TriNet HR Platform to GoCo Resource Center

As a brand new hire for Real Time Medical Systems back in May 2019, Debra Berlinrood faced her first major undertaking as Controller: Finding an HR system that would automate paid time off (PTO). 

Debra researched a number of vendors with similar suites of features but ultimately decided to go with GoCo because of their warm, attentive customer service. “I have never experienced customer service like I have with GoCo. Before we’d even decided to partner with them, the GoCo team made me feel like family. I felt like I was important and what I wanted mattered.” 

Before GoCo: PTO at Real Time Was a Manual Process 

Real Time Medical Systems—an industry leader in interventional analytics solutions for healthcare providers—is growing fast. Since its founding in 2010, the completely remote company has changed the way healthcare organizations monitor, collaborate, and intervene in care, improving the patient care continuum. 

When Debra was brought on as Controller in May 2019, Real Time was hoping to facilitate that growth by streamlining key HR processes—starting with paid time off. At the time, the company’s PTO request process was completely manual. To request PTO, the employee making the request would fill out a form and send it to their supervisor, who would send it to HR.

“Anthony, my CFO, knew we needed a more efficient way to manage PTO requests from our growing body of employees,” Debra recalled. And so it fell to Debra to find a way to streamline their clunky PTO process.

Debra was referred to GoCo by its sister company, which had recently partnered with the HR software solutions provider. After reviewing her options, Debra was able to quickly narrow her options down to GoCo and one other candidate.

“We ultimately chose GoCo for its unparalleled customer service and incredibly user-friendly interface,” Debra said.  

GoCo Streamlines PTO… and More 

When Real Time first signed on to GoCo, the company was only interested in automating PTO. 

“Automating PTO was the primary reason why I needed an HR system,” Debra explained. “But once we got into GoCo and saw what it could do, we quickly started implementing a bunch of other features.” 

After introducing an automated PTO system, Debra added more features like employee onboarding, benefits administration, and Magic Docs.

After GoCo: An HR Solution Customized to Company Needs 

During the implementation process, Debra was thrilled with GoCo’s willingness to tailor functionality to meet Real Time’s unique needs. “For example, we wanted executive and HR-specific materials to only be visible to key executives,” Debra says. After she explained her wishes to the GoCo team, the team updated the software to accommodate her request. 

“Because I wanted to upload certain documents that aren’t visible to employees in order to use GoCo as a ‘personnel folder’, GoCo made an option to hide documents or make them only visible with permissions,” Debra recalled. “They worked with me and made it happen. They figured out a way to meet my needs and be able to offer this option to other companies in the future.”  

In no time, the entire staff was onboarded into the new system. Debra rolled out GoCo in phases, starting with the managers so they could become accustomed to the new system and answer any questions their employees might have. 

“The platform is so user-friendly that we didn’t have to have a major training session,” said Debra. “GoCo sent out a welcome letter, and people were able to onboard themselves with minimal issues.” 

Final Thoughts: A Consolidated HR System 

With GoCo, Debra and the Real Time team were able to streamline the process of requesting, approving, and tracking PTO. Now she can easily manage vacation, personal or sick time requests, send automatic reminders, and report on her team’s PTO data.

And the PTO plan wasn’t the only HR process that Debra was able to automate, standardize, and streamline. Today, Debra and the Real Time HR team rely on GoCo for everything from sending out offer letters to payroll sync. 

“I don’t always like to put all my eggs in one basket,” admitted Debra. “But I think that GoCo’s basket is pretty strong.” She predicts that by consolidating many HR tasks with a single system, Real Time will continue to save her and her team paperwork, time, and money and, ultimately, help them grow a stronger, happier, more productive healthcare company.

Being in an industry like cannabis where employees are not deskbound comes with unique HR needs. At Zen Asset Management, employees come from a variety of different backgrounds and bring a mixture of personality traits, skills, education, and interests to the table — with cannabis being a common anchor between them. With such a large team of diverse employees, Director of HR Daava Mills wanted to focus her time on employee connections, not paperwork and processes.  That’s why she started seeking alternatives to their current HR software that would allow for a more inclusive, streamlined, mobile approach to people management.

About Zen Asset Management

Zen Asset Management has been supporting the cannabis industry since 2015 at the onset of cannabis legalization. They operate as a management and service provider, supporting indoor agricultural facilities, and offering growing, packaging, and wholesaling services for retailers that serve the end customer. Zen Asset Management also owns the rights to the Artizen brand, one of the most well-known cannabis brands in the country. With five locations across Washington, the team has since grown to 140 employees. 

