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Struggle to use ADP to meet our needs
February 19, 2020

Struggle to use ADP to meet our needs

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 3 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with ADP Workforce Now

We currently utilize ADP products for anything related to employment (onboarding, payroll, benefits). We have five locations and several remote employees throughout the US.
  • Tax filings are done timely and efficiently.
  • ADP provides a place for significant data storage.
  • Support from customer service is inconsistent, often can't get needed help timely. Current support model (one key contact), doesn't work. If we ask questions outside of that person's area of expertise we struggle to get help.
  • Lack of follow through on requests & flexibility in handling payroll/benefit issues. We have some unique needs related to payroll processing and ADP struggles to support. Integrating with benefit providers is much too difficult.
  • Payroll and HR team don't see it as a long term partner.
  • Employees are frustrated by repeat issues in pay & benefits.
ADP's sheer size will allow for handling many transactions. I don't see ability of the software to accommodate our growth as an issue.
  • Benefit providers
  • JDE Enterprise One
We had small success integrating with our primary health care provider, but at significant cost and time. Maintaining the integration has proven difficult. Other benefit provider integrations weren't successful. Best you can get for integration into our ERP and custom software are downloads that can then be uploaded. Way too manual.
We just went through a major upgrade to our ERP system and haven't been actively monitoring the market. Our plans are to do so in the very near future - it's hard to see ADP as a long term solution/partner for our needs.
ADP Workforce Now might work well for you if you can configure payroll to their systems and process. As a manufacturer and operator of a trucking operation we have several unique pay and benefit arrangements that don't fit well within ADP's system. Trying to get support from their team is uneven at best and most always frustrating. Software is buggy and causes issues for users - creates a lack of trust in the system. Way too many processing errors occur because of either bad direction from customer service or from mysterious changes in the payroll/benefit set up from one payroll cycle to the next.

ADP Workforce Now Feature Ratings

3.4
Employee demographic data
5
Employment history
5
Job profiles and administration
5
Workflow for transfers, promotions, pay raises, etc.
1
Organizational charting
2
Organization and location management
3
Compliance data (COBRA, OSHA, etc.)
3
3.3
Pay calculation
5
Support for external payroll vendors
1
Benefit plan administration
1
Direct deposit files
7
Salary revision and increment management
5
Reimbursement management
1
1.0
Approval workflow
1
Balance details
1
Annual carry-forward and encashment
1
4.5
View and generate pay and benefit information
5
Update personal information
5
View company policy documentation
5
Employee recognition
3
Asset Management ()
Not Rated
1.7
Report builder
2
Pre-built reports
2
Ability to combine HR data with external data
1
Integration with other HR capabilities ()
Not Rated
Not Rated
Performance plans
Not Rated
Performance improvement plans
Not Rated
Review status tracking
Not Rated
Review reminders
Not Rated
Multiple review frequency
Not Rated
Succession Planning ()
Not Rated
Onboarding ()
Not Rated
Not Rated
Corporate goal setting
Not Rated
Individual goal setting
Not Rated
Line-of sight-visibility
Not Rated
Performance tracking
Not Rated
3.7
Job Requisition Management
3
Company Website Posting
1
Publish to Social Media
3
Job Search Site Posting
5
Applicant Tracking
6
Notifications and Alerts
4

Using ADP Workforce Now

700 - We process payroll for all of our employees through ADP, so everyone is a user at some level. As far as managers, payroll and HR we have about 50 active users. Operation level managers on plant floor, managers in all areas of company as well as our hiring and payroll teams.
4 - High level of system knowledge, analytical skills, organizational skills. Helps to have people who have significant experience in payroll and HR prior to using ADP's system. This isn't for the faint of heart, you can't just plug someone in to use the system.
  • Payroll for 700+ employees
  • Benefits for 700+ employees
  • We lack confidence at present to invest in ADP.
It's hard to replace, especially after a major ERP upgrade. Problem is the level of support and issues have raised the concerns to where we will have to look at other options in the next 12 - 18 months.

