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Mosaic Wins Partner Collaboration, MVPP Awards from Ultimate Software
Mosaic NewsMosaic Consulting Group, LLC won double honors at a recent Ultimate Software Conference, bringing home the Partner Collaboration Award and the MVPP (Most Valuable Partner Peep) Award.
The Partner Collaboration Award is Mosaic’s second such honor from Ultimate Software, having won the award for the first time in 2015. The MVPP award is Mosaic’s first, awarded to Senior Functional Consultant Alex Faulk, a longtime Mosaic team member.
Ultimate annually presents a select number of awards to industry partners who have demonstrated a dedication to client service, developed innovative solutions, and blazed trails in partnering on strategic initiatives to better serve companies that rely on UltiPro as their human capital management (HCM) platform.
Partner Collaboration Award
Mosaic first received the Partner Collaboration award in 2015, one of only three awards presented to Ultimate’s Alliance Partners. As an Alliance Partner, Mosaic is among a select group of sister companies in the Ultimate Software ecosystem who have been selected to enhance, extend and deploy UltiPro for clients, from pre-implementation planning to project and change management, and implementation and client-side training and deployment.
MVPP Award
One of Mosaic’s senior consultants, Alex Faulk, also received the MVPP (Most Valuable Partner Peep) award, a first for the company. Alex has more than 17 years of HR and benefits administration experience and nearly 10 years of dedicated experience within the UltiPro HRIS platform. She has worked for Mosaic for 8 years.
Vicki Hill, Mosaic President and CEO, said, “We are so proud to be a dedicated Ultimate partner since our founding in 2011. Each time Ultimate has undertaken a new initiative and asked for partner support, we have raised our hand. We are passionate about the team and client experience, and making a difference for the clients we serve. It is incredibly gratifying to be recognized in this way and we look forward to helping companies who invest in UltiPro make the most of their investment – and to being a reliable Ultimate partner as they move our industry forward.”
Mosaic Consulting Group is an UltiPro-only payroll and HR software consulting firm based in Nashville, Tenn. Mosaic is the leader in the field of UltiPro implementation, support and maintenance. Our team of consulting experts helps businesses of all sizes and across all industries to maximize their UltiPro investment to access important analytics about their people, identify trends and discover potential cost savings. For more information about Mosaic visit us at www.mosaic.com, or follow us on Facebook and LinkedIn.
Mosaic Welcomes New Vice President of Client Services Kristen Baker
Mosaic NewsMosaic Consulting Group, LLC, a Nashville-based HR technology consulting firm, has hired Kristen Baker as Vice President of Client Services.
Baker comes to Mosaic following nearly 20 years in client service, strategic planning, finance, data analytics and customer relations. She joins Mosaic from Ultimate Software, where she most recently served as Partner Channel Manager, responsible for Ultimate’s strategic initiatives and sales pilots and building relationships with industry partners.
Baker began her career with Ultimate Software in 1999 as a System Consultant and worked her way up through the company as Practice/Implementation Manager, Implementation Director, Workplace and Program Director, Enterprise Services Delivery, and Workload Management Director, before assuming her most recent role over partner relationships.
Vicki Hill, CEO, Mosaic Consulting Group, said, “Kristen has a deep and thorough knowledge of our industry and UltiPro, our client base, and the nuances of building solid relationships and partnering with our customers to help develop innovative solutions to their business challenges. She also brings a strong history of leadership and building strong teams, excellent communication skills, and a passion for customer service. We are thrilled to have her leading our team in this important new role.”
As VP of Client Services, Baker will serve as the first line of contact for Mosaic clients, owning the client experience and overall client satisfaction, identifying solutions and opportunities for current and prospective clients, and helping clients to maximize their investment in UltiPro. She will also oversee training and development for Mosaic’s professional services team, resourcing and capacity management.
When asked about joining the Mosaic team, Baker said, “I am beyond excited to join Mosaic! It’s an amazing team that has built a strong organization over the last several years. There is tremendous opportunity, and I can’t wait to be a part of helping to shape Mosaic’s future.”
Baker attended Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. and the University of Florida in Gainesville. She holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and statistics.