Daava shares that the workforce at Zen Asset Management is among the most unique she’s ever worked with. They come from a variety of backgrounds, including blue-collar jobs, restaurant workers, and other service professionals. Because they’re on their feet most of the time and not sitting behind desks all day, employees would often have to take time out of their normal duties to handle HR paperwork or related tasks. With computers not part of the daily routine, Daava sought an alternative solution to support her employees. 

Before GoCo: Tradition and Overkill in HR

With a long history in HR, Daava was no stranger to applicant tracking systems or digital benefits solutions. When she came on board with Zen Asset Management, using HR software felt natural. However, the computer-focused programs felt alienating to her workforce who were hands-on in the growhouses and processing facilities and rarely had access to a computer at work.

“They don’t work at a desk for a living. If I needed them to sign up for benefits or review paperwork, they had to step away from whatever they were doing and go through complicated computer workflows. Having to take time out of their day to do something on a computer wasn’t working. It was inefficient, and I knew there had to be a better way.” 

The HR team was using powerful HR software to manage daily duties. Being a self-proclaimed “systems geek,” Daava loved the interface and all the features and functions it offers. But it was overkill for their small company, and most of it was not mobile accessible.

“Employees couldn’t do stuff from their phone,” she shared. “I didn’t want to give employees 20 pages of instructions just for them to do open enrollment. I wanted something more user-friendly and cannabis-friendly.”

HR From a Smartphone

Daava’s main priority in looking for a new solution was the mobile experience. She wanted employees to be able to manage their benefits, payroll information, and other HR-related tasks from their smartphones. 

Daava turned to Capterra to help her explore some options. She gave them a list of priorities to narrow the search, with mobile accessibility being at the top. She also wanted the option to show people’s chosen names rather than their legal names. After being introduced to GoCo by Capterra, Daava was eager to learn more.

After GoCo: Less Doing, More Done

Daava shares that compared to other options, GoCo offered an intuitive system that required no training or learning curve for employees to start using. 

“One of the things I love about GoCo is that I don’t need a separate systems administrator to run it. We were able to eliminate that position. With federal regulations on the horizon, our positions are more heavily scrutinized, and we needed ways to become more robust and use tools rather than people to execute tasks.”

The mobile aspect has lived up to Daava’s expectations, too. For example, Daava was able to grant permissions to certain HR information to someone outside of the HR department. Daava granted the access and built out the report, then the employee was able to access it on their smartphone. The whole process took about three minutes.

“If you had seen what we’d gone through with other systems, from designing reports from scratch to granting access, seeing someone do this from their phone was amazing.”

Last Word: A More People-Centric HR Department

GoCo has enabled Zen Asset Management to save time and hassle in multiple ways. There are no more long leadership meetings to troubleshoot HR tech problems. Employees have fewer questions, and there’s less overall frustration. 

“Bringing on GoCo has been amazing. Employees love it, and it’s allowed us to downsize our HR department and make us more efficient and scalable. Employees can now focus more on their jobs instead of trying to learn a complicated HR system, and I can focus on our employees’ safety and well-being.”

Managing personnel at a single location keeps the HR department humming non-stop. But the challenges multiply as businesses expand and open new locations, and it can easily overwhelm even the most stalwart team, let alone a one-person HR department. So when it was time to create a more structured approach to people ops, Director of HR Jenny Vallejo turned to GoCo for guidance and got more value than she expected. 

About Primrose School of Bee Cave

Primrose School of Bee Cave was the first of four locations in Austin, Texas, owned by Christy Black. They’re part of a greater franchise with locations in 32 states. Christy first purchased the Bee Cave location in 2014, then expanded to include three more locations by 2019.  The schools serve children starting at six weeks up to the age of five and offer a learning curriculum that prepares children for school. 

After growing to 133 employees across these four locations, the next priority for Primrose of Bee Cave was to find a way to organize its HR activities and move away from paper-based systems and manual processes. For Jenny, choosing software that enabled her to manage HR on her own was a top priority.

Before GoCo: A Lack of Time and Organization

HR wasn’t Jenny’s responsibility when she started at Primrose. She initially started as Christy’s Executive Assistant, then gradually took on one project after another. Eventually, she was handed HR-related tasks like payroll and benefits, both of which were conducted using paper files, spreadsheets, and emails. 

“As we grew, we decided we needed better structure,” says Jenny. “I wanted to stop tracking things in disorganized spreadsheets and put everything into one system.”

Jenny explored other solutions but found they weren’t flexible enough in their offerings for their small organization, not to mention expensive. When she found GoCo, she realized it was exactly what she needed.

Finding an HR Partner in GoCo

One of the things Jenny noticed right away was that GoCo was a user-first solution. “It’s super intuitive and user-friendly. I don’t have to show people how to use it or where to find things. They can log in and see all of their information right there.”