Evaluating ADP Workforce Now and Competitors

Yes - AS 400 based ERP payroll solution paired with the Kronos Time & Attendance system. We upgraded to a new windows/sequel based ERP and advice from user groups was that we needed to source a payroll specialist for our payroll and benefit needs.
  • Price
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
  • Analyst Reports
  • Third-party Reviews
ADP is the industry leader and was highly positioned at user conferences for the ERP package we selected. Assumption was that we needed to go with what we perceived to be the industry leader so that we could focus our needs on our manufacturing and business processes. In other words, use experts in payroll and benefits to allow us to devote our limited resources on other needs.
Our experience starting going south during the implementation process. We had the wrong team assigned (lack of knowledge about where we were and where we needed to go). Should have pulled the plug early in that process. This was the first major change in our payroll processing in close to 20 years - we should have looked at more providers and interacted with users of those products. We had concerns about stories of difficulty with ADP from years ago - they don't seem to have changed.

ADP Workforce Now Implementation

Definitely would repeat this process again. Should have demanded a team that understood where we were in terms of payroll and benefits (environment, systems, needs) and pushed for onsite help during implementation. Simply too complex to be handled offsite with people in many locations.
  • Implemented in-house
Yes - Payroll
Time & Attendance
Benefits
Onboarding
Change management was a major issue with the implementation - Since we used Kronos for time and attendance prior to the conversion, we expected the switch to Workforce Now to be more seamless to our users. We didn't anticipate the radical change in the interface and the difficulty in making the system work in our environments. ADP's implementation team clearly wasn't prepared for the complexity or our operations and many poor decisions were made early on that caused much pain and cost later to correct. Honestly still dealing with some fall out from those initial decisions.
  • Lack of understanding by ADP resources of our needs.
  • Inability to interface data with third parties.

ADP Workforce Now Support

Inconsistent. Advice is often wrong (kind of like dealing with the IRS). Takes too long to get responses on many issues, seems to be worst when the primary contact isn't familiar with the module or issue involved. Find ourselves looking to other areas for help (Bridge, other users, our own research).
ProsCons
None
Slow Resolution
Poor followup
Problems left unsolved
Not kept informed
Escalation required
Difficult to get immediate help
Need to explain problems multiple times
Slow Initial Response
Yes - Seems to go into the black hole.... Had to create work arounds to process our needs.
We had a less than stellar implementation and we raised our concerns to ADP management. They appointed a customer service person to be our path to clean up the issues that developed after implementing the product. She stepped in and navigated us through ADP's resources and resolved many of those issues. Problem is, when that was over she was gone and our service level dropped to horrible after her departure.

Using ADP Workforce Now

Processing of payroll is overly complex. From entering time records, approvals, entering other pay related data, managing benefits, enrollments, etc - nothing seems to work easily. Users struggle to get what they need, and a lack of support from ADP makes it hard to assist.
ProsCons
None
Do not like to use
Unnecessarily complex
Difficult to use
Requires technical support
Not well integrated
Inconsistent
Slow to learn
Cumbersome
Feel nervous using
Lots to learn
  • Reviewing employee history
  • Accessing tax records and history
  • Report writing - very difficult to achieve needed reports
  • Time and attendance system is clunky and difficult to train users
Yes - Not bad as an employee (view paycheck), but making changes is not clean. As a manager, the interface isn't very useful.

ADP Workforce Now Reliability

System access is reliable, but I can't give it a higher rating because of the constant changes to data and software. Seems like every upgrade causes parts of the process that had been working to fail. We have had codes disappear, deductions to change, access to software to stop, report changes...
Software is typically available for users. We do have some issues with the Time and Attendance module being down. Clocks that capture time are nowhere near as reliable as the old Kronos clocks we used for years.

Relationship with ADP

A little pushy, sales contacts change way too frequently. After five years, I have no idea who my main contact is with ADP.
Rotating door of contacts. We don't have a partnership at this point, just another account. We get swapped from rep to rep, or worse, ignored.
Pretty standard implementation, modified some of the billing terms and customization that was required.
Be very clear in what you need and how you expect to be represented within their organization. They will push you to the side unless they have another product to pitch to you.