Renowned real estate investor and consultant Barbara Corcoran joined us for a recent webinar to discuss the advantage of employee-driven payroll. After cycling through over 20 odd jobs, Corcoran founded a business that would become the top brokerage firm in New York City.
“I think the million-dollar question when you spend time on anything involved in any business is, ‘What’s wasted time, and what’s time that’s valuable?’ I think discerning between those two categories is very important,” she said.
Looking back on her career, Corcoran stressed the need for organizations to innovate and adopt new technology to remain relevant, attract top-level talent and ultimately prosper. One of the most inherent — yet frequently overlooked — aspects of business she found ripe to implement such change is what many employees care about most: their payroll.
For Corcoran, Paycom’s employee-driven payroll experience, Beti®, marks the evolution of employee engagement and HR liberation.
Embracing innovation
Corcoran found that the common denominator for growth in her professional life was technology.
“I would have never reached the top of the heap as the number one broker in New York City without embracing technology,” she said. “When I look back at the bellwether changes that happened along the way that pushed us from a lowly position to a higher position, over and over again, at the base of that was technology.”
Not only can the right tech help push your business to the next level, but Corcoran explained that it can keep a thriving business “ahead of the pack.” By leaning into digital transformation, she believes businesses can give themselves a competitive edge both inside and out.
Cultivating the right culture
Corcoran explained her ability to keep the brokerage industry’s best and brightest employees was leveraged by a culture of fun that readily encouraged innovation. Likening her employees to her own children, Corcoran elaborated:
“I got their love back because you get what you give, especially when it comes to employees.”
Appreciation and a sense of belonging can go a long way toward enabling an employee, especially HR professionals, to achieve professional self-actualization. But Corcoran stated that one other way of showing your workforce you care is to simply make their lives a bit easier.
Effective HR technology, like industry-leading Beti, can do just that by putting the power of payroll in employees’ hands. Speaking of Beti …
The pitfalls of traditional payroll
When considering the jobs before her firm, Corcoran recalls the best were always those where she didn’t need to worry about what and when she was going to be paid. She remembers one employer who had a tendency to shave off hours and deny her and her peers the time off they earned.
“Nothing is more degrading than not being in control,” she said. “I really believe that about anyone in any job.”
Corcoran explains how Beti addresses this fundamental issue. By giving employees the ability to review, verify and take action if necessary on their pay, she said, employers invest more than just money into their people — they invest trust.
“What Beti does is it gets in line with what people are accustomed to doing, which is to be in control of themselves,” she said. “It’s so much better for HR because if they have the right tech in place, it takes a worry off their list as well. It’s kind of like technology is taking care of people. If it’s accurate, as Beti is, and efficient, as it is, it takes that off [HR’s] plate. It’s a win-win from both sides.”
The Beti difference
When considering how Beti changes the game, Corcoran discussed the many ways HR can be pulled into more meaningful tasks. She found that time-consuming errors are rarely the result of little oversight, but instead the unnecessary involvement of too many parties.
“Less people involved means less mistakes, less steps, less confusion [and] less redundancy,” she said.
By empowering employees to take action on their own paycheck through Beti, Corcoran explains it can help distance HR from the verification process and reduce a business’s overall confusion when it comes to payroll. Additionally, Beti can reduce the liability of a business when the employee assumes greater responsibility over routine HR functions.
If data re-entry isn’t creating risk and a higher chance of errors, Corcoran theorized, it is at least consuming HR’s valuable time. She explained that on a weekly basis, the time spent manually entering payroll may not seem like much to leadership, but over the course of months, this time can severely impact an organization’s bottom line.
In her final remarks, Corcoran stressed: “You’re crazy not to sign up for a personalized demo of Beti. Everybody’s praising it, but it’s not the same as actually seeing it in action. Just sign up for the demo. It’s so easy.”
Listen to more captivating insight from Corcoran by viewing the full webinar on demand. And to learn how Beti revolutionizes payroll, schedule a personalized demo.
DISCLAIMER: The information provided herein does not constitute the provision of legal advice, tax advice, accounting services or professional consulting of any kind. The information provided herein should not be used as a substitute for consultation with professional legal, tax, accounting or other professional advisers. Before making any decision or taking any action, you should consult a professional adviser who has been provided with all pertinent facts relevant to your particular situation and for your particular state(s) of operation.
