Maxwell Systems is consolidating five siloed HR systems and moving them to the Cloud in a bid to automate time-consuming manual admin processes and enable employees to undertake self-service activities.
Founded 35 years ago, Maxwell Systems supplies a wide range of management solutions for estimating, job cost accounting and project management for construction companies involved in a range of activities from concrete and masonry to plumbing and property management. A product of several acquisitions, Maxwell employs over 200 employees spread nationwide across five offices.
Until recently they were supported by five separate HR systems. Following a decision to consolidate internal IT by integrating four CRM systems down to Salesforce.com, Maxwell reviewed its HR provision and opted for Fairsail’s Total Talent Management approach, despite more upfront cost than its rivals.
The US-based company, which employs 210 staff and sells project management software for construction firms, will see the new HR system go live this Friday. The new offering will replace existing disparate benefits, payroll, time and expenses and performance review applications as well as a Sharepoint server that was used to create and store HR documentation such as contracts and name and address details.
A key appeal of the new software was that it integrated seamlessly with Salesforce.com’s SaaS offerings, which Maxwell implemented about two and a half years ago to run its sales, marketing, customer service, support, development and financial activities.
Mike Zarzeka, the firm’s vice president of customer operations, explains:
He adds:
The idea is that staff can “flip over” after closing a sale or a project and seamlessly access the HR system in order to request a performance review or check how much holiday they have left. Zarzeka says:
The move will also reduce the amount of manual data entry into multiple systems that Maxwell’s 1.5 HR personnel need to undertake, freeing them up to undertake more strategic activity. This is because employees will henceforth be able to input and modify their own personal information ranging from emergency contact details to educational history and objectives. Zarzeka notes:
As to the amount of resource required for a project of this type, Maxwell took from two months from the start of January to build a specification based on its requirements and select a vendor. A project manager and a second vice president-level executive have also dedicated about 50% of their time to the initiative over the last two months to look after activities such as data cleansing, conversion and migration. Integration with third party systems such as those used by health insurance providers was also an important activity as was undertaking two full weeks of testing to ensure that the offering was secure and worked effectively before going live. Zarzeka concludes:
A further aim is to deploy Salesforce.com’s Chatter enterprise social media tool in order to help boost staff relations. The firm currently has six offices located in different of the US following a number of acquisitions, but is keen to ensure that employees feel part of a wider community by introducing tools to help them get to know each other better and collaborate more effectively.