Mosaic Consulting Group is an UltiPro-only payroll and HR software consulting firm based in Nashville, Tennessee, and a dedicated partner of Ultimate Software. Mosaic is the leader in the field of UltiPro implementation, support and maintenance. Our team of consulting experts helps businesses of all sizes and across all industries to maximize their UltiPro investment to access important analytics about their people, identify trends and discover potential cost savings. For more information about Mosaic, visit www.mosaic.com.
System Optimization: Telltale Signs Your UKG Pro System Isn’t Optimized
Optimization, UKG ProUKG Pro puts the power of your organization’s people data at your fingertips. The UKG Pro HCM platform offers you robust capabilities for digging deep into your data to learn more about your business, including trends, gaps, weak points, and opportunities to grow or simply streamline your operations.
UKG Pro can transfer data seamlessly among different platforms, increasing fluency and accuracy in your HRIS data, automate manual processes, and create business intelligence reports that help you make better business decisions. And that’s just the beginning.
There’s so much that UKG Pro can do that you may not be aware of system capabilities you aren’t utilizing. UKG Pro is a significant investment—the more you know about your system and the areas it can help, the better your ROI.
If you have an organizational need – a process that seems cumbersome, data that has to be manually updated, an upcoming audit or seasonal company event that has a great deal of complexity – look first within your UKG Pro system to see what it can do.
You may have just completed a major implementation, or your company may be facing rapid growth, a merger or acquisition; or you may have just lost a key member of your HRIS team who had significant institutional knowledge and you are trying to fill the gap.
The good news is, by asking the right questions, you can almost always find a way that UKG Pro can do more for you.
Watch the recording of our webinar on this topic:
Click here to download the slides used during this webinar.
The First Step: Asking the Right Questions
Whether you are new to UKG Pro or a veteran user, it is important to regularly review your current system and its configuration to make sure it is still the correct set-up for your company. Below is a series of conversation-driven questions you can have with your C-suite leaders, your HRIS team, or end users of the system, to understand your business processes, both current and desired. You can use these questions to guide you in your own optimization projects:
Read our blog on Cognos Analytics to find out more about what Cognos can do for you and your team.
The right system access may seem like a simple thing, but here’s an example of what can go wrong: a Mosaic client was helping managers get additional access to data on their employees. Working late on a weekend, the client inadvertently assigned Super Admin Access to all company employees. When employees started to find out they had access to C-level salary information, it was too late, and information began to spread like wildfire. While this is an extreme case, are you certain that access given to employees is appropriate? Too much access is just as bad as not enough, in some cases.
Remember, have UKG Pro work for you – not the other way around! All businesses have their own processes and ways of managing their companies. UKG Pro can be configured to meet those needs in more ways than you may realize. Don’t work for UKG Pro by doing processes manually – make UKG Pro work for you!
If UKG Pro interfaces with your vendors, that’s great news, but when was the last time the interface was reviewed? Is it working correctly, does it provide the data needed? Or does your team still find themselves manually manipulating data before it is sent off? UKG Pro can save time and effort, reduce the likelihood of human error, and free your team from manual tasks to focus on the highest and best use of their time. For more on UltiPro Interfaces read our blog on UKG Pro Integrations.
Some audits may be planned, and others may be a surprise. If the department of labor came to your office, how prepared would your team be and what would they find?
All of these questions will help you assess whether you are getting everything you need out of your UKG Pro system. And the answer isn’t a one-size-fits all: UKG Pro can do different things for different organizations, depending on your need. The key is making sure that you’re using it to full capacity, whatever your strategic business needs.
What is a System Optimization Review?
A good first step to optimize your system is a complete system and process review. Assessing your UKG Pro system is a process that you can undertake on your own, or you can bring in a specialist to help you.
A System and Process Review gives you a comprehensive understanding of the areas that may be underutilized where you can focus to begin optimizing your UKG Pro system
A system review is performed by a seasoned consultant who spends two to three days onsite, on the ground, with your team – C-suite leaders, your HRIS team, IT, and any others who use your UKG Pro system. During this time with your team, the consultant probes to learn about all company processes and configuration, and whether UKG Pro is properly configured to support those processes.
