—your
management to improve retention across people—need less management and more
your organization. This is the real reason leadership. Successful, productive and engaged
teams always have one thing in common: great
you got into HR, to make a difference in your
leaders. Learn practical advice for turning your good
employees’ lives by better understanding
managers into highly effective leaders.
them and using coaching and development
opportunities to enable them to advance in
their career. As a result, more valued and How Managers Become Leaders
engaged employees are more connected to
your goals and objectives.

33
 PILLAR 5
COMPLIANCE

Compliance 42% 38%

is the Topic of organizations report
having negative feelings
of business leaders
believe their level of

Everyone Wants about their compliance

management practices
compliance concern
will grow over the

to Ignore, But
ix next 5 years x

HR Can’t.

34
 PILLAR 5
COMPLIANCE

COMPLIANCE IS THE TOPIC EVERYONE While HR has historically been focused on

WANTS TO IGNORE, BUT HR CAN’T. compliance more than other departments, the role
of HR is evolving and becoming more focused
Maintaining appropriate compliance practices
on people-centric concerns and overall business
within an organization requires an all-hands
strategy. With limited resources and time, HR
approach that leverages HR technology and
teams can struggle to keep up with the compliance
expert support.
landscape, which is nearly always in some degree
Compliance is a universal need, regardless of how of flux.
“modern” your HR organization. Small companies
need to ensure they have compliance measures
in place, and compliance only becomes more
complex as your business grows.

35
 PILLAR 5
COMPLIANCE

Take the
Compliance
Benchmarking
Quiz 

36
 ACTION PLAN
1 | ASSESS
Compliance falls under HR’s purview, and
the company leadership is well aware of
its importance, but caring about it and
carefully monitoring are two different
things. The result is that protecting the
organization from undue risk usually falls
on the shoulders of an understaffed HR
team. It’s up to HR professionals to ask:
If auditors walked into our office, what
would they find?
37
Action P lan:
EVALUATE RECRUITING COMPLIANCE
Employers are so hyper-focused on getting candidates
in the door and filling open positions that recruiting
compliance sometimes becomes an afterthought.
That could be a costly oversight. Recruiting practices
that lack discipline can lead to employee complaints,
audits or discrimination lawsuits. It’s far too easy
to misunderstand the laws in place or not properly
educate those involved in the hiring process.
Does Your Recruiting
Compliance Stack Up?
continued
 ACTION PLAN
1 | ASSESS
PROPERLY CLASSIFY EMPLOYEES
The Department of Labor (DOL) estimates that 80%
of employers have some degree of non-compliance
with wage and hour laws. And in 2016 alone, the DOL’s
Wage and Hour Division collected more than $266
million in back wages for 280,000 employees. If you
haven’t evaluated your labor practices, start here.

The Department of Labor Knocks

on Your Door: Are You Ready?

PREVENT EMPLOYEE LAWSUITS

Employee lawsuits can catch your company off guard.
If you don’t have the evidence to counter a claim,
you’re at risk. How can you protect your business?
Find out.

Review These Policies to Prevent

Employee Lawsuits

38
 ACTION PLAN
2 | OPTIMIZE
As HR becomes laser-focused on relevant
compliance practices and begins to focus in
on areas that need increased attention, you’re
more than likely going to feel stretched for
resources. To overcome time constraints, HR
can optimize their processes with technology
that proactively monitors compliance
practices and helps maintain all the necessary
documentation.
39
Action P lan:
INVEST IN THE RIGHT TECHNOLOGY
If you’re storing employee documents in filing
cabinets and tracking changes in employee status
in spreadsheets, you’re eventually going to make
an error. Here’s where the right HR technology
can make a dramatic difference. Not only will HR
tech connect your systems and offer one single
source of truth for employee data, it can also
streamline compliance management and notify you
if documents expire or certifications need updating.
The right HR tech will pave the way for legitimate
compliance practices across each pillar of the HR
Center of Excellence.
How HR Tech Can Keep You
Compliant
 Action Plan
3 | EXCEL

Compliance management will always leave
you feeling a bit uneasy. But utilizing a broker’s
expertise to monitor regulation change has given
you the confidence you need to focus on more
strategic initiatives within the business such as
taking advantages of the changes in the recent
tax code. And now that you’ve fully embraced
technology to help manage and maintain
compliant records, compliance missteps in the
following areas are no longer cause for concern:
• Recruiting: A dedicated ATS allows for
compliant handling of candidate screening
and communication practices.
• People Management: An HR management
tool that allows for compliant electronic
signature and storage of key documents such
as new hire paperwork, tax documentation,
company policies and handbooks and employee
disciplinary action.

