Ask three people who run payroll, HR, and benefits for very different organizations what’s actually working right now, and you’d expect three different answers. Instead, you get the same answer three times, in three accents.
Sherry Wolfe has run payroll at Tuff Torq and worked in payroll and accounting for decades before that. Michael Berman runs HR for Pocono Services for Families and Children in Monroe County, Pennsylvania. Peter Kokkinakos runs a group purchasing organization for restaurants and food service operators in Florida. None of them compete with each other. All three landed on the same idea.
Peter put it most bluntly: “Stop trying to do everything alone. Lean on partners, groups, and technology so your leaders can focus on people and growth.” His entire business model is built on that premise: small operators pooling volume to get pricing they couldn’t get alone, so the savings go back into wages and retention instead of sitting on a balance sheet.
Michael’s version was quieter but pointed at the same thing: invest in your people before you need to and use technology to take administrative weight off the team so they can focus on the actual mission. For an organization built around supporting families and children, every hour spent on paperwork is an hour not spent on the work that matters.
Sherry’s answer to what’s made the biggest difference at Tuff Torq wasn’t a strategy or a framework; it was simpler than that. “It’s definitely our HCM software provider, Asure.” Sixteen years with the same partner, no plans to change.
Three different vocabularies for the same idea: leverage doesn’t come from doing more yourself. It comes from picking the right partners.