The benefit: you’ll gain a comprehensive view of your current functionality as well as future, best-case functionality, and a road map to get there. Mosaic recommends System and Process Reviews to all clients who wish to ensure their UKG Pro is fully optimized. Click here to read more about how one of our clients benefited from their System Review. Interested in moving forward? Contact us today!
Note: UKG Pro was formerly UltiPro.
UKG Pro Integrations: Files, Data and API’s, Oh My!
Optimization, Strategy, UKG ProEmployee-related expenses (salaries, benefits, taxes, etc.) comprise up to 70% of a company’s total operating expenses – which makes leveraging HR technology to make informed business decisions imperative. HR, Finance, and Operations leaders’ ability to use data effectively to move the business forward depends on having a reliable central source for company data, and the ability to seamlessly update and ensure data integrity, in concert, across many different technology platforms.
For many companies, UKG Pro serves as the “system of record” for most employee and organizational data, making it the best and most reliable source to feed systems, vendors, and processes. Integrations help maintain data integrity in internal and external sources, using UKG Pro as the source of truth, for improved accuracy, security, efficiency, compliance, and decision-making.
Watch the recording of our webinar on this topic:
Click here to download the slides used during this webinar.
Why Use Integrations?
Integrations help systems to interact, working with consistent, accurate data among the multiple systems to make informed decisions. Integrations have many benefits, such as enhancing the user experience, improving processes by consolidating data to make it more consumable/actionable, and limiting manual work for your payroll, HR, IT and accounting staff. UKG Pro integrations help free your team of mundane and repeatable tasks to focus on more global and meaningful aspects of your business: your people, your strategy, and the bottom line.
Integrations help data flow from UKG Pro to other systems and to vendors who use employee data to support your company, such as:
Which Integration(s) Are Right For Me?
There are many types of integrations to import data into UKG Pro from an external source or to push data out of UKG Pro. Determining the type of integration to deploy will depend on many factors, including:
In addition to these factors, we recommend a quick review of your business processes to help identify opportunities for an integration.
Integrations can also address security or compliance vulnerabilities. Automatically generating and sending general ledger files to the GL system eliminates the opportunity for manual manipulation the GL files. (manual manipulation of GL files has been used to cover up fraudulent payroll activities.)
An Overview of Various UKG Pro Integrations
UKG provides many methods and tools for integrating UKG Pro with other systems and platforms. Most common integrations fall in the following categories:
Ultimately, integrations help UKG Pro stay in sync with other applications, vendors, processes and services to improve efficiency, reduce vulnerabilities for fraud and abuse, and help company leaders make more strategic, informed decisions.
Note: UKG was formerly Ultimate Software. UKG Pro was formerly UltiPro.
Culture by Design: Keeping Culture Alive With a Remote Workforce
Company Culture, HRCulture doesn’t just happen. It must be developed, nurtured and maintained in an intentional way – especially when majority of your workforce is remote, behind a screen, in their home or home office, or possibly sitting in an airport while traveling to a meet a client.
Remote work has become increasingly popular in the United States with the rise of technology and new ways of staying connected and sharing information that are as efficient (and sometimes more so) than traditional offices and boardrooms. Companies are able to share information seamlessly, transmit data with the click of a button, share screens, chat over instant message, and connect with one another from nearly anywhere in the world.
Fast Company reported in February 2018 on Upwork’s Future Workforce Report, “Many of the 1,000 hiring managers surveyed said that they expect up to 38% of their full-time staff will be working remotely in the next decade.” Fast Company went on to say: “Currently, 63% of employers have remote workers, yet a majority lack remote work policies.” A written policy may not be necessary, but it is important to establish norms and be intentional about your remote workers’ experiences within your culture and connections to one another.
Not all remote work is the same – there are positives and challenges to the lifestyle. Remote work arrangements, when they first hit the work scene, were instantly alluring because of their novelty, the lure of greater work-life balance and a flexible work environment that seemed so desirable principally because of the words, “work from home.” For many of us, this conjured up images of working in pajama pants with a big cup of coffee, participating in a conference call from the location of your choice – a home office, the airport, or your car – and there was a certain sense of freedom, ease, even glamour, associated with having a “flexible” or “remote” work arrangement.