• Benefits Management: A dedicated benefits

solution to streamline manual administration and
provide compliant reporting and filing for the
Affordable Care Act and 401(k) management.

40
 Action Plan
3 | EXCEL

Action P lan:
UNDERSTAND THE BUSINESS
IMPLICATIONS OF TAX REFORM

Following the passage of Tax Reform in December

2017, media attention was focused on the federal
tax liabilities of businesses. What was not broadly
reported was how the federal legislation would alter
state income calculations and withholding. Learn
how this current and ongoing policy conversation
can affect your business.

Compliance Update:
Tax Reform Impact

41
 PILLAR 6
EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE

The Pinnacle of 51%

HR Excellence.
of employees are Highly-engaged
disengaged at work business units see
xi a 41% reduction in
absenteeism and
a 17% increase in
productivity xi

42
 PILLAR 6
EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE
Every company wants engaged employees. That’s
because highly engaged employees don’t act like
“employees.” They’re more like volunteers devoted
to a passion project, always looking for ways to add
value, improve morale, and drive results, without
sacrificing company culture. It’s no surprise then
that, according to DecisionWise, in 2017, 73% of
executives said employee engagement was a top
concern. Yet Gallup’s annual survey of engagement
continually finds that only 1/3 of employees are
actually engaged at work. Most (51%) are not
engaged—they’re pretty much just treading water—
and, even worse, 16% are actively disengaged
(these are the saboteurs who bring everyone down).
With all this focus on engagement, why don’t we
see better results?
a
43
One reason is that there’s not enough focus on
the employee experience—that is, everything an
organization does, from onboarding to mentoring
to career development and more—to help gradually
and purposefully build an employee-centric culture.
Over the years, we’ve seen companies try to take
shortcuts by offering free lunch, happy hours, open
floor plans, or, if all else fails, setting up a ping pong
table in a conference room. These “perks” seldom
produce lasting results. There’s a better way.
Based on extensive research and interviews with
successful HR teams, we’ve mapped the ideal
employee experience path—an entire journey that
starts before a new hire’s first day. The goal is create
an experience that not only drives engagement but
that ultimately encourages employees to become
evangelists for your company.
Designing a holistic employee experience is the end
goal, the holy grail, of the HR Center of Excellence.
We believe it’s the best way to create sustainable
employee engagement and evangelism. And we
believe that HR is uniquely suited to make it happen.
 PILLAR 6
EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE

For starters, let’s begin with an

This final pillar is different than the others,
overview of the Ideal Employee
so we’ll be breaking the format a bit.
Instead of giving you an action plan, we’ll
Experience.
begin by defining the ideal employee
experience journey. We’ll only scratch the
surface in this section, so be sure to sign
up for the HR COE newsletter to receive a
complete action plan in the coming months.
Engaged

Inspired

Valued

Involved

Hopeful

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 PILLAR 6
EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE

HOPEFUL
Most new hires are hopeful and optimistic about their
decison to join your organization. We’ve all been there— Engaged
it’s the “honeymoon period.” By joining your company,
new hires have taken the first step, but they’re still not Inspired
exactly sure what they’ve signed up for. It’s critically
important to establish a firm foundation at this moment Valued
in the employee experience. Within the first 30 days,
organizations need to at least begin to answer three
Involved
important questions: Who do I work for? Why should
I be proud to work here? Why am I here? If these
basic questions aren’t answered, the foundation of the
Hopeful
employee experience will be unstable.

