Executive Summary: TECH+ 2023, Paycor’s Partner Conference

Paycor hosted its national partner conference, TECH+, April 26-28 in Asheville, NC, at the Omni Grove Park Inn. The event brought together benefits and retirement brokers, financial advisors and HR consultants for insights and strategies to help innovate and accommodate clients and prospects moving forward. Here is a summary of each session:

Empowering Leaders to Build Winning Teams

Paycor’s strategic vision is laser-focused on leaders. As the job market continues to fluctuate and many SMBs struggle with a revolving door of employees, there’s a greater strain on company leaders.

Employee engagement is the number one driver of business success, and nothing motivates employees more than a great boss. Paycor’s platform is purpose-build for leaders, and our partners are critical to our success. We win together by powering people and performance with the technology and expertise frontline leaders need to coach, optimize, and retain top talent. The keys to success include:

• Coach: Align roles to company mission, build trust, and invest in career growth.
• Optimize: Be transparent on your leadership style, align on personal and team goals, and balance getting results with concern for employees’ wellbeing.
• Retain: Don’t assume it’s always about money, stay relevant with comp & benefits, and create a culture of recognition.

The 5 Components of Championship Leadership

Super Bowl Champion Ryan Harris delivered an energetic and insightful keynote to the TECH+ crowd. He emphasized the importance of choosing your mindset when serving as a leader (think Jedi or Mr. Miyagi) and repeating the mantra of “I am, I can, I will” to help motivate yourself. Some other helpful pieces of advice included:

1. Build resolve and project future success. But take ownership of mistakes or negative outcomes.
2. Identify opportunities ahead of you and be ready to turn the page. Our failures don’t define us. Where can your curiosity lead you?
3. Vocalize your goals but be sure to have boundaries. Learn a new skillset and/or technology.
4. Lead WITH an example, not just by example.
5. Have fun! Celebrate every win and don’t miss an opportunity to have fun.

Paycor’s Product Roadmap

What makes us different? Our platform is open, unified, and interoperable. We provide an unrivaled product depth, and you can access it from a single screen. Paycor modernizes people management so leaders can focus on what really matters: building winning teams that deliver results. What are some new products and features you can expect?

• Paycor Paths: Invest in your leaders by guiding them through customizable developmental journeys.
• Paycor Smart Sourcing: Reduce your time-to-hire with an AI-based recruiting function that automates sourcing and increases candidate diversity. It sources passive job seekers and candidates from a database of more than 1.5 billion profiles.
• COR Leadership Insights: Strong leaders create engaged employees and drive business results. Give your leaders the tools to coach, optimize, and retain employees and measure their progress.
• Sentiment Analysis in Performance Reviews: Create optimized performance reviews by delivering the exact messaging and sentiment you intend. This tool will help you determine if feedback comes across as positive, negative, or neutral.

Grow Your Book of Business with the Employee Retention Credit

The Employee Retention Credit (ERC) is a refundable payroll tax credit for salaries, wages, and healthcare insurance that was created to help businesses weather the pandemic. Businesses can receive up to $26,000 per employee in potential money back and the good news is it’s not too late to retroactively file an ERC claim.

• Was your client’s business fully or partially suspended by government order?
• Did your client’s quarterly 2020 gross receipts decrease by 50% or more compared to same quarters in 2019?
• Did your client’s 2021 quarterly gross receipts decrease by 20% or more compared to same quarters in 2019?
• How many fulltime employees did your client(s) have in 2019?  (30 hours a week; 120 hours a month)
• Deadline to file is April 15th, 2024, for all quarters in 2020 and April 15th, 2025 for all quarters in 2021

By strategically using ERC with your clients, you gain a competitive edge by delivering greater value to your book of business.

Partner Care: Paycor’s Dedicated Support Team

Partner Care offers the resources and support you need to exceed your clients’ expectations. Our Strategic Partner Coordinators are here to answer everyday questions about reporting needs, billing or invoices, or the status of clients. They can help with escalation management by navigating internally to bring the right teams together to solve issues.

Partner Care prioritizes customers going live through open enrollment. There’s no limit in terms of EDI carriers, and we can build out custom feeds. A key differentiator is the communication we offer between us, you, and the carriers. We want to educate the customer upfront to ensure the process is as smooth as possible.

And once you reach Platinum status, you’ll receive a dedicated Partner Success Manager as an exclusive loyalty perk. Our PSMs conduct proactive portfolio oversight, day-to-day partner support, resource coordination and handles any executive escalations.

The HR Playbook to Reducing Costs and Increasing Engagement

In uncertain economic times leaders look to reduce expenses. But cut too deep or trim the wrong budgets and employee engagement, productivity, and retention can take a hit. The role of the HR leader is harder than ever:

• 5.4% – projected increase in health benefit costs per employee in 2023
• 61% of employees are considering leaving their jobs in 2023 (LinkedIn)
• By 2031, one fourth of the US population will be 65+ (retirement age)
• Employee Engagement has dropped by 4% over the last two years (Gallup)

So, how do your clients cut costs and improve engagement (do more with less) across HR functions? It’s more critical than ever for health and benefits brokers to partner with Paycor to take advantage of every cost-savings methods available, including:

• Don’t miss out on WOTC (extended through 2025) – 20-30% of employers are already eligible
• Offer Wage Access – 100M US workers live paycheck to paycheck
• Maximizing Schedule Efficiency – human error in timecard prep is between 1% and 8%
• Save Time with HR Automation – Nearly 70% of HR teams waste time on tedious, manual workflows (Paycor)
• Modernize the Way They Recruit – 91% of companies are planning to hire (HR in 2023 Survey)
• Empower Frontline Managers – 53% of companies don’t have a leadership pipeline

For more information on how to decrease costs and increase engagement (and how Paycor can help), download the guide.

