When adding a link to the chain really pays off!
About Payrolling & Services is a Dutch Business Process Outsourcer specialised in salary and personnel administration exclusively for employment and recruiting agencies. About Payrolling & Services handles HRM-related activities such as billing, credit and debt management and contract administration.
'About Payrolling & Services' makes it possible for recruiting agencies to offer temporary personnel to their clients without the necessity having a specialized backoffice for it.
Leo Smeekes, CEO, founded About Payrolling & Services in December 1999. Prior to creating his own company, Leo spent 11 years as financial manager of a temporary agency (Carriere uitzendbureau) and 5 years as administration manager at Unique employment agency. About Payrolling & Services is based in Maarssen, The Netherlands.
Q: Is it correct to say that your motivation to set up About Payrolling & Services was to enable employment and recruitment agencies to focus on their core competency of selecting and recruiting candidates?
I realised that agencies spent valuable time on back-office activities as opposed to selecting and recruiting candidates. Each agency kept the administration function to a minimum in order to spend more resources on placing and recruiting.
Because of my financial background I identified an opportunity to support agencies to focus on their core competency of selecting and recruiting. In 1999 the job market was such that finding qualified personnel was a real struggle. I started working with agencies specialising in Call Centre placement and fulfilment. At that time recruiting personnel for call centres was extremely difficult. Our offer came at a right moment. With our help, these agencies could spend all of their time focused on finding people for a market with high turnover.
Q: Do administrative tasks truly burden an agency and it’s ability to succeed?
Salary administration is a very crucial and sensitive matter. Employees need to be paid on time and correctly. If this process fails, an agency could end up spending too much time responding to employees and fixing issues.
I owe my company’s success to a growing market. 10 years ago I approached call centres directly and offered to take over all employment risks. Agencies and companies manage headcount without the trouble associated with illness, performance and productivity but also we remove the debt risk which temporary agencies are faced with. This proved to be a very successful formula for all parties involved.
Q: As a pioneer in this type of outsourcing, have you noted a significant shift in the way temporary agencies operate since you market your services? Has there been a general increase in demand for your services over the years?
10 years ago we were indeed pioneers with only a handful of competitors. Nowadays About Payrolling & Services has hundreds of competitors. About Payrolling & Services has experienced an 80-90% growth year on year without putting much emphasis on marketing. New clients have found us. This type of outsourcing has proven to be instrumental as the need for contractors and temporary workforce has multiplied. Large temporary agencies have even created new branches specialising in payrolling.
Q: Your company’s mission is “We do our job well, if you and your staff do not notice our service. Our goal is to be “unnoticeably good”. Your service adds a step in the total process, what are the key elements, which allow you to be invisible?
If salaries are not paid in time or are wrong, About Payrolling & Services receives immediate feedback from the temping agency, the employee and the hiring company. The impact can rapidly turn into a lot of negative attention. My goal is to ensure that our key process is flawless. To minimise the possibility of errors, several levels of verification are done before salaries are paid. We also make sure that corrections are rectified within a day. And finally, all accounts need to be cleared on a weekly basis.
My advice to my employees is “place yourself in the shoes of the person who is complaining to see the solution.”
Q: Leading publications talk about outsourcing deals failing due to poorly setup partnerships, what is your opinion on this?
In the financial sector there are a lot of controls in place, which do not exist in other sectors. Neutral bodies will do spot checks on financial flows. This process alone takes a lot of uncertainty away.
I believe that the size of the service provider has a lot to with trust and quality. I have always maintained a commercial role and remain in contact with customers. Many of our clients come to us referred to by other clients. Our reputation is built through client satisfaction. I focus on providing services in my field of expertise as opposed to expanding into new areas just for the sake of gaining market share.
Compared to our competition, About Payrolling & Services offers a lot more to clients such as consultancy on salary levels. I provide advice by taking the client’s benefits into consideration not my own preference or position. It is not about being the cheapest or trying to sell at all cost. Our clients trust us and that in my mind is the key to any successful partnership.
Q: what are some of the performance indicators you have in place to measure the quality of the service your company provides to its clients?
I personally do not believe in binding clients with a contract and measurements. Of course we do have agreements describing services to be delivered and pricing but our contracts do not stipulate items such as agreement length nor business level guarantees. I like to give clients the opportunity to walk away from the partnership whenever they are dissatisfied. You can do that as a small business but I am perfectly conscious that this method could not be implemented in a large firm. Success factors of About Payrolling & Services are customization and flexibility.
Q: If an employee has a question about his pay slip whom does he/she go to? Do you provide customer service or support of any kind?
When mistakes are made or employees are dissatisfied, we are the point of contact.
Employees may go to their manager (the work provider), their temporary agency or directly to us. In the end it is up to About Payrolling & Services to resolve the issue.
It may also happen that client companies or the temporary agencies call us on behalf of the employee. We serve all of our clients. My small team handles the administration for the clients as well being the customer service team.
Q: Each client has its specific processes and managing a big client base can be challenging, how is About Payrolling & Services organised to meet its clients demands?
Clients have their own processes and because About Payrolling & Services is small and flexible we can easily accommodate client wishes and demands. We blend into their own business model, work according to their timelines and work instructions. We have never been in a situation where we couldn’t provide our services because of processes we could not adopt.
Q: About Payrolling & Services provides its services to the Dutch market only. Do you have any plans to expand in other countries?
Not in the immediate future. We still have a lot of Dutch market to cover. My objective is to keep on growing my business but in a controlled manner. I would never agree to an opportunity without estimating the impact on the quality we provide. The phenomenal growth during the last decade has been inspiring and a motivation.
Q: What is on the horizon for About Payrolling & Services in the next 10 years? (Expansion? New services introduction?...)
I would consider expanding into Germany but German labour laws offer less possibilities than in The Netherlands. A company like About Payrolling & Services would be taking a lot more risk linked to employment contracts. In the Netherlands there are 3 types of contracts you can offer temporary personnel and it is rare that temporary employees are hired for such a long period that they end up with permanent contracts, which we need to finance even if the employee no longer has an assignment.
More information regarding About Payrolling & Services can be obtained by phone:
+31 (0) 346 55 70 92 or visit their internet site at:
http://www.payrolling.nl