Article: How adding an online HR Portal can win key clients

Transcription

1 Article: How adding an online HR Portal can win key clients Part 1. Published in The Solicitors Group - Litigation Line briefing Summer 2013 Successful businesses need to manage their employees efficiently and are looking to online, hosted technology services to help them do that. The ideal choice is a single system which addresses all their needs. Typically, client needs range from a requirement for specialist employment law and HR advice and representation through to systems for day to day management of administrative tasks. The solutions include a range of dedicated systems for managing: absence and attendance personnel files and documentation conflict management contracts and handbooks licensing and permits performance recruitment payroll

2 Available solutions: Very few systems combine more than a couple of these options and as far as I m aware the HR Portal offered by Employment Law Essentials Limited is the only one that combines the ability for lawyers to add bespoke documents for interactive use by their clients online while also leveraging leading technology to help clients cut the cost of routine administrative HR management. Current provision: In most cases, employers will have some form of system in place, but whether that is a bunch of Excel spread sheets and sticky notes or something more sophisticated is not always obvious regardless of the size of the business and there is definitely lots of scope in this exciting growth market. Change agents: When managers realise that costs are rising and/or business risk is escalating to unacceptable levels due to lack of a modern system they are open to change. Sometimes managers will go out and look for solutions but more often they are simply approached by a service provider who helps them see the benefits of change and encourages them to adopt the service provider s system. The person responsible for HR champions the solution and it comes to the attention of senior managers or directors who make purchasing decisions usually based on hard financial facts. If the business case makes financial sense and the HR team get on with the provider the company will subscribe to the service. Why should law firms consider offering an online HR solution? There are several compelling benefits for law firms. Increased revenue: Lawyers are under pressure to secure more fee earning hours but that is not an end in itself. The objective is more revenue and subscription services provide additional revenue without draining fee earning hours.

3 Frees up fee earners time: An HR Portal fits seamlessly with subscription based employment law packages and if the online service includes a well drafted stock of guides, forms and letters for dispute management and routine staff administration it will free up fee earner time because client managers will use their online account to find information rather than phoning the legal advice line. Door opener to new business: One of the most difficult marketing tasks is opening the door to new business and that is especially difficult if you don t have a tangible product to show prospective buyers. So it makes a welcome change for lawyers to offer a product which has the wow factor and fits seamlessly with their branded legal services. Client retention: Lawyers have to juggle their diaries to free up time for networking with key clients in order to maintain the relationship and protect the client s business from unwanted advances by competitors. However, practical subscription services that are used every day by the client and provided by the law firm stimulate long term relationships that are maintained naturally especially when the client has spent time populating data onto the account and the product has been rolled out to managers and staff trained to use it. This means fee earners can dedicate less time to networking and more time to billable hours. Thought leadership: Positioning yourself, your team or your firm as thought leaders is time consuming and usually involves writing articles, whitepapers and blogging, all of which are labour intensive and difficult to assess in terms of return on investment. By offering clients the option to subscribe to an HR Portal that provides a channel to your services and a solution to their administrative problems, you demonstrate your thought leadership at a stroke. How can law firms offer an online HR solution? Up until a few years ago, law firms could have called a meeting between IT and senior partners and had a conversation about whether to build or buy the solution. But now the idea of building your own IT services (of any type) is not a viable

4 option because cost is prohibitive and the sophistication of the current products on the market make it impossible for a non-specialist to compete. So nobody does that anymore. Thanks to innovations by giants like Apple and Google consumers and corporates alike have become very comfortable with the concept of cloud based services and innovative companies have risen to the challenge to provide (among many other things), HR services online. This move to hosted solutions has opened the door for organic growth by law firms who want to offer their clients an own-brand, integrated HR Portal. These firms now find themselves in the position of being able to plug and play a quality white label product, such as that provided since 2005 by Employment Law Essentials to law firms of all sizes, which is launched to market within a couple of weeks at a realistic cost. Article written by Carolyn Mumby CEO Employment Law Essentials Limited Tel: Title: Preparing to launch your firm s own HR Portal Part 2. Published in The Solicitors Group - Litigation Line briefing Autumn 2013 Before launching your own HR Portal you will usually have to convince colleagues that there is a robust business case for doing so. In other words, that there is a buoyant market for the product and that rolling it out to that market is cost effective and relatively straightforward to do.