Connection & Culture
We now know that employing a remote workforce takes effort and commitment to a positive work environment and culture at all levels of the organization. Mosaic is proud of what we have learned about creating a thriving remote workforce – but there are always challenges to making sure that your workforce feels connected, engaged, and included. Maintaining a remote workforce with a kickass culture is a challenge, for sure. One of the primary challenges employees who work remotely cite is the feeling of isolation and being less of a “part of the team”.
At Mosaic, we strive to be the exception and maintain a strongly connected and centered team, regardless of where we all do our respective jobs. For us, this boils down to two things: our culture, and good communication. Here is a look at some of our practices that contribute to our connectivity:
Huddles
We touch base with each other regularly to talk about what we’re up to, what we’re stuck on, and what we need help with. Many of our remote team members tell us that it’s not simply the information shared, but the experience of being “in the room” virtually, and connected with the rest of our team, that makes them feel more a part of their team, and the company, when so many work in locations across the country and are in our Nashville office only a few times a year.
Video Chat
This is how we make our huddles happen, and many other points of connection throughout the day. We’ve found that our team prefers Zoom video chat over instant messaging. The personal aspect of seeing one another – no matter where you are – creates that human connection. We encourage everyone to “show their faces” for internal meetings; this reduces the intimidation factor and makes everyone more comfortable using this medium.
We encourage our team to have conversations that would have happened over the watercooler if we all shared an office building. It’s important to us to have these conversations as if we are physically in an office with our team – to connect when there is good news or difficult news. By doing this, we are able to better maintain that intimate, entrepreneurial, small-team family feeling, no matter how big we grow. I think it’s vital to know your team and know what they are dealing with and establish a relationship where you can coach and mentor, and this is one of the many things that I think sets Mosaic apart. Cheri, a Washington-based consultant, says, “Even though I work remotely, it is important for me to stay connected to co-workers to ensure I feel like I’m part of a team. One way I stay connected is scheduling short meetings to say hi and catch up on life. We share best practices and sometime have a glass of wine. While I am not in a physical office building, you can still have the same outcome by making simply efforts to stay connected.”
Work is life and life is work. Sometimes you are walking through a parking lot or sitting in a car when you join a call or you haven’t showered yet. There is grace within the team and within our walls. We trust that we all look professional as we go onsite or connect with clients, but our culture stresses being comfortable just being who we are with each other on a daily basis, and I hope everyone on the team feels this.
Having a conversation with a colleague over Zoom where you can see their facial expressions and body language helps us communicate clearly and understand each other better. Tricia, a remote Senior PAS team member in Tennessee eloquently described the value of Zoom when she said, “At Mosaic we choose to ‘assume positive intent’ of one another – with instant messaging you can sometimes misread inflection or intent. Zoom helps you maintain the assumption of positive intent because you are able to pair a colleague’s nonverbal cues with their words.”
Creative Workspace
Much like the “chat rooms” in the old days of the web, #Slack has become our place to gather (and from our climbing message stats, it seems like it’s taken off!). As most of you already know, we implemented Slack as a place to collaborate on projects with groups, to send group messages, or to launch video meetings. It’s the place we all meet up, and while the primary focus is work, we make room for fun, too. Encouraging a workplace where people bring themselves into the environment and share personal details, special moments, talents, and accomplishments, or just a good joke or two, reinforces the personal connection and makes our team feel like family.
Virtual Events
When our team does gather “in real life” – for quarterly or annual planning meetings or other company events – we’re able to pick up seamlessly because we “see” each other so often over Zoom and share information on #Slack.
Companies today must think outside the box. We learned as we outgrew the feasibility of flying everyone in several times a year for meetings and the annual holiday party, that we needed to take a creative approach to these events. We added virtual events, in addition to quarterly meetings and monthly All Hands Calls: our Secret Santa party, monthly BetterBookClub meetings, and more. It is this kind of celebration that connects individuals throughout the organization for a positive reason that has nothing to do with work that is extremely valuable. It provides the opportunity to connect and get to know one another. We are building grace equity in the relationship.
This year, I heard about a virtual happy hour that our Client Engagement team held. They all grabbed their beverage of choice in their home offices and joined a video conference call. Their “happy hour” turned into two-and-a-half hours of stories and belly laughs. I had a little FOMO when I heard about this bonding time for their team, but more than that, I was happy to see this team being proactive about connecting with one another as people who share experiences beyond office hours and routine work. They were embracing the culture and making it even better by prioritizing time to connect with their fellow teammates.
Our Wingman Program
We’ve all had the experience of joining a new company and thinking, “How am I going to learn all that I need to learn, and get up to speed?” You don’t want to ask what might be perceived as a stupid question, but you also want to connect and feel at home. Many of you have benefitted from our Wingman program at Mosaic or served as a Wingman yourself.
Some of you may not know that this program came into being organically, in sharing my own experience with a rock star consultant who had joined us and was struggling to adjust. Brian, a Texas-based consultant, was transitioning from a corporate environment to working with Mosaic from home. He had just left a position which involved a daily commute and a big office with fluorescent lights and people constantly milling about. Since I had been consulting for over 10 years already, I had disconnected from how difficult this transition could be. It takes time to adjust to life as a remote employee. Unlike a typical office environment, you can’t just pop your head into someone’s office to ask a question or ask a coworker something simple like where to find the benefits documentation you were given during orientation. These conversations would organically occur after morning huddle or in the break room during lunch. To the remote worker, asking simple questions that are necessary during the onboarding period feels like you are interrupting your boss or peer. Brian brought a wealth of knowledge and expertise to Mosaic, and his experience shined a light on a gap we needed to fill in our onboarding process. Our team stepped in and made time to support him. He eloquently described his transition to consulting life: “The way that the team scaffolded me allowed me to move forward and not worry about my inadequacies. They carried me until I could walk – and now I’m running!”
His experience exemplifies what we desire for each of our team members to find success as remote employees at Mosaic. We wanted all new team members to feel this way, so we created the Wingman Program which pairs each new member of our team with a peer who is dedicated to helping the new team mate acclimate. The wingman is a resource for all the questions that seem silly, helping the individual adjust, and being there for them as they settle in to help them feel connected.
Remote work as a consultant also requires a certain amount of self-management that is less common in some traditional workplaces. We expect consultants to self-manage many aspects of their day. They learn to juggle multiple clients, varying priorities and deadlines, and their workload on top of the personalities involved as well. The process of acclimating to this style of work takes time, and it can be different for everyone. The Wingman is a great resource for new consultants as they can learn first-hand how a peer juggles their day-to-day.
Celebrations and Acknowledgements
There’s something special about public acknowledgement of something that is important to you. It makes it real. That is why we record and remember our team’s personal milestones: birthdays, children’s birthdays, work and personal anniversaries. Our team understands that they are important. Run a marathon? Had a baby? Your child graduated from high school? We want to know it and celebrate it with you.
This is also why, during our monthly All Hands Call, we share the top company news and end with the open invite for team members to give one another a shout out and share their “Attitude of Gratitude.” This gives us an opportunity to thank one another, celebrate one another, and gas each other up. It is the most important part of that call. Publicly acknowledging what we are doing well in an open forum can never be overdone. It serves an additional purpose in allowing people who don’t frequently work with one another hear about what is going well in different areas of the organization.
You either have a culture by default or by design. And, to me, “by design” means more than just a few early team members setting standards for remote work nearly ten years ago. In order to sustain connection across a fast-growing organization, it takes a team that is fully engaged and bought into the rewards that come from the effort it takes to connect with one another. I am proud that Mosaic continues to stand out as a place of work that is committed to being a remote team of exceptionally connected individuals. I encourage you to continue to be creative and introduce new ways of intentional connection company-wide.
I firmly believe that remote workforces are not only here to stay, but a growing norm among leading companies. To attract the best talent and offer challenging and rewarding work, we must flex as to the location our team works from and give them ownership over the way they perform their jobs to meet company goals. But providing a “home base” for our team is critical: a culture they feel connected to, a work family, and an environment that makes it feel as if your co-workers are just an office away – no matter where they’re working from — and that is what makes our Mosaic team special.
The Many Moving Parts of a Successful Year End
HR, Strategy, Yearly PlanningWhat is Year End?
Well, it means different things to different people and parts of your organization.
If you’re in Human Resources, Year End means getting ready for a new benefit year with Open Enrollment, reviewing policies to make sure they are in compliance with new laws, and fielding last- minute questions from employees about their existing or new benefits.
In payroll, Year End is the culmination of everything done during the year, as well as a number of processes that you execute only once a year. Year End is your last chance to find and fix issues from the current year before they become complicated. These issues might include: an employee moved without telling anyone; people were overpaid or underpaid; someone just noticed duplicate employee records.
In short, Year End can be hectic, but it’s easier to get all the details right, the first time, instead of having to go back and make adjustments later. UKG Pro gives you tools and resources to manage the process, and, if you are using UKG Pro, Mosaic is here to help! Check out Simplifying Your Year End for more tips and tricks.
UKG and Mosaic Consulting Group experts agree: for a successful Year End, the key is to begin the process as early as possible. Here are some other resources and tools that will help make the process easier for you. At the bottom of this article you will find a recording of a Mosaic Webinar on this topic.
Leverage UKG Pro for a Smooth Year End:
As an UKG-only consulting firm, Mosaic has the knowledge you need to be sure you are using this powerful tool to its fullest capacity during the busy Year End season. It is important to understand the what’s involved in preparing for Year End, know the resources available to you, identify the people to have on your team, make a checklist to keep track of all the moving parts, and get familiar with the new features of UKG Pro that will make the process easier for you! Keep reading for more information on what UKG Pro offers to ensure you have an easy transition in to the new year.
UKG Pro Year End Gateway:
If you are a Mid Market client, and UKG Pro files your payroll taxes for you, you can turn on the Year End Gateway in UKG Pro. This can be found under Administration > Year End, and you can provide access to this tool to everyone on your team.
If you don’t see “Year End Gateway” and you think you should, have your Security Administrator review your access level. If it’s enabled and you still can’t see it; you aren’t eligible. If that’s the case,skip to the UKG Pro Checklist section of this article.
The Year End Gateway is an online checklist for the Year End process as they relate to UKG Pro. Pay close attention to the Due Dates – these will change color if you don’t mark something as completed on time. The Gateway walks you step-by-step through the process, and it not only tells you which reports you need to run or the business rules you should look at; it will also take you directly to the report when you click on the links. As an added bonus, as you complete each task, it is marked “complete,” and people working on different parts of the process can see what has been done and what hasn’t. It is a great tool to keep you – and all members of your Year End team! — organized and informed.
UKG Pro Checklist:
UKG also provides a handy-dandy Year End Checklist. Typically, clients who use UKG Pro but who file their own taxes will have access to the checklist instead of the Gateway. To find the checklist, search for “Year End Checklist” on the Customer Success Portal. While not as interactive as the Year End Gateway, this list does provide the tasks that must be done and the sequence they should be completed in. It also gives you the names of the reports you need to run, and the pathways for accessing tasks within UKG Pro.
If you do not use UKG Pro for your tax filing, you will need to append any Year End tasks from your tax filer to this checklist.
New UKG Pro Features – Right on Time for Year End:
One of the biggest changes that happened to UKG Pro this year was the added ability to do reversals and adjustments on the web. This is a game changer for UKG Pro and Mosaic clients! Previously, if you needed to process a reversal and/or adjustment in order to correct a tax issue, you needed to go through the Back Office or, if you don’t have Back Office, open a ticket. Now you can process these changes on the web.
Another exciting change is the addition of an import tool on the web. With the new web import, you can give more people access to import files. If you’re not familiar with creating imports for UKG Pro, these can be complicated, so please don’t hesitate to reach out if you need any help. Here are some links that may help:
UKG Pro Import Tool Instructions:
Is Anything Else New in UKG Pro?
Yes! UKG Pro dropped a batch of new sample reports in BI last month, and these reports will save our clients a great deal of time during year end. Here’s a preview of what you’ll find:
Want to know more about simplifying year end? Check out Mosaic’s tips and tricks to simplify year end.
Whether you’re executing Year End for the first time or looking for ways to make the process more efficient, we can help. Our team has developed best practices from working with a broad range of clients and can help make Year End seamless. Take advantage of the resources, tools and tactical support your Mosaic team can offer.
Contact Mosaic today for help with any and all UKG Pro related projects or questions.
Watch the Mosaic Webinar on The Many Moving Parts of a Successful Year End