Paycor Shift in Communication Tools Increases Engagement and Efficiency
“With a really small internal communications team, it was critical to have the right technology in place.”
Former Internal Communications Manager at Paycor, Emily Regenold
Company Size
Industry
Location
About Paycor
Headquartered in Cincinnati, Paycor is a global leader in HR and payroll solutions. Through innovative technology, it empowers organizations to build high-performing teams. With approximately 3,000 employees and more than 40,000 clients the company operates as a virtual-first company.
While most employees are based in the U.S., Paycor’s global presence extends to Canada, Israel, and Serbia, covering a wide range of roles from sales and product design to customer service and fieldwork. This diverse, distributed team reflects Paycor’s commitment to adaptability and growth in a dynamic work environment.
Emily Regenold was Manager of Internal Communications at Paycor during the implementation of Cerkl Broadcast in 2022. Shortly after this, Valarie McCarthy took over as Paycor’s Senior Manager of Internal Communications. She has been leading the development and execution of Paycor’s communication strategies for associate and leadership communications ever since. So, we drew on the experiences of both these women for this post.
Company Challenges
Their previous email tool was slow & was missing important features
Communications didn’t consider employees' unique needs
Manual processes reduced efficiency and strategic focus
Having started as a small mid-western payroll business and grown into a national technology company with all these products, their product had been expanding fast. Consequently, so had their customer and associate base. As the business continued to grow, so too, did its need for effective internal tools and technologies. The obvious challenge was that to continue serving their U.S. employees and international associates, they needed a communication strategy that would keep them informed and engaged. But, it became even more imperative when Paycor became a fully virtual-first company due to the pandemic.
“Everything with an internal communication strategy changes when your company goes virtual-first,” says Emily.
Identifying the Challenges
The Paycor internal communications team was acutely aware that when a company starts communicating too much, people stop paying attention. They also realized the importance of focusing on what their employees and associates need to know.
When they began exploring new options, they identified a series of more specific challenges relating to:
- Email: Bananatag, the communication tool they were using at the time was integrated with Outlook, which wasn’t always smooth. There was no integration with content from other channels. Also, it performed very slowly and they weren’t able to send attachments with emails.
- Newsletters: Weekly newsletters were produced manually and there was often a rush in getting material together.
- Intranet: They identified the intranet as “a huge hurdle” to overcome. It was under-utilized across the business, with outdated information and in need of a refresh.
- Lack of personalization: All communications were sent to all employees and associates, without regard for their needs or interests.
- Manual operations: There was no automation incorporated into the internal comms program, which meant everything had to be done manually. The risks included the possibility of inefficiencies and increased errors. Also, there was less time to focus on strategic initiatives that drive engagement and alignment across the organization.
- Basic analytics: Because their internal communications program was based on manual operations, analytics were fundamental and the internal comms team was distrustful of their accuracy.
Another major challenge was that due to the nature of Paycor’s business, security was paramount. “Being a payroll company, we have a ton of security measures in place which can make any sort of new integration a 10-step process.” Keeping customers’ information as secure as possible “added some IT hurdles for us along the way.”
Goals and Objectives
Upgrade their existing internal communications system
Automate some tasks to streamline the IC team's efforts
Increase leadership visibility to foster trust and organizational unity
They needed to upgrade their existing internal communications system and streamline it. They wanted an email system that performed more effectively and efficiently. They were frustrated with the existing newsletter process which was time-consuming and unmanageable.
A primary goal was to improve the very outdated intranet. A key objective was to introduce a completely new strategy that would make their intranet the front door of Paycor’s virtual workplace. They also wanted a reliable analytics solution and automation of at least some tasks to streamline their efforts.
But it wasn’t that simple. Emily acknowledges that the first step was to truly understand what they wanted and to define their goals. For this reason, it became a collaborative effort between the internal communications team and the chief human resources officer (CHRO).
They knew that they wanted communication within the company to be better. They also knew it needed to feel more personal. “But what does that actually look and feel like? And what are the steps that we need to take to get there?”
Ultimately, they wanted to communicate things that people really needed to know. In addition to the right content, they were aiming at shorter communication in general together with increased video communications. The internal comms team also aimed to ensure employees could recognize their leaders, understand their values, and feel connected to the vision they represent. Making leadership more visible helps foster trust and builds a stronger sense of unity within the organization.
“It’s good for people to have a voice — for people to see the faces of our leaders. Also, keeping an intentional drumbeat on our product and our customers, and how Paycor is growing as a company.”
– Emily Regenold, former Manager of Internal Communications at Paycor
Solutions
Again, the solutions to Paycor’s challenges are aligned with their challenges and goals.
Email Blasts
Designing around Microsoft Outlooks unknown formatting boundaries, and accommodating readers on mobile devices, laptops, and tablets, had not been ideal.
Broadcasts Email Blasts editor was a great solution for the issues they had with generic formatting in Outlook. Paycor found that the Broadcast editor allows for great formatting and impeccable design and gives you every opportunity to wow an executive team. Not only did their emails now look great, but it established trust from the get-go.
There are lots of email tools out there, many with drag-and-drop. But Cerkl is definitely the cleanest tool we have ever used.
Emily Regenold
News Digest
The issue with manual newsletters was identifying suitable content every week. By implementing the News Digest option, which is automated by AI, Paycor was able to personalize content and deliver what employees and associates want to read. Sometimes it will be a strategic decision, other times it will allow the content stream to be shared organically. The important factor is that theres now a choice.
