Checkpoint Payroll Services is a payroll processing company that serves California. The company relies on technology in order to be successful since its IT provides employees with access to their records, employers with the ability to update and run their payroll, and interfaces to banks and government agencies ensure prompt deposits, withdrawals and payments for the various transactions that take place.
The team is tasked with creating a vision for the entire company. As a result, the team was itself composed of members from throughout key departments. The CEO was a participant, but other departments selected employees who had been with the organization for a long period of time, or who volunteered when asked if they were willing to participate. The final team included the CEO, and one member each from IT, marketing/sales, finance/accounting, operations and human resources.
The team members served as liaisons with the company as a whole in order to ensure that as the vision was being developed, it was in concert with what individual employees throughout the organization expected and could support. Having interdepartmental input throughout the process improved the "buy-in" among employees, and provided the sense that the vision was not being imposed on employees, but was a company-wide undertaking. This, in turn, should create an environment that fosters greater acceptance of the vision both in the short-term and the long-term.
The team first examined the functions that the company currently performed, and distilled those into a mission statement that described the company as it exists today. Then, the team considered the possibilities that the company could explore given its strengths, weaknesses and the competitive situation. From there, the team sought to create a higher level vision for the organization that did not describe, necessarily, what the company would do on a day-to-day basis, but instead, the overall vis...