Corporate Facts:
Sequent Company Overview
Outsourcing of employer obligations and duties is a well-established way of doing business for nearly every industry.
Below you will find a profile of Sequent and our business, specifically as it relates to the Professional Employer Organization Services we offer. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us by clicking here.
1. What year did the vendor start in the business of providing PEO services?
2. What year did the vendor start providing PEO services in the state of Ohio?
3. Where is the vendor’s closest support facility from where the vendor would provide primary support?
4. What other Ohio-based support facilities does the vendor have?
5. What state of Ohio licenses/certifications does the vendor have which support the provision of PEO services?
- Ohio requires no licenses/certifications. All registrations are current.
6. What national certifications or credentialing does the vendor have that relate to the provision of PEO services?
- Member - ESAC (Employer Services Assurance Corporation) since 2000
- Fiduciary Best Practices AAA+ award
- Member National Association of Professional Employer Organizations
7. Please describe the vendor’s insurance coverage as they pertain to the protection of vendor’s clients and vendor’s clients’ escrowed funds.
- ESAC-accredited companies must submit audited financial statements and quarterly independent CPA verification of payment of taxes, benefit contributions and insurance premiums.
- Assurance is provided through $1 million surety bond held on behalf of each ESAC accredited PEO plus a $10 million excess bond covering all program clients.
- The program provides for reimbursement to clients and worksite employees in the unlikely event of a default by the outsourcer to pay wages, payroll taxes, and contributions to employee retirement plans, workers' compensation premiums and group life and health insurance premiums or plan contributions.
- Employment Practice Liability
- Cyber Liability
8. Please list any claims in excess of $5,000 that have been made against the vendor by any client in the past five years.
- In the past five years, Sequent has not had any claims made against them by any client in excess of $5,000.
9. Where is the vendor company’s headquarters?
- Sequent's headquarters are in Dublin, Ohio.
10. How many employees does the vendor employ (not including those of the vendor’s client companies)?
- Sequent employs 78 corporate employees.
11. Please list the vendor’s sales in the previous four years and identify what percentage of gross sales are from service-oriented (non-manufacturing) businesses.
- In the previous four years, gross billing revenue has exceeded $950 million.
- 88% of gross sales have been from non-manufacturing business.
12. What is the average length of time that these companies have been PEO clients with the vendor company?
- The average length of time clients have been Sequent PEO clients is 6.5 – 7 years.
13. How many employees does the vendor’s largest client employ?
- The largest Sequent client employees over 50,000 people.
- How many of those does the PEO vendor employ?
- Sequent’s largest professional employer client employs 125 employees.
- All employees are under the PEO relationship.
14. What is the ratio of human resource management staff to client employees for the human resource management function of the vendor? Provide the number of HR staff who support client employees and the number of client employees.
- Sequent’s HR Service Center is an integrated approach to managing HR/Payroll/Benefit matters for our clients companies.
- The ratio of human resource management staff is 1 to 125.9.
15. Describe the organizational structure supporting any account.
- Within our integrated approach to managing HR/Payroll/Benefits, five Human Resource Service Managers (Generalists) and a Director of Human Resources support Human Resource related services. The HR, New Client Services, Payroll, I.T., and Distribution facets are led by the Vice President of Service Delivery.
- Sequent’s array of subject matter experts in the areas of payroll, tax administration, unemployment compensation, risk, legal, new client services, recruiting, employment pre-screening and selection, benefits, client account manager, employee relations, training, and retirement plans and services complete projects and tasks related to the account on an on-going basis.
16. Who holds the final decision on discipline with Client employees?
- Sequent partners with clients to address employee disciplinary situations and mitigate the risks associated with any adverse employment action.
- Sequent offers advice and counsel related to employee relations issues, and sometimes conducts investigations related to disciplinary situations. Ultimately, the final decision maker is the client manager or officer involved with each employee scenario.
17. What software does the vendor use for human resources management and for payroll processing? Describe the major features of this software.
- The software Sequent uses for human resources management and payroll processing is Ultimate Software's UltiPro Platform. The major features of the software include:
- Employee Self Service – Sequent Connect Employee Self-Service offers important business value by improving employee satisfaction while also reducing the administrative workload for HR and payroll staff. Employees have immediate security-protected access to:
- Review paycheck details, benefits summaries, key employment dates, assigned company property, frequently used forms, company information and more
- Update personal information such as address, phone number, emergency contacts, skills and certifications
- Change direct deposit accounts
- Update dependents and beneficiaries
- Make benefits elections during Open Enrollment
- Manager Self Service - As authorized through Sequent Connect role-based security, managers have immediate self-service access to critical employee information such as salary, key dates and emergency contacts, with tools that enable them to make smart management choices.
- Web Based Standard Reporting - With Web Based Standard Reporting, authorized managers or HR/ payroll staff can quickly run their own reports without requiring the time of central HR/payroll or IT staff. From Sequent Connect, authorized users can run over 100 standard reports.
- Web Based Custom Reporting – Sequent can create customized reports based on requirements of Client and deliver through our secure web based reporting solution.
- Workflow - Sequent Connect automatically routes changes for approval through pre-defined workflow processes to expedite business activities such as:
- Changing any employee work-related information, such as salary, job, department, division, secondary job or pay rate, resident/work tax locations, and W-4 tax setup
- Updating/analyzing employee compensation
- Conducting salary and performance reviews
- Maintaining employee earnings, deductions and benefits
18. Describe the vendor’s backup procedures or offsite data management/disaster recovery plan.
- Sequent maintains a data backup policy and disaster recovery plan designed to protect the electronic information at Sequent.
- Our procedures and offsite data management/disaster recovery plans ensure that systems can be recovered in the event of hardware / software failure, a physical disaster or inadvertent deletion of information. These policies / plans are reviewed and updated annually as necessary.
- Our recovery plans are tested quarterly for verification. Some highlights of our data backup and disaster recovery plans are listed below.
- Data Backup
- Sequent utilizes disk-based backup systems for all data
- All data is backed up on a daily basis
- Critical application data is backed up every four hours
- All data is replicated to an offsite facility “warm site” as backups are taken
- All data is tested in warm site for recovery on a quarterly basis
- Disaster Recovery
- Multiple Data Centers
- Data Replicated between sites
- Multiple Internet Providers
- Highly Available Network Infrastructure
- System and Application Virtualization
- Highly Available storage infrastructure
- Redundant datacenter HVAC
- 30Kva UPS for Datacenter
- Diesel Generator with multi-day runtime capability
- Gas fire Suppression
19. What company or companies does the vendor work with for retirement plan benefits and what plan detail options do they provide?
- John Hancock: Retirement Plan Recordkeeper
- American Pension Services: Third Party Administration services
- Financial Educators: Client worksite employee education and administrative assistance
- Investment Policy Committee: Formally reviews, monitors and maintains the entire fund lineup; Works closely with Fiduciary Guidance firm
- Hill, Ward & Henderson: Provides legal review, plan amendments, restatements and fiduciary guidance
- Peter Gulia, Fiduciary Guidance: Special Fiduciary Guidance, ERISA counsel and special communications
- Roland Criss: Plan Sponsor Fiduciary Guidance
- Schneider Downs: Plan auditing and annual tax filing
- Sequent 401(k) Plan Administration Team: Monitors, maintains and services plan
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