PEO Case Studies

Executives who guide a business from start-up through the first years of growth wear many hats. They have to. Just ask Laurie Carmona, Director of Accounting and Personnel for Excel Property Management, a 50-employee firm with operations in Illinois and Ohio. Her title is the tip-off – both to the scope of her responsibilities and to the reasons why Excel teamed up with ADP TotalSource.

Excel started business in 2000 with four partners, including Laurie, working out of one partner’s home. Since then the company has acquired five rental complexes, two in Illinois and three in Ohio. The complexes, which range in size from 80 to 660 apartments, are standalone businesses (limited liability companies) with Excel providing the management. Each complex has its own leasing team, maintenance and housekeeping staff, with a small management team, Laurie and the corporate staff, helping to direct things from Excel’s headquarters outside Chicago.

As Excel grew, the company’s need for outside assistance with various human resources challenges became acute. Like many ADP TotalSource clients, they started with ADP payroll and tax processing, then in 2003 moved on to the full Professional Employer Organization (PEO) solution.

As Laurie Carmona says, "Our company does not have an HR professional on staff, and I have a lot else on my plate besides having to manage HR issues. As Excel grew, we thought it prudent to get expert advice, so we went with ADP TotalSource. Having them support us in the areas of payroll taxes, legal issues, and employee benefits is especially critical for us."

According to Laurie, several components of the ADP TotalSource solution have proved especially valuable to Excel. "Recruiting quality employees is a constant challenge for us, and the employee benefits ADP TotalSource offers help make us extremely competitive among similarly sized companies in our industry," she says. In addition to being able to offer top-tier employee benefits, Excel makes frequent use of the online job posting service ADP offers in partnership with CareerBuilder, as well as the drug testing options.

A crucial component of the recruiting and hiring process that ADP TotalSource handles for Excel is the background check. As Laurie says, "many of our staff have regular access to people’s homes, and many also handle cash on a regular basis. Background checks are vital when we hire new employees. Before ADP TotalSource, we did all the legwork ourselves, including going to local courthouses and checking records. Since we handed that job off to ADP TotalSource, we’ve really seen results – at least one recent check turned up a grand theft conviction on the record of a person applying for a housekeeper position."

ADP TotalSource’s expertise in regulatory compliance and employment law has also delivered critical benefits to Excel. Because they operate in two states, they must deal with two sets of workers’ compensation regulations, state and local tax codes, and state unemployment insurance rules, in addition to the federal employment regulations. "It’s a very complicated area of HR for which we just don’t have the expertise in-house," Laurie says. "For example, in 2006 a former employee filed an EEO claim against us. ADP TotalSource wrote a brief based on the facts of the matter, and it ended there. ADP’s expertise in these sensitive employee relations issues, particularly when we have to terminate an employee, is invaluable to us."

In addition to the core PEO suite of services, Excel has recently signed on for ezLabor Manager, ADP’s web-based time and attendance management system. "It’s really streamlined the payroll process even more," says Laurie. "Payroll, like all the other HR issues, gets funneled through me, so having ADP TotalSource at my right hand has helped me focus on my core responsibilities while making sure that when it comes to HR, all the I’s are dotted and the T’s crossed."

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