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CLIENT SUCCESS STORY

Siegy Adler, Vice President of Information Technology for PineBridge Investments first noticed it a few weeks after “go live.” His stewardship of PineBridge Investments’ global Human Resource Information System (HRIS) and payroll implementation had resulted in a resounding success: 22 Countries, over 500 employees, implemented in less than 6 months. And under budget as well.

Adler felt good about this project and took it in his stride. Until, that is, he realized that the phones and the sounds of incoming emails concerning the new HRIS and payroll environment, at his Park Avenue headquarter office were not ringing or chiming.

They were silent.

Adler had achieved the implementation with little push back and almost no issues during and after the live payroll runs.

The “silence” proved his project team’s success. Adler thought about this and remembered his prior HR and payroll administration environment that was in place before this effort started.

The situation warranted a necessary change. The incumbent HRIS and global payroll services provider for PineBridge’s more than 500 overseas employees was not satisfying his nor his management’s needs.

Meeting the Requirements

PineBridge embarked on the evaluation of a new HRIS and global payroll provider with direct integration to In-Country Partners (ICPs) who process local payrolls.

• They required a vendor with in-country “on the ground” expertise with direct access to functional experts in all areas of country-specific payroll processing and regulations.

• They required local payroll administrative and regulatory support for the 22 countries in which they have employees.

• They required close integration between an HRIS and a global payroll system with strong reporting capabilities.

• Overall PineBridge wanted a more powerful, comprehensive and integrated HRIS to support their future initiatives.

PineBridge Investments is a relatively small independent asset manager with over 60 years of experience in emerging and developed markets. They provide clients globally integrated investment platforms offering services related to asset allocation, equities, fixed income, private equity and hedge funds. PineBridge differentiates itself by its strong on-the-ground global investment teams, providing clients and investors the combined benefits of experienced global fundamental perspectives and analytical insights.

Their globally integrated investment platform allows PineBridge to develop customized investment solutions that address clients’ investment needs for diversification and risk management.

PineBridge’s mindset has always been driven by data, analytics and, of course, audits and reports. It is what the company does, what it needs, and what is required and regulated. And any unforeseen “surprises” impact their overall efficiencies. It is this same mindset that made the decision for change within their HR and payroll service delivery environment easy.

The previous delivery model for global payroll with some basic HR data input was lacking in controls, transparencies, and output reports.

The incumbent HRIS and payroll capability was inadequate, rudimentary in functionality and scope and was mostly used as a data repository. The ability to pay more than 500 employees in 22 countries was a matter of time-consuming error correction and payroll reruns mostly dealt with after the fact. The process of error recovery required strong skills to uncover the underlying cause as reporting was minimal. Thus the need for change due to the lack of transparency, minimal reporting and “black-box” integration, was readily apparent and unquestioned.

Client Success

These requirements were met by a combined solution, with a key alliance between Workday and SafeGuard World International (SGWI). Workday provided the HRIS solution and SGWI provided the global managed payroll solution. A leading provider of enterprise cloud applications, Workday delivers financial management, human capital management and analytics applications. As a Workday certified Global Payroll Cloud partner, leveraging certified, pre-built integrations, SGWI was able to beat PineBridge’s six-month timeline.

The entire implementation transpired over a quick six months with Adler leading a small core project team comprising of himself and two HR/payroll staff members. Weekly governance meetings were held between PineBridge and the Workday and SGWI project teams.

With payroll processing as the focus, the process went live and was rolled out over the 22 countries with strong oversight from one of SGWI’s four Regional Service Centers which provide human intervention and contact to all of the ICPs.

Adler’s desire for a “plug and play” integration option for global payroll delivery was met by the long-standing partnership between SGWI and Workday. Payroll data is entered into the Workday HRIS and transmitted to SGWI’s Unity platform at scheduled intervals using integrations certified by Workday. Then the data is provided to one of SGWI’s In-Country Partners (ICPs) for the calculation and filings of the payroll. The resultant calculation of pay is fed back to Unity for review by HR. Any errors and exceptions are identified via a multitude of standard and rigorous reports generated by Unity. Once adjustments are made, the payments are approved and the employees are paid.

Adler notes that his most challenging task was the required payroll data collection for input into the new system of record–the Workday HRIS solution. But the SGWI-certified integrations allowed him and his system integration firm, Meteorix, to focus on testing and integration and not worry about requirements, design or customization issues. PineBridge also used parallel payroll processing for each country prior to full “go live.”

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Adler sits amongst his colleagues on Park Avenue thankful for the peace and quiet of a successful implementation and can now focus on the next phase: taking further advantage of the power of Workday’s HCM and SGWI’s global payroll module functionality. And he will be able to do so knowing that all of his valuable associates around the globe will get paid accurately and on time.

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Silence on Park Avenue

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Siegy Adler, Vice President of Information Technology for PineBridge Investments