StarGarden HR Suite

Author: Jenna Vasquez

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The Good

• Support services
• Change management
• Workflow management
• Training
• Benefit tracking

StarGarden's Services Division provides a complete range of support services designed to ensure that the product is installed, configured and tested in the quickest and most cost-effective way. StarGarden is highly regarded as having excellent customer service representatives who are knowledgeable and able to quickly meet customer needs and are available 24/7. StarGarden is designed to manage changes between departments by making adjustments at the source so that the secondary departments have to intervene less once they receive the changes creating more effective use of department time and making it easier to help the employee. StarGarden manages authority rules and distributes business functions across any number of organizations for reliable workflow management; automatically delivering the right task, information and network resources to the right people at the right time. StarGarden meets the requirement for authorized access by employees, contractors, partners and customers to information assets at anytime from anywhere and allows companies to effectively manage access rights and security. StarGarden allows their customers to distribute the management of identities and access privileges across one or many organizations in a federation. This increases accountability and integrity while reducing operating costs and lag times while ensuring that this is coordinated with business policies and regulations. StarGarden is one of the more complete HR software resources we have come across allowing companies to manage attendance, benefits , payroll options consisting of check printing, tax management and for printing, direct deposit, W-2 Preparation as well as vacation/leave tracking and wage garnishment. StarGarden also provides training for customers who are starting with their system in the forms of on-site training courses, documentation, webinars, and live online assistance. StarGarden is customizable to meet customer needs both on a software level and on a pricing level. By doing so they are able to help companies in a variety of industries and help make sense of the overall management for clients that deal with complex schedules and payroll requirements. StarGarden can track all of an employee's basic benefit options, such as medical insurance, dental insurance, group life, and disability insurance, as well as tracking both employee and employer contributions to deferred benefits such as pensions, savings plans, and tax deferral plans.

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The Bad

• Transparency
• No free trial
• Support issues
• Limited management functions
• No mobile capabilities

Detailed pricing information for StarGarden HR Suite is not publicly available. Before determining pricing you must request a company assessment be performed for your needs within your company. The assessment consists of the following: 2-3 days on site to meet with HR, Payroll, Finance, and any other interested party to discuss your needs in detail with an additional 2 days for the proposal write-up. The implementation schedule will vary depending on the time and resources available from your organization. With a small dedicated implementation team or a larger part-time implementation team the project will typically take 2 to 3 months. During the Assessment phase our experienced consultants will help you evaluate the scope of the project and the readiness of your organization to implement the new system. Establishment time could be a deterrent for companies looking for quicker options. Because of StarGarden's detailed setup and evaluation process no free trial is available for customers to participate in. After working with StarGarden customer feedback shows that a lot of customers rely more on the company's customer service representatives then they would like to because they find some program limitations that create support issues with programs that are already in effect in their own company. This is not completely StarGarden's issue but customers seem to have a hard time matching up all of their current systems with those implemented by StarGarden. While StarGarden is extremely inclusive covering almost all aspects of human resource and identity management they do not cover management of all aspects of employee benefits. They do not track company stock options or provide any performance feedback or applicant tracking. Specializing in complex pay and benefit issues has also limited them to specific markets creating a niche in the local government, education, health and unionized industries. StarGarden does not have mobile capabilities available for customers.

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The Bottom Line

StarGarden is one of the more comprehensive Human Resource software applications we have found on the market. Although they do not cover all HR tacking needs they meet the majority and are not limited to one specific function within the human resource field. The do however only appear to fill a small industry need because they focus closely on companies that have complex payroll and employee benefit requirements. Those markets are some of the largest within the specific industries they service though. The time it takes to set up and complete consultation and then implement the program does seem to take more than the average time other companies are using to implement their services but the detailed care and customizable options makes this program a good fit for companies who are looking to better manage workflow and other human resource criteria. StarGarden is also constantly staying up-to-date on the industry changes to workplace policy and regulations and are constantly updating their software to make sure all government and intuition policies are current. They have also streamlined their system to better fill the needs of companies that function in both the US and Canada making sure that their software is functional in both countries and is a similar as possible on both sides. For anyone looking for a more comprehensive company to help streamline their human resource and payroll needs StarGarden would be a good fit.