Namely vs. PeopleAdmin Higher Ed Platform, from Powerschool

Namely is nice because it has everything all in one place: performance, applicant tracking through Greenhouse, payroll, time off, hourly timesheets, and benefits. From the payroll side, Namely is especially helpful for remote employers who have employees in multiple states, especially Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana. Namely will automatically update the payroll profile of the employee with the state and local tax for the work or home location, whichever the employer chooses. I have found a few mistakes with the local tax being assigned not matching the Ohio Tax Finder, but for the most part, it is accurate. It is also helpful that we can create multiple payrolls for multiple periods and they are included in the overall fee

Incentivized

PeopleAdmin handles the process of recruiting very well. It integrated into the jobbing.com web pages as well as other job websites. The learning curve for users is not too steep. The web page format is intuitive to users. The user interface looks good. The initial issue would be the number of candidates the organization handles per year. Due to our business, we handle a large number of candidates, but US and international. PeopleAdmin facilitates this process.

• Namely has helped with our COVID sick leave response. It has made a major difference both with the weekly payroll and the 941 tax filing
• Keeping track of our multiple PTO plans. Thank goodness for Namely, I have shredded my old PTO spreadsheets.
• Employees like the convenience of the cell phone app. As a payroll administrator, I like the Geo Tracking tool where I can see where some are when the clock is in or out.
• The flexibility inside of the payroll system both as you are finalizing an employee profile and when you are processing payroll is a major advantage.
• The reports I get out of Namely in Excel format work well for me.

Incentivized

• Applicant tracking was a good use of this tool for our department. I think it could use a few more customization features but overall it was a good tool to weed out applicants who were not qualified for the position.
• The system has some canned reporting tools that also worked well for our department and management needs.
• It was a great place to house our position descriptions and provided a readily accessible source for hiring managers to make requested updates and changes and for employees to see and have access to their position descriptions.

• in my opinion, HORRIBLE performance review platform, we had a really hard time with it and would not recommend that you use this function
• In my experience, poor customer service, difficult to get ahold of them when you need support
• Capabilities are limited in comparison to other more robust HRIS systems

Incentivized

• Moving applicants through workflow is not a very fluid process. When the number of applicants spans multiple pages one is forced to work with each page individually; moving applicants to a status that requires approval precludes moving any others in workflow without filtering them out but it is not obvious that one needs to be aware of this.
• One can't search for a job description by simply typing in the employee's name - it requires using the position number and often the name is what is at hand.
• When one changes positions within the organization and requires different access there does not seem to be a way to be added globally to job descriptions in the new unit - the process is far too manual. Although I believe adding new units to ones profile is fairly simple, apparently one can't remove the old units so I continue to see things that I no longer need to.

Incentivized

Administrators and employees love Namely. It is very easy to use and streamlined. Employees stay engaged with news feed updates and enjoy all the self service options. The time cards are very easy to access and clocking in and out for non-exempt employees is a breeze. Namely is part of our family.

We are evaluating our options as it relates to PeopleAdmin. We are likely to renew as we can not find another product that gives us the functionality we have with PeopleAdmin 5.8 in the area of Position Description. Outside of that, we would likely be close to finding another product solution.

It is very simple to use for myself, the HR team, and our employees. I find the payroll process very user-friendly. Reporting is simple to navigate and produce the required information requested. I know our employees enjoy the self-service feature and use it on a regular basis, which saves me time.

Incentivized

Unfortunately, in more recent years we've had a lot of difficulty with Namely as they've undergone a lot of internal changes. It took 4 returned emails saying the person no longer worked at Namely to find someone to help me (I finally called payroll) and it took a while to get connected with a direct source of help. Namely now has set up their "pod" feature of communication which works well for the most part, but is different. I felt spoiled when we first started with Namely, but now it feels very much like working with most large companies' help centers. There is a system to go through and you do have the option to click "urgent". In general the help is efficient, but it still takes a few days and it's hard to speak with someone directly. It is all done via online communications and is difficult to actually speak to someone on the phone. This works well for most cases, but I do feel frustrated more often than I'd like to with this type of communication. (2019/2020)

Incentivized

There were so many specialists in the implementation process; it would have been nice to have fewer people who had a more holistic understanding of the platform. Also, the onboarding meetings covered so much technical information that there was relatively little time for questions (though questions were invited). Eventually, everything worked out.

Incentivized

We had used Namely in conjunction with Wurk for payroll and Ease for benefits enrollment. Unfortunately the "fraken-system" was very cumbersome to manage. The fraken-system was used due to the limited options in the cannabis industry for providers who were willing to work with us. We eventually transitioned to OnePoint to have an all-in-one system but also left it because it was not able to scale with the organization.

I've used both Target Recruit and HR Smart. When working with Target Recruit it quickly became apparent it was not the right solution for us. Another solution we examined prior to selection PeopleAdmin was iCIMS. iCIMS is a very social system but was not as familiar with the Higher Education recruitment processes as was PeopleAdmin.

Incentivized

• When we were over 100, it provided a huge benefit to us due to the accuracy of payroll, benefits integration and management, and org chart and performance tracking. Having all of that in one place was a huge improvement from the former disjointed user experience.
• When we dropped below 100 due to covid, our insurance rates went up 93% to offer comparable plans, and we had to move over to a PEO for benefits which meant we also had to move payroll. It was hugely disruptive, and now our employees have a bad experience when trying to manage their HR lives in multiple places. It is confusing and, again, disjointed.

Incentivized

• We are now able to track our recruitment sources to determine our ROI on university paid subscriptions.
• We have reduced our recruiting approval review times by 50%
• We have identified areas for improvement substancially by having robust reporting available at our fingertips.