After 13 years in the human resources and payroll industries, Nick Polk has a clear understanding of what it takes to make a tangible, positive impact on a client’s operations. The former partner at The Payroll Company in Little Rock recently set out to build his own platform, guided by the goal of solving common customer headaches and backing it up with a team that puts people first in every decision. The result of that work is SentraHCM, an all-in-one solution for payroll, human resources, benefits and time management.
“We’re in business to do two things exceptionally well — deliver the best customer service experience in the industry, and provide a future-proof HCM solution for all of a client’s payroll and HR needs — all with one login,” Polk said. “This wasn’t an overnight idea. It’s the product of years spent in this industry, learning what actually makes an HR and payroll relationship work and, just as importantly, what makes one fall apart.”
Polk has made sure SentraHCM does things differently and better, down to the last detail. The biggest problem the SentraHCM platform tackles right from the start, he said, is fragmentation. Companies typically use separate tools for payroll, time and benefits, which can create expensive issues down the line, such as double entries and missed deadlines. SentraHCM brings the entire employee lifecycle into a single sign-on platform, or, as Polk described it, “one login, one employee record, hire to retire.” Just as important as building software that actually works, however, is getting it to customers. Implementation and service after the sale are the other key pillars setting SentraHCM apart.
“We run a real, staged implementation and validate against your actual prior payrolls before anyone relies on the numbers,” Polk said. “With us, you get a named contact who knows your business, your pay groups and your last conversation. If a payroll breaks on a Thursday, that’s our emergency, too.”
Overall, Polk said, what he wanted to create with SentraHCM was a different kind of relationship between client and vendor. When a client calls with a problem, they do not have to navigate an endless maze of call center lines — they get a real person who knows their account. It is no exaggeration to say Polk’s standard for his team is to deliver the best customer service experience anywhere in the industry. Indeed, that is why SentraHCM is here at all.
“SentraHCM is built to deliver the level of service I always believed this industry should,” Polk said. “I want a client to feel that the thing they used to lose sleep over is genuinely handled by people they can actually reach. Partnership means the person who sold you the platform is still the one who knows your account a year later, and that when something comes up, it’s our problem to solve, not your ticket to file.”
The benefits to businesses under the SentraHCM model are hard to overstate. Companies will save hours every pay cycle that would otherwise be lost re-keying between different systems and vendors. Clients can expect clear answers to their questions rather than stacks of spreadsheets and opaque figures. Compliance is also handled at every step, from tax filing to garnishments and year-end paperwork — and, what is more, the platform is designed to grow as one’s business does, so customers never have to face the task of ripping out old systems and starting over in order to scale.
“Beyond the software, we can put dedicated HR expertise on a client’s account: handbooks built to their states, compliance monitoring, job descriptions, manager and employee training, even employee-relations support,” Polk said. “Everything that runs quietly in the background — ACA tracking and filing, new-hire reporting, I-9 and E-Verify, benefit carrier feeds — are the pieces that create the most risk when they’re handled by hand. With us, they’re simply taken care of.”
SentraHCM serves employers of all kinds, and the platform can keep up with everything from small teams to complex, multi-state operations. Polk said the company is at its very best with growing businesses that have outgrown basic payroll tools, especially those one-size-fits-all providers that are often unable to handle such issues as multiple entities, multiple states or more complex pay and benefits. A SentraHCM customer, though, is defined by what they want, Polk said, not their size.
“Payroll and HR aren’t glamorous, but they’re the machinery that lets a business actually take care of its people,” Polk said. “Getting that right, reliably, is the whole point of what we do. Our ideal customer is an owner or HR leader who’s tired of juggling disconnected systems and impersonal support, and who values a true partnership with a provider who knows their business by name.”
As a growing operation itself, SentraHCM understands firsthand the challenges and circumstances owners face. Polk said his goal in the coming years is to grow deliberately, but never at the expense of the personal, partnership-driven service that has helped the platform distinguish itself. Growth matters, he said, but to him, success will be measured by “whether a client who’s been with us for two years still feels like they know the person answering their call.”
“If you’re running your HR across three disconnected systems and hoping nothing breaks, I’d welcome the chance to show you what one platform and a genuine partnership can look like,” Polk said.
Learn more and get in touch at sentrahcm.com.
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