First Graphix Outsources HR Administration to Focus on Printing and Protect Business

By Mickey Matran / September 23, 2014 / Uncategorized No Comments

Margaret Crifasi started working at First Graphix, a Baton Rouge, Louisiana, printing graphics company, 24 years ago and eventually bought the business with her partner Chris Weilenman in March 2012. Now she’s president and says in the printing realm “we’re really good at what we do.”

But when it came to handling the HR administration required to run a business, she’s the first to admit they didn’t know what to do. “We didn’t know jack about payroll, insurance, unemployment hearings, writing an employee handbook.”

After about a year of trying to learn and handle it all on their own, Crifasi and Weilenman turned to the HR Solutions team of experts. With that help, not only were they able to focus on their business, but also they learned what they needed to know about their duties and responsibilities as employers. Now, HR Solutions handles most of First Graphix’s HR administrative tasks such as payroll, handbooks and training.

Safety and Staffing

The stakes are high in an industrial environment like a printing plant where machines and hazardous chemicals can make safety a challenge. HR Solutions holds quarterly training sessions on OSHA compliance, chemical disposal and handling, and other workplace-specific topics to help First Graphix keep its safety knowledge fresh. As a result, Crifasi says now “we know exactly what to do” if someone were to slip, fall and get injured in the building.

“We’re a relatively small company, and we need to concentrate on what we do every day,” she says. “Payroll taxes, unemployment issues — we leave that to them. If an employee is breaking the rules, we document it, send it to HR Solutions, they do the write ups, and that’s that.”

First Graphix has gone through two unemployment hearings during Crifasi’s tenure as president. One of the investigations began before the company started working closely with HR Solutions, and First Graphix lost the case. With HR Solutions’s help on the second, “we won with flying colors,” says Crifasi.

HR Solutions helped the First Graphix team assemble the documentation necessary to present their case and provided support throughout the process. “They coached us along the way,” Crifasi says.

Critical Coaching

That coaching is a primary way HR Solutions is helpful, says Crifasi. She and her team learn more about HR “every day” by working with the team of professionals. “If we document and keep track of things, our company runs better, and if a problem comes up, we have all of our notes. If a situation arises that we’re unfamiliar with, they are a phone call away. They get us over that hump, but they educate us so we’re proactive so it won’t happen again.”

Outsourcing HR administration allows you to focus on what you do best: attend to your business’s core competencies and help it grow. By working with HR Solutions, Crifasi says she has been able to focus on building First Graphix without worrying about an HR technicality that could bring it down.

She describes HR Solutions as the company’s right arm: “Having them along has allowed us to tremendously grow our company. Not having them could absolutely bury us.”

If you need help with HR administration so you can focus on running your business, contact us and let’s discuss how we can help.

HR Solutions is a human resources outsourcing firm based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. We eliminate human resources headaches for businesses with 10 to 1,000 employees by handling their payroll, employee benefits, regulatory compliance and other staffing needs. Contact us to learn how we can streamline your company’s human resources function to save money and reduce risk.

 

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