Jenny also loved the relationship she formed with the GoCo team, starting on Day 1. She felt like GoCo was more like an HR partner than a service provider. She knew the team members by name and built a strong rapport with each person she engaged with. 

“I never felt like I was being pitched something. We were just having a conversation about options. They weren’t overbearing or pushy like some of the other companies I considered.”

Jenny worked with multiple GoCo team members throughout the process, starting with a sales rep. “I was so bummed I couldn’t work directly with them anymore once the sales process ended. I was paired with an implementation manager, Cristina, and was bummed I had to eventually move on from her, too. I made good relationships with everyone along the way.”

After integrating with GoCo, Jenny continues to share feedback with the team on how to improve the software. Any issues she has with the system gets a quick resolution to keep things moving smoothly. “The team drops what they’re doing to help me. I couldn’t ask for more.”

2 Years with GoCo: A User Experience That Keeps Adding Value

Jenny implemented GoCo in 2020 with the idea that she could simplify and organize the HR department at Primrose School, and that’s exactly what happened—and so much more. 

“Before GoCo, I was spending all of my time on HR. I would have to reset payroll logins 8-10 times per week because someone would get locked out. Now, it’s all self-service. Payroll used to take me an entire business day. Now, it takes just 30 minutes per location. Overall, I save about 10-15 hours per week, which allows me to be more present within the school.”

For Jenny, having that extra time to lead, nurture, and develop the learning center has been the greatest (and least expected) benefit of all. She has more time to focus on improving company policies, providing better benefits to the employees, and being a bigger part of the schools on a regular basis. 

“We’ve been able to do more philanthropy projects because I have more bandwidth, which is really fun for us. We got to rebrand our values this year, and that’s not a project I would have had the capacity to do without GoCo.”

Final Thoughts: No Training Needed

For the young workforce at Primrose School of Bee Cave, GoCo fits perfectly. The younger workers are technologically savvy and can easily start using GoCo without training. The Directors at each location also use GoCo in their onboarding and have been able to do so without guidance from Jenny. 

“Being able to offload some HR tasks to others has been a huge helper. I still get goosebumps every time I run payroll, and it only takes me 30 minutes per school instead of an entire business day. I have more time to do the things I enjoy and not hide behind paperwork the whole time.”

Managing benefits can be complicated and stressful for just one company, let alone 60. Rida Ashraf, the Director of Benefits at American Pharmacies, was tasked with finding an HR software solution to support all 60 pharmacies in their benefits program. Benefits administration was the most significant pain point that had proven difficult to get right in past experiences with HR software, and Rida was looking for an HRIS with a bespoke approach that perfectly matched the spirit of these small, family-oriented pharmacies.

Before GoCo: Messy Benefits and Confusion

American Pharmacies is a cooperative of hundreds of independently owned pharmacies across the nation, often small mom-and-pop shops in rural areas. Each pharmacy operates independently, with different payroll schedules and state regulations. Of those hundreds, 60 pharmacies are part of American Pharmacies’ Multiple Employer Welfare Agreement (MEWA) that allows the members to pool contributions together and offer better benefits packages to their employees. 

Rida needed a solution to manage benefits across all of them, and since the company setup differed for each location, centralizing this aspect proved challenging. Past software vendors Rida had worked with didn’t take the time to understand each pharmacy’s structure, resulting in inaccurate data and wasted time.

“We had times where it looked like some employees were paying less for benefits than others because of being on different payroll schedules. Every year was a struggle. There was so much confusion.”

Rida had worked with GoCo at a previous job and remembered how easy GoCo made it to customize the benefits set up. 

How GoCo’s Client Success Team Turned Things Around

These mom-and-pop pharmacies are family-oriented and deliver personalized service to their customers, so it’s no surprise they expect that same level of personalization from their vendors. Having had negative experiences with other software vendors in the past, Rida gained confidence in GoCo during the implementation process. 

“It was a big task to unify 60 companies under one software. Right away, we were handed various spreadsheets from GoCo, and just by looking at those, you could tell how detail-oriented and thorough GoCo was in getting us set up.”

During implementation, Rida was assigned a client success team to answer questions, offer guidance, and communicate with the insurance carriers on her behalf. “GoCo’s Benefits Specialist did an amazing job setting up our files and answering any questions we had. Our Platform Implementer was so thorough in setting up each pharmacy in GoCo and stayed on top of every detail.”

Open enrollment happened right before the holiday break, which is already a busy time for anyone in HR. But GoCo’s support never wavered in the busy season. “We were blown away with how supportive GoCo was while we were onboarding during a hectic time.”

