Revolutionizing HR: How HR Hero transformed LaPolla’s operations

Realized growth through partnership

Overview

Empower Business Strategies, founded and led by Anthony LaPolla, is a specialized HR consultancy catering to start-ups and small to midsize organizations. With 15 years of experience in HR across various sectors, including government contracts, emergency management, health care, and animal health, LaPolla established Empower in 2022. It assists its clients in navigating complex HR compliance challenges and growing their organizations effectively.

Challenges

Empower faced a common yet critical challenge: the need to support multiple clients in creating up-to-date and fully compliant employee handbooks. With clients spanning different industries, ensuring each handbook adhered to state and federal regulations was both labor-intensive and time-consuming. The challenge extended to understanding and keeping up with the ever-evolving labor laws and policies across multiple states. In addition to handbooks, LaPolla knew his clients would need a comprehensive solution for HR responsibilities and streamlining workflows.

Vetting

LaPolla began exploring solutions to address this challenge and looked at various competitors in the HR compliance space. However, he was determined to partner with a company that had a deep understanding of HR and employment compliance. He came across BLR’s Employee Handbook Builder tool and discovered that it’s a clear industry leader used by reputable HR associations and built by the employment experts at Jackson Lewis. He would later find out that BLR’s handbook builder was part of a full suite of top HR solutions and resources called HR Hero®.

Solution

What appealed to LaPolla was that BLR is an all-in-one HR resource hub, providing direct, specific, and up-to-date information, essentially serving as a one-stop shop for all his compliance needs. The handbook builder tool, in particular, became a pivotal tool in addressing the immediate need for compliant employee handbooks and policy updates across multiple states.

Product(s) used by Empower:

HR Hero

• Employee Handbook Builder
• Job Description Manager
• Salary Finder
• Resources
• FSLA

Measurable benefits

The impact of HR Hero’s adoption was quickly evident. LaPolla experienced a substantial reduction in labor costs and time, both of which had previously been dedicated to manual research and policy development. BLR’s Employee Handbook Builder’s automated compliance updates streamlined the process and ensured handbooks remained legally compliant. This allowed Empower to reallocate labor hours to other strategic HR initiatives.

For anyone considering an HR compliance management solution, Lapolla has the following advice.

“HR Hero is a tool you need right out of the gate—don’t wait as long as I did. The automatic compliance updates are a game-changer. I don’t have to think about it, and combined with the desktop references, it’s worth the price alone.” -Anthony Lapolla, Owner of Empower Business Strategies

Forward-looking

LaPolla isn’t just looking back at Empower’s successes but is also actively planning for the future. He and his team are working on securing leadership buy-in to expand their services and increase their clientele. Additionally, they’re preparing to expand their operational footprint from 5 states to 10, thus further extending their reach and influence. LaPolla is also considering adding some training courses from BLR’s TrainingToday® platform to further enhance his service offerings. With so many exciting things on the horizon, LaPolla is confident that he can focus on the things he needs to while BLR continues to be a foundational constant and trustworthy partner for him and his organization.

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