5 Here are the key stages of the business case: Market and Product research Branding Sales and marketing Revenue v costs Market and Product research You could start by asking your own clients whether they would buy an online HR product from you and if so what it would include. For example is it 100% legal service based such as legal Toolkits including forms, guides and letters; and document builders for contract & handbook management; or would it also include HR administration tools for managing personnel files, absence requests, auto-enrolment and so forth? Branding if you can devise a brand for your entire compliance package (to include your HR Portal) you will find it much easier to promote, discuss, identify and showcase than if you refer to it in general terms such as our compliance package or by using a generic list of features such as helpline, drafting tribunal representation and HR Portal. Marketing - Marketing can be approached as a focused campaign such as direct marketing via or brochures in the post and followed up with telemarketing calls or it can be much more subtle and rely on simply talking to your clients about the HR Portal at every possible opportunity, or it could combine both. It s just a case of banging the drum. Your portal provider should provide lots of support for this process from the first stages of preparation onwards.

6 Sales All lawyers are involved in sales and marketing to some degree whether it comes naturally or it doesn t. For some it s painful; for others its second nature. Then there are the rest of us for whom it is something we do because we need to do it. I have found that actually it is a process like any other. It s a skill that can be learned but the best advice I was given was just to keep the conversation going. This helps me to forget about selling and to remember that clients need to know what we can offer them. If we don t tell them, no one else will. They want to know what is available and, ultimately, only they can decide whether it s relevant to their business so it s best not to make assumptions. Revenue versus costs Don t get over complicated or bogged down in the detail. You don t need to know about the features of all the competitive packages, in fact, as long as you understand the main principles you should be able to rely on the portal being intuitive and the portal provider supplying the necessary support materials to unlock the value of the product to help your clients choose it. Pricing plans: Your clients will not put you in the same category as off the shelf or non-lawyer led products so your portal doesn t need to be the same price or cheaper than theirs but by the same token you can t price yourself out of the market. Law firms usually charge on a monthly basis and seem averse to signing clients up for more than one year on a retainer package. Many providers use the standard employee headcount method to calculate fees, and user licensing may also play a part.

7 Combine the price of your portal with your other compliance services such as helpline and contract drafting. It is usually counter-productive to offer them as menu items because it can result in a Dutch auction with your client asking how much you will discount the package if they don t take x or y element. That isn t ideal because you want to include the portal as it takes the pressure off your helpline and you want to include your helpline because it gives you the opportunity to build the personal relationship. Direct Income: How much extra will your client pay for you to add an HR Portal to a package? Pricing is elastic and working out how much a client will pay is not a science. It is trial and error but you have to start somewhere. So you need a price list, but expect to have to give discounts to some clients. You can keep pricing under review after you launch your Portal so you can address under or over pricing. We share our subjective knowledge of pricing scales and you can access objective pricing intelligence in publications such as NED s market analysis which can be found at Indirect income: Put a value on indirect benefits: Licensee benefits should include a complimentary in house HR management account which will save the cost of an alternative package. There will be a substantial savings on resources such as fee earner and PSL time when clients use an HR portal rather than your helpline to access general legal information and standard forms.

8 Additional income from upselling and cross selling services to clients who subscribe to your HR Portal. Costs: It is true that as a general rule clients are more loyal and accessible when they subscribe to a quality portal. First you need to know the cost of licensing an HR Portal. That involves a discussion with a provider such as Employment Law Essentials () who will usually charge based on size of firm and number of user licences. A seasoned portal provider will include a lot of marketing support in the package and have a wealth of experience to share with you. However, there will still be some direct costs such as branding and marketing and that is whatever you want it to be but, at its most basic, marketing involves the cost of the banners, an additional web page and some leave-behind marketing material such as a brochure or leaflets. Article written by: Carolyn Mumby, Barrister CEO Employment Law Essentials Tel: