Be a cheerleader to lead a healthy team

Setting a realistic standard, Carolyn Sadler-Spoletini, COO and Compliance Officer of ManagedPAY, simplifies how their company helps small and mid-sized employers with HR, payroll, benefits, and insurance administration. They handle administrative work so business owners can focus on building their companies. They offer their clients outsourced HRO, PEO, and payroll functions.. They partner with clients to understand each client company and provide solutions to their issues. ManagedPAY strives to be the "Business Solutions Company."

Carolyn drives to set the bar high with her example, and her direct reports know that they can walk into her office at any time. She makes time for them, and they can be honest, open, and candid with her. She has the ability to influence others by building and maintaining employee morale and helping her employees to reach their full potential. Her direct reports say “she inspires us everyday”. She has a great rapport with the clients and the client management teams. Internally, her team sees her commitment to the company and the clients, and she is their cheerleader.

"We conducted a baseline of where the culture was at in 2016 and again in late 2019," adds Carolyn. We actually took a complete diagnostic of what was and wasn’t working at the time. Now we have a full culture-shaping program with a methodology based on our mission, vision, and core values. We keep guiding our culture and giving our team members short updates or reminders about it.

When talking about empowering, Carolyn says that if a new manager doesn't handle anything perfectly, it's a training moment for us. She never expects senior management to reprimand or overrule the manager. This would undermine the new manager. She'll never build a team that way and uses situations in many ways to develop leaders. Their culture program is rolled out to all employees, but as people progress into supervisory and management roles, they use a combination of hands-on manager training in-house, outside support training, and expanded coaching for dealing with challenging issues. Carolyn likes to call these "coaching conversations.” They actually sit team members down with management of all levels and practice the language to use in coaching team members. This is also encouraged in a peer-to-peer group setting, she adds.Her direct resports say “Carolyn empowers us by making sure to show that our work is important, and that we have the ability to successfully perform tasks. We have the freedom to choose how to initiate and carry those tasks out, and how our personal behavior at work contributes to important outcomes”.

We're still implementing aspects of Isolved and our HRIS system. I insist that HRIS is "one version of the truth." The platform is so in-depth and robust that a client can decide the amount of functionality to release, and our team helps them upgrade and implement it, asserts Carolyn. We can provide a client with a payroll platform, then an integrated clock system and scheduling. We use geo fencing for time cards on job sites. They can add a general ledger to Sage, Quickbooks, or other accounting software. If somebody needs a 401K and EDI integration, we can deploy that. Client needs, scheduling, and deployment determine 100 % customization and we also train clients on best practices and our systems.

Our clients receive various services from legal, EEOC, UI, payroll, and MSHA disputes. We have a network of support outside our offices to help clients with practically any element of their business. A mining client received fines that were heavy-handed and unreasonable. Our Compliance and Safety team helped the customer save several thousand dollars. Another client was still doing everything manually, from handwritten and punch-clock time cards to manual payroll checks. We set them up with time and attendance, payroll processing, and a 401K feed. In examining their procedures, we identified compliance issues that might have cost them during an audit. The client avoided penalties and improved company auditing.

Going above and beyond is our motto. We partner with clients to understand their businesses. Our safety experts will attend OSHA site inspections with them. If needed for an acquisition or open enrollment, our HR and Benefits team will visit the client. Our company believes in the human touch and keeps the human in human resources.

Inspiring all who want to be in-business , Carolyn explains that success doesn’t come overnight. There is no elevator or short cut. Sometimes, when you are really struggling and almost ready to give up, that is exactly when you need to just dig deep, because success is usually right around that next corner in Carolyn’s outlook.

In a time when everyone seems to be fighting for the latest tech, our philosophy is to aim for purpose-driven change. "We don't oversell to our clients, and we'll remain strategic with our technology and deployment stance and meet or exceed our client expectations," says Carolyn. She thinks the future is very bright and they will continue to grow their teams, develop and train them, and grow their client base.