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Workforce Not
Updated July 21, 2016

Workforce Not

Christopher Carey, HRIP | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 2 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with ADP Workforce Now

We currently use ADP Workforce Now for our Core HR, Benefits, Payroll, ACA, and several outsourced functions including tax, employment verification and unemployment.

We use employee self-service for benefits enrollment (new hires, life events and open enrollment), direct deposit and federal tax election for employees within the US.
  • Tax service outsourcing works as expected, is fast and accurate, and helps us limit our liability.
  • Benefits enrollments (typically) run smoothly through self-service.
  • Custom reporting tool is not intuitive, particularly joins between different data, and the proprietary reporting tool is clunky and slow.
  • Effective dates are grouped within areas (e.g. employment profile) making an employee's historical record extremely difficult to discern. This bleeds into the reporting.
  • There is no test environment available for clients, nor is there one (I'm told) available for ADP support.
  • Service hold-times are long and the support is inadequate. Nearly every call for us ends with "we need to escalate this to development".
  • There is no ability to configure field dependencies (e.g. departments are only available within a specific business unit), and employee attributes are one-dimensional (not hierarchical).
  • The workflow tool for manager self-service is extremely limited and completely text-based. This, plus the lack of the test environment, makes deploying a reliable manager self-service system nearly impossible.
  • Employee self-service reduces some administrative processes.
  • Lack of ability to test functionality prior to deploying creates a dangerous environment for process improvement.
  • The onerous administrative responsibilities due to systems deficiencies negate any gains found through employee self-service.
ADP Workforce Now falls well short when compared to the other similar players in the cloud HCM space (Bamboo, Ultimate, Dayforce, etc.,), as well as the big three (Workday, Success Factors, Oracle Fusion).

While ADP has been making progress with their Workforce Now product, advances have been slow and it's rare that a patch doesn't disrupt another function of the system. The lack of user acceptance testing as part of the release process is disconcerting at best, and extremely disruptive at worst when patches go live.

ADP Workforce Now may be suitable for smaller employers (less than 250 employees) who have a low-level of organizational complexity, and who either have no plans for growth or have a defined period to shop for a new system. There are better products for this company size, although they may require integration between HR and Payroll.

The lack of test environment should make this a non-starter for nearly any company.

ADP Workforce Now Feature Ratings

4.6
Employee demographic data
7
Employment history
2
Job profiles and administration
3
Workflow for transfers, promotions, pay raises, etc.
1
Organizational charting
7
Organization and location management
6
Compliance data (COBRA, OSHA, etc.)
6
7.3
Pay calculation
7
Support for external payroll vendors
Not Rated
Benefit plan administration
7
Direct deposit files
8
Salary revision and increment management
7
Reimbursement management
Not Rated
1.5
Approval workflow
1
Balance details
2
Annual carry-forward and encashment
Not Rated
5.3
View and generate pay and benefit information
8
Update personal information
8
View job history
3
View company policy documentation
2
1.0
Tracking of all physical assets
1
4.0
Report builder
3
Pre-built reports
5
Integration with other HR capabilities ()
Not Rated
2.0
Performance plans
2
Review status tracking
Not Rated
Review reminders
Not Rated
Multiple review frequency
Not Rated
Succession Planning ()
Not Rated
Onboarding ()
Not Rated
1.5
Individual goal setting
2
Line-of sight-visibility
1
Performance tracking
Not Rated
Not Rated
Job Requisition Management
Not Rated
Company Website Posting
Not Rated
Publish to Social Media
Not Rated
Job Search Site Posting
Not Rated
Duplicate Candidate Prevention
Not Rated
Applicant Tracking
Not Rated
Notifications and Alerts
Not Rated

ADP Workforce Support

Hold times are long, and the support centers are ill equipped to answer questions. Most calls end with "I need to send this development."
ProsCons
None
Slow Resolution
Poor followup
Less knowledgeable
Not kept informed
Escalation required
Difficult to get immediate help
Need to explain problems multiple times
Support doesn't seem to care
Yes - We are not notified once bugs are patched, but sometimes things start working again. Occasionally when we report issues, we are told (after escalation) that that aspect of the system is working as designed (apparently those things were designed poorly).

Using ADP Workforce

Lack of documentation and test environment make it extremely difficult to deploy work processes through the system. While there are a handful of things throughout the system that work well, particularly from an employee's perspective, many tasks, which would be simple for practitioner users in other systems, require these users to ask for administrator support.
Additionally, the ghosts in the ADP machine cause established process (e.g. automated report delivery) to stop working with no notice and no error report.
ProsCons
Technical support not required
Feel confident using
Difficult to use
Not well integrated
Inconsistent
Cumbersome
  • From an employee perspective, changes to personal information, direct deposit and taxes are easy to change, although not always easy to find.
  • Viewing pay checks is a breeze.
  • Payroll roll-ups for an individual are simple to execute.
  • Configuration of employee and manager activities is extremely difficult due to lack of, or inadequate documentation.
  • The proprietary reporting tool is cumbersome, slow, and poorly documented. As this tool does not use standard nomenclature (e.g. joins), there is a steep learning curve, and it often takes many iterations to extract the desired data.
  • The effective dating is designed poorly. This makes finding an employee's history extremely difficult.
Yes - ADP has a mobile app which is extremely limited in functionality. It is, however, easy to view pay stubs through the mobile app.