45
 PILLAR 6
EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE

INVOLVED
The next step is to get new employees involved in the
day-to-day life of the company, beyond their assigned Engaged
tasks and responsibilities. Here’s the key: remember,
there’s no one size fits all solution. Identify your Inspired
employee’s passions—those things that really motivate
them—and build programs that appeal to different Valued
personalities. For example, extroverts might jump at the
chance to be part of a young professionals initiative.
Involved
Introverts might prefer to be part of a smaller group, say
a focus group dedicated to uncovering insights around a
particular problem or challenge. All new employees will
Hopeful
likely benefit from some degree of mentorship. Discover
what works for your company, but whatever paths you
choose, be sure to offer multiple “on ramps” to get new
hires feeling involved and connected.

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 PILLAR 6
EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE

VALUED
Everyone wants to feel appreciated and valued, but
not everyone wants to see their name in lights. The
next phase of the employee experience challenges the
organization to provide multiple ways to recognize and
Engaged
reward employees. We all know from experience, and
have probably read the research on just how important
it is for Millennials to feel appreciated for the value
Inspired
they contribute to a collective vision or goal. Rewards
don’t always have to be, nor should they be, financial. Valued
Again, this is about figuring out what resonates with
different kinds of people. Some team members will be Involved
delighted by outward signs of appreciation, others will
prefer a handwritten note, a branded company t-shirt, Hopeful
or an invitation to a task force focused on tackling a
business-related challenge. Showing team members
that they are valued, and that they are progressing in
their careers, doesn’t have to be complicated or difficult,
but it can have a disproportionately positive impact on
engagement scores.
a

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 PILLAR 6
EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE

INSPIRED
Employees who feel involved and valued become
inspired to do their best work. At this stage of the
Engaged
employee experience journey, employees understand
their place in the organization and are excited and proud Inspired
to be part of the team. The danger at this stage is that
employees can become complacent. Build on a solid Valued
foundation by continuing to challenge employees with
new opportunities to learn and grow. Now is the time to Involved
dial up career pathing, so that employees have a clear
vision on where they’re going and what they need to get Hopeful
to the next level.

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 PILLAR 6
EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE

ENGAGED
When your employees feel involved, valued, and
inspired, you have an engaged workforce that, given
the right tools, can become evangelists for your Engaged
company. Granted, not everyone will reach this pinnacle
of engagement—not all humans were meant to be Inspired
evangelists. But if you’ve patiently laid the groundwork,
your company is far more likely to create an environment
Valued
in which people who want to promote your company’s
mission, purpose, and values are ready and willing to
do so; now, it’s up to you to give them a platform to do
Involved
just that. In the coming months, we’ll share with you an
action plan to help identify, amplify, and track the results Hopeful
your employee evangelists can have on recruiting, hiring,
and your company’s overall engagement score.

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 Action P lan:
LEARN HOW TO MANAGE YOUR MANAGERS

Gallup found that managers account for at least

70% variance in employee engagement scores
across business units. Managers play a crucial role
in the overall employee experience. Learn how to
hire, train and empower your managers for success.

How to Manage Your Managers

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 The HR Center of Excellence is brought to you by Paycor.
Whatever your people management goals are, we'll help you
accomplish them with the right technology and the best support
and thought leadership.

Visit Paycor.com

SOURCES:
i. Paycor’s Market Trends, July 2017 viii. https://www.shrm.org/foundation/ourwork/initiatives/resources-from
past-initiatives/Documents/Onboarding%20New%20Employees.pdf
ii. Paycor’s HR Trendcast, August 2017
ix. Paycor’s HR Trendcast, August 2017
iii. https://www.glassdoor.com/blog/glassdoors-5-job-trends-watch-2016/
x. Paycor’s HR Trendcast, August 2017
iv. http://resources.glassdoor.com/rs/899-LOT-464/images/50hr-recruiting-
and-statistics-2017.pdf xi. http://news.gallup.com/poll/181289/majority-employees-not-engaged-
a v. Paycor’s Market Trends, July 2017
despite-gains-2014.aspx
xii. http://news.gallup.com/businessjournal/208487/right-culture-not-
vi. Paycor’s Market Trends, July 2017
employee-happiness.aspx
vii. Paycor’s Market Trends, July 2017