Retirement Plans, Payroll Admin, and the Importance of Integration and Data Automation

Empower conducted a client survey and found that administrative burden was one of their biggest complaints.

• #1 thing for business owners is peace of mind. Integrations give them that and allow them to be on autopilot with their data automation regarding retirement plans.
• With the SECURE Act 2.0, need to leverage TPAs and payroll providers for provisions and making sure your clients are compliant.
• Most participants don’t realize that HSAs are where retirement and benefits collide. Not only do you have a higher deductible, but it is one of the bigger ways to save long term. 
• People want one snapshot of their net worth including their house value, their debt, etc. This is available on Empower and many other recordkeeper vehicles.

How to Boost Sales by Connecting with Customers in the Digital Age

Put energy into your personal brand. Sometimes people rely too much on their corporate brand. Even when you invest in your personal brand, corporate will love it. How?

• Make sure you have a LinkedIn cover photo and profile image.
• Make a video on TikTok or other social content and you can drive your target audience to the landing page you want. Stand out.
• Pick a niche then investigate demographics, and psychographics (what you like). Everyone has a unique and creative way to capture audience attention.
• Video tips. Don’t need to say your name and title, already showing that on LinkedIn. Lead with what the audience wants to hear. Why should they care about what you have to say?
• People buy with emotions and use logic to explain why they should purchase.
• Make sure you have energy in the video.
• Video tools: Camo free tool for video editing. Also use Capcut (free too). Splice ($10 a year). Loom sends video messages in email.
• Look at your target clients’ social media and comment on their content 30 minutes a day rather than scrolling your own social media.

7 Little Things to Watch in the SECURE Act 2.0

Instead of Snow White’s seven dwarves, here are seven ways the recently passed SECURE Act 2.0 has altered the structure and operation of retirement plans, posing challenges for plan sponsors and professionals.

1. Changes to Roth contributions can be viewed as the lovable Dopey. Well-intentioned, but unfocused and not always needed. 
2. Changes in the SECURE 2.0 make it easier for a Bashful (or reluctant) employer to establish and maintain a qualified retirement plan, while also expanding coverage for long-term, part-time (“LTPT”) employees. 
3. The increases in contribution limits in the SECURE Act 2.0 should make Plan Sponsors and participants Happy!
4. There are two mandatory and two optional changes to retirement plan requirements and administration, and compliance with these “Sleepy” changes should not be overlooked!
5. The SECURE Act 2.0 significantly alters the rights and limits of distributions to plan participants. The changes to existing complex rules regulating mandatory distributions and voluntary in-service distributions (which we refer to as “Sneezy,” please do not contemplate why) means that plan sponsors will have to alter their plan documents and review current plan administration.
6. When the plan sponsor or service provider detects a document or operational problem, it refers to the “Doc”, the Employee Plans Compliance Resolution System. The SECURE Act 2.0 makes self-correction for inadvertent document or operational errors by an employer more accessible as the IRS continues to refine the EPCRS.
7. In a “Grumpy” change, the SECURE ACT 2.0 has staggered and peculiar effective dates, and except for the EPCRS guidance deadline, the changes may not be supported by additional guidance.

5 Reasons People Quit and 10 Things You Can Do to Make Them Stay

As the workforce continues to realign, employees continue to rethink their careers. But leaders can make all the difference. Studies show that leaders have an outsized impact on their employees’ job satisfaction and overall quality of life. So, why do people quit?

1. Burnout
2. Fear of a dead-end job
3. Life overtakes work
4. A pandemic “reset”
5. Bad bosses

But it’s up to the leaders of an organization to develop a culture that makes employees want to stay. The most effective leaders give employees a sense of control over their lives, provide a work experience that feels transparent, authentic, and fair, and continuously motivates and inspires performance. For more information on why people quit and to see a complete list of the “10 things you can do to make them stay” as well as how HR tech can help, download the guide.

An Enhanced Customer Experience

In a continued commitment to exceptional customer experience, Paycor is focusing our efforts on a three-pillar strategy: Process, Tech, and People. How, exactly? We’ve increased our staffing by 25%, made significant strides in improving our engagement scores, and invested in customer-facing resources to better serve you.

We introduced Premium Support for customers who want to have an additional level of value-added services and expanded our Customer Success initiatives to build stronger relationships. We also launched the Paycor Support Center which features case logging and chat for a better user experience.

How to Get the Most Out of Your Paycor Partnership

To put it simply, a partnership with Paycor is built around you. We’re not here to compete — we want to help you win new business and retain the clients you worked so hard to get. Some of the advantages of being a Paycor partner include:

• Mutual business development as we understand your book of business and complement your prospecting strategies.
• Exclusive partner webinar series.
• A dedicated Partner Success Manager and Executive Business Reviews for Platinum partners.
• Coming Soon: A new and improved partner portal for easier access to resources and full transparency with our partnership.
• An established infrastructure designed to drive business and promote success.
• Top technology and integrations that give you freedom of choice and support your clients’ needs.
• Marketing Development Funds for Gold and Platinum partners: We’re investing Paycor’s money in you to help grow your business.