TIM GRAHAM AND PPI: BUILDING ON A STRONG FOUNDATION

These days it’s not unusual for Tim Graham to spend part of his day fielding calls about state legislative issues and regulatory developments in Washington. The President and CEO of Clifton, New Jersey-based Payrolling Partners, Inc. (PPI) is also NAPEO’s New England Leadership Council Chair, the vice chair of NAPEO’s Federal Government Affairs Committee and PAC, and a former board of directors member.

That Graham is so involved in our governments affairs and advocacy efforts would have seemed quite unpredictable 15 years ago. Back then, Graham worked in packaging sales, high-end shopping bags to be specific. The company made and sold shopping bags that retail stores used in display cases and photos. Stores like Abercrombie & Fitch, Brooks Brothers, Chanel and Hollister were all clients of Graham’s company.

The path from shopping bags to PEO ran through a family friend. Graham’s father’s life-long best friend started Busy Bee Staffing that morphed into PPI in 1983. Around 2010, he began to seriously contemplate retirement but had no clear successor in place. At some point, Graham’s name came up.

“My dad asked me if I would take over PPI,” Graham recalls. “I asked him, ‘what do they even do?”

Like many people in 2010, Graham’s father had trouble explaining the PEO concept. He knew that payroll, benefits and retirement accounts played a big part, but that was about it. Graham was intrigued by the opportunity though and agreed to come on board and lead PPI.

He saw the value that a PEO brings to a business. He recognized that there’s an awful lot of nuts and bolts happening behind the scenes that keep a business going that PEOs take care of.

FICA, FUTA & SUTA

When he entered the PEO industry, Graham inherited a successful PEO with a solid foundation. With a 28-year track record of taking care of clients, PPI had an established culture of excellent customer service. The dedicated team in place brought many years of experience to each of their roles. All of these components helped Graham settle into his new role which he admits was a big career change.

“I had had a job and got paychecks, but I didn’t know who FICA and FUTA and SUTA were,” Graham laughs.

Probably like that vast majority of people, Graham knew taxes came out of his paycheck but had no idea where all the money went and the rules around withholdings and deductions. He had to get up to speed on the business of employment quickly.

He embraced the challenge and committed to learning everything about the business. His predecessor, who he considers like an uncle, had been involved with NAPEO’s New Jersey Chapter, but didn’t engage much at the national level. Graham jumped headfirst into NAPEO to learn as much as he could. He connected with Brent Tilson and the two formed a mentor-mentee relationship.

“I tried to be a sponge and learn as much as I could from Brent,” Graham says. “I asked specific questions to understand the challenges he’s faced and how he operated his PEO in Indiana.”

This relationship proved invaluable. The relationships he established with his new employees also proved critical.

“When I came on I took each one to lunch individually to learn about their roles and challenges,” Graham says.

He wanted to know what made the company work well and what could be improved. He quickly discovered one looming issue: PPI’s payroll platform.

MEMORY ISSUES

From the beginning of the company, PPI has processed payroll on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. This schedule is still in place today. With so many long-term clients still on board, many have grown accustomed to this routine. Some still even insist that hard copies of invoices be mailed.

In the 1980s and 90s, paper forms, fax machines and landlines powered the company’s operations. That was all well and good for the time, but once Graham got involved with the company he decided to invest more in technology.

Pointing to a carbonless copy phone message book, he jokes that was PPI’s CRM. Some days, the PPI office felt more like a call center.

“A client would call in an issue or payroll change and someone would jot it down and walk it over to the right person,” he explains.

Not exactly the most efficient way to run the business in 2011.

Graham’s predecessors had actually hired a software developer to build a custom payroll processing software for PPI. It served the company well for a time, but Graham knew it had to be replaced. For one, the legacy system processed payroll in alphabetical order by worksite employee regardless of client. So, a data integrator then had to reorganize the data in another system to generate client invoices and print paper checks.

It was also a closed system which meant clients couldn’t access any of their own information. If direct deposit needed to be set up, PPI would mail a form to the worksite employee. If someone was curious about their year-to-date earnings they had to check their paystub.

Not to mention the compliance hurdles.

“If there was a change in the tax tables, we’d have to download the tables and manually update the rates in the system,” Graham explains.

The major flaw in the system, though, was memory issues. Since the data was never purged, at some point Graham knew the whole thing would hit maximum storage and shut down. Less than ideal to say the least.

Fast forward to today and PPI now operates on a robust, sophisticated HCM software which has been a major improvement.

LIKE A FAMILY

As a small shop with just six people, PPI is truly a tight-knit group. Just as many of PPI’s clients have been on board for many years, the newest PPI employee has been with the company for seven years. They enjoy collaborating and bouncing around ideas with each other.

Everyone wears many hats and helps wherever needed. The phone is always answered by the second ring and Graham says that 90% of the time whoever answers the phone can answer the question. While each team member specializes in an area, everyone understands each person’s role at a 30,000-foot level.

The team’s commitment to each other and their clients has never been tested more than during the COVID pandemic. It was a trying time for all businesses, but being in New Jersey, PPI felt the brunt of the pandemic early on. A scary and uncertain time, the team pulled through.

“For being a small company, I’m just proud we made it through,” Graham says. “It was a sudden shift in how we worked and everyone embraced it.”

Like all PEOs, the PPI team had to not only keep normal services up and running, but had to master the PPP loan program and new workplace rules and regulations on COVID testing and PPE requirements. Educating clients on best practices and nearly-constantly evolving lock down rules proved challenging, but it paid off. Graham says that nearly all of his clients received a PPP loan which no doubt kept most of them in business.

Looking ahead, Grahm and his team are preparing to help clients through new workforce challenges. New state laws on data privacy will be tricky for businesses to navigate, so there’s a role for PEOs to help. Changes and updates to federal tax policy will also impact businesses. For example, if the no tax on tips proposal emerges, PEOs will have to understand the regulations to make sure clients’ payroll deductions comply.

Whatever challenges emerge, however, these businesses will be better of because they have the PPI team on their side.