When you start to give people a choice, it allows them to cut down on the noise. And they get the news they need to do their jobs.
Emily Regenold
Intranet Upgrade
Broadcast offers intranet plugins that provide a tailored experience for employees and other users. It helps to ensure that a companys intranet is a labyrinth of essential content and useful information. A key feature is that it enables communicators to deliver important announcements and personalized content to every individual.
The great thing with Broadcast is that it is accountable, says Emily. Everything posted to the intranet can be tagged. It was also part of the personalization solution.
Data and Analytics
The Dynamic Employee Segments in Broadcast Audience Manager would enable communicators to work with important employee data and build dynamic audiences. That would be a first step to improving overall analytics and, in turn, performance.
But the key point in terms of solutions was Broadcast Insights which would provide Paycor with analytics in real time. It would enable them to track open rates, click rates, and so on as well as goals related to their new intranet, My Paycor News, and mobile engagement metrics.
Automation
Not everything can be automated. But by embracing the capabilities of Broadcasts automated News Digest that is powered by AI, Paycors internal communicators would be able to concentrate on more strategic tasks.
Personalization
A key feature that attracted Paycor to Cerkl Broadcast was personalization. The Broadcast Content Hub would provide Paycor with a central location to create, edit, and track all content. Using Audience Manager, they would be able to create custom segments to deliver relevant communications at scale.
Implementation of Broadcast Solutions
Implementation of Broadcast solutions was a team effort between internal communications, the IT department, and the engineering team at Paycor. It also involved Cerkl Customer Success (CS) managers. “It was incredible to know that the Cerkl team was handling the project management aspect of this from their side.”
The first step in the implementation process was to get the Email Blast tool into place. This is what they would be using to send everyday emails and newsletters. They also worked on audience integration, defining their audience and focusing on important employee data to build Dynamic Segments. Then they worked on implementing the new personalization process. That’s where My Paycor News came in and where they could integrate their intranet.
“As much as we know, whenever we integrate a new piece of technology, it’s going to be a bit of a hurdle to jump over. We found a really strong partnership with Cerkl in our weekly meetings, being able to have all of our questions answered. If the implementation team that was there wasn’t able to answer the question right away, they were always willing to pull in a partner from another part of the company to hop in and work together to resolve the issues to get it solved as quickly as possible.”
– Emily Regenold, former Manager of Internal Communications at Paycor
Results and Metrics*
%
Click Rate for Email Blasts
%
Click Rate for My Paycor News
Email Blasts Sent
Measuring the outcomes of an internal communication strategy is essential. Tracking results and metrics helps confirm the effectiveness of communication efforts and highlights areas for improvement to support organizational goals.
Valarie McCarthy finds that just understanding how many people are actually clicking through content is really exciting. “Analytics help us understand what our associates are interested in, and what topics they like reading about.” She also emphasizes the benefit of being able to identify audience reach.
“It’s pretty exciting. When you think about the stuff that you’re putting out there that people are clicking through and wanting to actually read that stuff. It’s not wasted effort, after all.”
But what about the numbers?
Email analytics from 2023 to September 2024 show:
- 614k Email Blasts have been sent
- Average audience size has been 1,412
- 34% click rate
My Paycor News for the same period shows:
- 285k sent
- 68% audience reach
- 32% click rate
- 247 Segments
The top categories of readership for My Paycor News are employee experience, career development, and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)
How Do These Results Align With Expectations?
Paycor found that their audience became super-engaged — which is exactly what they wanted. They were particularly pleased with how their audience responded to personalizing their experiences. “Some employees say their favorite time of the week now is when they get My Paycor News,” the newsletter collated by New Digest.
It’s a highlight for the internal comms team. Instead of a last-minute panic before producing the weekly newsletter, they are able to strategize. Customization is also a win-win.
The new email approach was also on the mark. “The scheduling feature has helped our team immensely. Previously, being integrated with Outlook, we could schedule emails, but they wouldn’t send unless a person’s computer was open. The scheduling feature task in Broadcast has enabled us to be more intentional — to get ahead.”
Shortly before Emily left the company in 2022, she said it was just the beginning of Paycor’s Broadcast journey. It had already helped by integrating the platform with their intranet. And it provided them with a unique opportunity to give people the news that they want or that’s most impactful for their jobs. According to Emily, it was even better for their associates.
However, achieving their analytics goal was still a job in progress. But she wasn’t fazed. Even though the data element wasn’t exactly where they wanted it to be, she believed it would help them by showing continuous improvement. After all, personalization hadn’t been high enough at first. But, with help from the Cerkl CS team, they were able to get it to grow. As the personalization rate grew, so too did overall engagement. It’s an ongoing process.
Valarie McCarty confirms that, two years later, the Internal comms team uses vital analytics to guide and inform decision-making using actionable insights from data.
Commendation
Emily Regenold, Former Internal
Communications Manager
“I like to do business with people who are smart, who know what they’re talking about. But most importantly, I like to do business with good people. And so that’s been a really effective part of working with Cerkl is just to know that you’re working with real people who are awesome, who you can trust, and who are experts in their field. There’s nothing better than that.”
Valarie McCarthy, Senior Manager of
Internal Communications
“Efficiency has been a huge part of what we’ve gotten through Cerkl. Just so much time saved in not having to go create the manual stuff that it’s created for us. It takes us from just being a tactical communication team to being a team that can be more thoughtful about how we are making an impact on the business and hopefully providing the strategic value that our leaders expect from us.”
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