Since 2018, decision intelligence company Morning Consult has been consistently ranked as one of the best places to work in the US and one of the country’s fastest-growing companies. These awards are recognition of the company’s focus on its people—its ability to cultivate a personal and productive culture. And people are the main priority for Amanda Perry, Director of People Ops & Technology, who was hired to oversee the intersection of HR and technology during a period of significant growth for the company. “We grew from about 200 employees in mid-2020 to over 500 employees now [June 2022]. And we’re still bringing people on at a rate of about 10 to 20 per month. Hiring is our focus—and Rippling is what we use to do it,” she notes.
The switch from Paycor to Rippling: saving headcount from day one
When Perry began her career at Morning Consult, the company used Paycor for HR and payroll. But the legacy system didn’t meet her standards for usability or capability, “so I searched for a new system. Rippling blew me out of the water.”
Perry recounts that the central issue with Paycor was that it could not connect to other systems that Morning Consult used. As a result, teams repeatedly and manually updated systems—an unsustainable workflow, considering the company’s ambitious growth plans. “Had we not switched to Rippling, we would have needed to hire another head in our People Ops & IT department to manage our previous onboarding process. In addition, our IT team would likely need another head to process the manual connection between our HRIS and Okta accounts,” Perry notes.
When Perry joined, Morning Consult had just started using Okta for authentication. It was imperative that whatever HRIS platform the company used could integrate fully with the user security software—something that Paycor did not offer. “In the end, we looked at Rippling and Paylocity, but Paylocity did not have as many connections and integrations as Rippling. The number of integrations sold us,” Perry recalls.
Rippling integrates with Okta for automated identity management, allowing companies to provision users, create and remove accounts, and create and remove groups.
While Paycor may be slightly less costly on paper, “they did not provide integrations we needed for other teams to use the HRIS as the source of truth,” Perry says. “The lack of integrations means additional headcount to manage various systems that require manual updating of information.”
Eliminating 500+ hours of admin work per year on just HR and reporting tasks
Once Rippling was up and running, Perry drastically reduced the administrative burden of onboarding and offboarding.
“Before Rippling, we sent emails to every single new hire and for every single departure. On our team alone, we had four to five hours per week of admin work. Rippling Workflow Automator gave us that time back,” she says.
Perry also saved valuable time running payroll: “My payroll entry went from three hours to about 30 minutes.” That’s nearly an entire workday of admin time saved each month.
Thanks to experience, savvy, and platforms like Rippling, Perry’s team of two can meet the demands of a company of 500 (and growing). It's a prime example of running lean and working smart—not simply throwing people-power at a challenge and hoping headcount will solve it.
Rippling also helps the Morning Consult managers and executives get the information they need, exactly when needed, without wasting time on report requests or administrative tasks. Perry explains, “I gave our managers and executive team special access to Rippling. I sat with each of them for 10 minutes to teach them the basics, and then they were able to run with it. Now my team doesn’t get report requests anymore! Instead, managers and leadership can pull data, make reports, and create formulas independently, wherever they want.”
Perry continues, “Prior to Rippling, we spent roughly five hours per week fielding reporting requests.”
Flexibility for the win
As Morning Consult continues to evolve, both as a business and a company, it does so with a flexible and easily scaled technology solution at the heart of its people operations. And for an organization whose success results from its culture and employees, such a foundation is invaluable.
“I wish I had Rippling when I started in HR,” Perry remarks. “Rippling knows how ops teams work. In addition to the software, Rippling’s reps become extensions of your ops team—they are extra thought partners, people that can help optimize your organization.”
