The New York Mets Leverage Valiant Solutions to Streamline and Automate Their Player Payroll
New York Mets skipper Willie Randolph is entrusted with the difficult job of managing his players on the field. But like all professional sports franchises, the Mets needed a solution that would allow them to streamline the complex and resource-draining process of calculating, paying and reporting their players' salaries. Willie has to worry about when to call for a sacrifice bunt or pull a tiring pitcher. After an exhaustive selection process, the Mets chose Valiant to worry about their player payroll.The resulting partnership has been a tremendous success.
The Mets have more than 400 players in their organization, including 40 players on their Major League roster and over 360 more spread across their various Minor League affiliates. Some players routinely spend portions of the season with the Mets and split time between two or more Minor League ballclubs. The payroll process is extremely complex because each league has its own unique payscale and minimum salary requirements--and specific player contracts call for increased salary levels based on which league the player is in during the course of the season.
Additionally, multiple state and local income tax regulations need to be processed every time the team travels for a road series. In any given month of the season, the Mets need to calculate pay rates and taxation requirements for numerous locations across the country.
Early in 2004, the Mets began interviewing workforce management providers with the goal of implementing a solution by the start of the 2005 season.
"We talked to large national companies and smaller mom-and-pop shops," noted Len Labita, the Mets' vice president and controller. "Some providers told us that they couldn't meet our requirements at all; others said they would need a year or more to get the system up and running--and they all said it would require a massive investment in software, training and infrastructure on our end."
"Valiant assured us they could provide all the services we needed--and some we hadn't even thought of," Labita added. "And they committed to getting the entire process up and running in two months with an extremely reasonable fee structure."
Utilizing a customized version of its Vision employee scheduling solution and its Vault payroll solution, Valiant created a management system that automatically calculated and processed pay rates and taxation on a stadium basis--a solution that covered every venue the team and its affiliates visited during the season.
The Mets wanted help in a number of key areas, but also chose to maintain direct control over various HR and payroll functions. Valiant's solution allowed the Mets to outsource the most difficult aspects of their workforce management cycle while keeping vital administrative procedures in house. For example, players are paid semi monthly (on the 15th and the last day of each month during the season). Valiant generates all payroll and taxation information and the Mets print player checks in house.
"Valiant delivered everything they promised. We were up and running in time for the start of the 2005 season, and we've seen significant savings in time and human resources," Labita continued. "Valiant's solution automatically tracks and manages payroll for every player in our organization and handles all of our tax-reporting issues--processes that we were previously forced to deal with manually."
As it does for all of its clients, Valiant ran parallel payroll runs with the Mets' existing system to ensure that everything was working properly before implementation--a process that engendered a great deal of confidence within the Mets organization.
"Maybe the best part of the process was the sense we got that Valiant really cared about us as customers," Labita said. "As they began to implement their workforce management solutions, our staff developed a fabulous working relationship with Valiant's team. We achieved a comfort level with them from day one."