Life with GoCo: Simplified, Personalized HR Service 

Rida loves how the employee’s portion of the benefits plan is laid out in GoCo. Employees can see how much benefits will cost per pay period and compare plans to see what suits them best. They can make quick and easy decisions based on their budget and healthcare needs.

The pharmacies within the co-op aren’t always tech-savvy, but switching to GoCo means they don’t have to be. “With every open enrollment, even if we were using the same vendor, getting employees onto a computer and completing their benefits paperwork was hard. With GoCo, employees found it easier to get through the enrollment process. It holds your hand and guides you through each step. There’s no place you can click that would mess up the process, and you can go back to verify the information you already entered before submitting it.” 

Rida’s life has changed for the better too, especially since she’s pulling double duty as the Director of Benefits and a paralegal for the company. She can fix errors herself (such as a misspelled address) and customize the experience without having to contact support. Being able to handle issues herself cuts out a lot of the back-and-forth she experienced with other vendors. 

“What’s been extremely helpful is having weekly meetings with my Client Success Manager and Client Success Specialist. They offer great tips for troubleshooting, and if I have issues throughout the week, I can write them down and mention them at the next meeting. They walk me through it on the spot.”

Overall, GoCo has provided a streamlined and accurate benefits administration experience for a complex, unique company structure. With a dedicated support team and a user-friendly interface that even non-technical employees love, GoCo helps American Pharmacies save time, effort, and frustration. 

The years after the COVID-19 pandemic provided booming business for Colorado builder Colarelli Construction. More projects meant more hiring, and more hiring meant it was time to form an HR department for the first time. Former executive assistant Kristen Coffin was up to the task, but the manual systems Colarelli had in place to manage their workers and paperwork? Well, that was a different story.

With over 70 employees and half of them working in the field, Kristen’s first job was to get organized. Her second job was to find a way to enable employees to interact with HR even while working at construction sites. Enter: GoCo.

A Double Learning Curve

Colarelli Construction has over 20 years in business working as a general contractor for ground-up commercial construction, but up until 2021, they had no dedicated HR person. When Kristen started, not only did she have to learn the ropes of her new HR position, she also had to familiarize herself with HR tech.

The construction industry is known for its hard labor and long hours, making it challenging for employees to take care of HR-related tasks during work time. Kristen knew that with the unique HR challenges of the construction business, it was crucial to have a system that could handle everything remotely—and, ideally, from a phone app. 

With the help of GoCo, Kristen was able to provide a solution that allowed Colarelli Construction employees to access HR services wherever they were that day, enabling them to handle everything from documentation to time-off requests from the palm of a hand. “Life before GoCo was a lot more paperwork. GoCo helped me to organize and put together a platform for HR. It’s a game-changing organizational tool that I love.” 

Kristen appreciated the ease of using GoCo, along with their stellar customer support, as she familiarized herself with their HR software. “Everyone that I have worked with has been really pleasant to deal with and helpful.” She explains that she frequently takes advantage of their on-demand webinars and that the GoCo team “goes out of their way so it doesn’t feel corporate; it feels like a small company that wants to have direct communication with clients.”

Getting Employee Buy-In

Of course, transitioning to GoCo on the HR end was only the first step in the process. Getting employees on board was the next.

Dealing with a workforce that is resistant to change and not tech-savvy meant that even though manual processes were cumbersome, they were comfortable. 

Breaking employees out of their comfort zone necessitated holding company-wide meetings with a QR code for downloading the GoCo app. Then, Kristen demonstrated the software in person to show off its capabilities. 

Late adopters took some consistent prodding and hand-holding, but eventually, the entire Colarelli team was won over by the ease of using GoCo. 

GoCo's user-friendly interface and on-the-go app made it simple for employees to navigate and complete HR tasks, reducing the learning curve for new employees and increasing the overall efficiency of existing ones. Employee traffic to GoCo increases year over year, and employees rave about the app and how easy it is to log in and ask for time off.

Life With GoCo

Kristen’s favorite GoCo features are the ability to pull quick reports and having a single place to go to access and send documentation. While benefits administration and compliance documentation are the tasks she most frequently performs, Kristen also shares some innovative ways Colarelli has been using GoCo.

“We utilize the custom field upload for our employees to upload their personal vehicle insurance cards if they’re driving their own vehicle,” she explains. “The new protocol was much easier with GoCo — go to your car, take a picture, and upload it to GoCo.”

Ultimately, GoCo “has given employees more confidence in their HR management.”

With the support of GoCo, Kristen was able to successfully launch an HR department at Colarelli Construction and create a more connected workforce. Clunky manual processes were replaced with seamless digital tasks and documentation, making everyone’s work life that much easier.