Extensis Group: Multi-Pronged HR Technology and Innovative HR Solutions

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Dan Sheridan, President

The enterprise sphere continues to experience several trends and challenges pertaining to HR operations. HR is no longer a backend setup; it has evolved to be amongst the most decisive departments within any enterprise, irrespective of size. Orchestrating all typical HR functions,as well as building expertise in specialties like employee engagement, wellness, benefits, and development and training, is not an easy task. Not to mention the imperative need to adhere to rapidly evolving compliance mandates at all government levels. To this end, it’s a no brainer that professional employer organizations (PEOs) hold an immense value proposition.

New Jersey-based Extensis Group is a PEO providing comprehensive, bundled HR solutions to companies with one to 1,000 worksite employees. The company holds rich experience catering to enterprises across a wide range of industry verticals and leverages its cutting-edge technology to simplify HR. Extensis works exclusively through a broad network of insurance brokers. Since insurance brokers are trusted advisors for small and mid-sized businesses, Extensis is uniquely positioned to understand and offer solutions to fit each client’s specific HR and benefits needs. This unique marketplace approach sets them apart from their national direct-selling competitors.

Simplifying the Complex World of HR

Employers’ HR needs vary from one industry to another and from state to state. Today’s employment diversity clearly illustrates the ineffectiveness of one-size-fits-all HR solutions and service approaches. Perceptively, since its inception in the early nineties, Extensis understood that trying to “please everyone” isn’t realistic or feasible. Extensis chooses to focus on 16 white-collar, core industries with like-minded HR and benefits needs. They’ve built a comprehensive portfolio of HR products and technology-enabled services for their client base, which allows them to create meaningful, personalized HR solutions for each client.

Extensis caters to its clients through a fully cloud-based human resource information system (HRIS) platform—HRCloud. The service suite comprises HR administration and consulting, workers’ compensation, and risk management, along with Fortune 500-level employee benefits. “It’s easy for employers to plug into our HR expertise and software platform. With HRCloud, we house all our clients’ employment data on one secure, integrated platform. This allows client administrators, managers, and worksite employees to instantly access employment information,” says Dan Sheridan, president of Extensis.

"We wanted to create something simple, where they didn’t need more than 10 seconds to find what they were looking for and nothing they needed was more than a single screen tap away"

Managers can oversee their employee workforce through the Manager Self-Service portal and worksite employees can view their PTO, personal deductions, and 401(k) contributions in Employee Self-Service.

Tech-Enabled Compliance Management

In the wake of rapidly evolving HR compliance landscapes, small and mid-sized businesses are affected by risk factors pertaining to inaccurate or non-compliant payroll and tax administration.

These companies often lack the necessary resources, skills, and experience to mitigate compliance risk. Extensis’ HRCloud has the requisite controls to ensure all their clients’ payrolls are compliant with wage and hour requirements, federal, state, and local tax with holdings, and adhere to regulatory mandates. HRCloud automates and manages all these compliance requirements so their clients have less to worry about.

With HRCloud, we house all our clients’ employment data on one secure, integrated platform this allows client administrators,managers, and worksite employees to instantly access employment information

A Comprehensive,Integrated HRIS Platform for Employee Benefits

Small and mid-sized employers often face difficulty gaining access to innovative and cost-effective healthcare solutions and employee benefits. Surprisingly, employee benefits are an employer’s second highest expense after wages. With Extensis, these companies can provide Fortune 500-level benefits programs. Extensis also brings to the table a novel “Benefits Marketplace” where employees can directly access and enroll in voluntary products and employee perks which these small and mid-sized employers are unable to provide.

“For employees, our benefits enrollment platform is convenient and intuitive. It gives them a whole new enrollment experience. They don’t have to thumb through reams of paper enrollment forms and then blindly try to figure out which plans to sign up for. HRCloud gives employees and their spouses instant access to the data and tools they need to quickly make more informed and smarter benefits decisions for their families,” adds Sheridan. The platform’s deep connectivity allows Extensis to simplify the benefits selection and enrollment process, and directly feed employees’ data into its payroll system, ensuring accurate deductions and carrier enrollment.

Their HRIS platform also enables clients to easily manage their benefit renewals with the help of sophisticated decision-making support tools. And, any time of year, managers and employees can instantly access benefits on demand, 24/7, via desktop or mobile application.

Client-Centric At All Levels

A key differentiator for Extensis is how simple and convenient their sales and onboarding processes are for clients. Once a client chooses to partner with Extensis, activation experts leverage the integrated onboarding application within HRCloud. It automates the client setup and employee onboarding processes through data feed, API and SSO-driven processes. This efficient use of integrated technology enables their activation team to reduce the typical activation timeline from a four-week window to less than 10 days.

Extensis’ innovation constantly strives to make their company’s offerings simpler, more convenient, and in tune with what today’s consumers demand. “For instance, we’ve put a lot of focus on providing convenient mobile solutions for managers and worksite employees. With the HRCloud App, we wanted to create something simple, where they didn’t need more than 10 seconds to find what they were looking for— and nothing they needed was more than a single screen tap away,” adds Dan. Extensis’ mobile app strategy is centered on how to deliver what users value most rather than on cramming every possible feature into the app interface. For this, they analyzed web heat maps and data to discover users’ preferences based on where they went and what they interacted with.

Extensis deeply values feedback from its clients to help shape valued new features, products, and services. In addition to an old-school, open feedback loop with their client-base, broker channel, and sales and service teams, the company issues NPS surveys to clients to gain feedback on what’s working well or not so well. This allows their technology and service teams to keep an ear-to-the-ground for real-world needs and expectations.

En-route to a Promising Future

With its multi-pronged HR technology and personalized service delivery model, Extensis— like its name implies— has proved to be a comprehensive extension of their clients’ HR teams. In the last four years, as Sheridan informs, Extensis has consistently achieved an annual 20+ percent growth rate. Having successfully established its presence serving clients in New York, New Jersey, and Philadelphia metropolitan areas, the company recently expanded into Connecticut and will soon set foot in the DC metro area. They are also evaluating other major metropolitan markets throughout the U.S. On the features and functionalities side, Extensis is testing an applicant tracking system in HRCloud to help small and mid-sized employers improve and accelerate their hiring process— and enhance the quality of their hires.