TAG | In these hard times, workforce management software brings positive business benefits |
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| by David M Williams | |
| Monday, 09 February 2009 | |
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Page 3 of 3 Starwood Hotels adopted e-tivity three years ago and have implemented it in four hotels. Geoff Rossiter, Payroll Manager, explains with the previous “manual system, we calculated the wages on a fortnightly basis which meant we could only address issues with payroll costs after the fact.”Featured Whitepaper
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Starwood opted to implement e-tivity in conjunction with Positive’s hardware product, EziTime Clocks. The clocks are mounted on walls and employees log in and out via biometric finger scanners. The system matches workers to their rosters and can adjust timesheets automatically if someone doesn’t clock in when they are supposed to. While not giving a dollar figure like Michael Hill, Rossiter says that e-tivity has allowed Starwood to grow in size by two more hotels and 500 staff without any need to increase the payroll team. ResCo Services, meanwhile, is a one-stop shop for clients in the resources sector, particularly mining, who seek skilled labour, operations expertise, plant and equipment maintenance, and spares and consumables. Executive Chairman, Craig Ransley, said “most systems on the market don’t cope with the rotating rosters and the complex awards common to the mining industry.” He said the company chose e-tivity based on its flexibility to manage these very issues. Ransley also referred to Positive’s understanding of the subject matter, adding, “We also liked the fact that Positive actually understood payroll and the principles behind it.” As the hire of labour is a key part of ResCo’s business, the company has benefited not just from a vastly improved payroll process but has also seen their billing enhanced due to the direct correlation between timesheets on both payroll and invoicing. Manual interpretation errors don’t just mean someone is paid wrongly; it also means someone is billed wrongly. With e-tivity the data coming out is reliable every time. Meanwhile, foreign exchange and cross-border payment provider, Travelex, has reduced its overtime expenses by 50% since implementing e-tivity at 170 of their retail stores, covering 650 employees. General Manager of the Asia Pacific Retail Division, Adam Koch, said the long trading hours of the company’s stores and the high number of employees meant it needed a product which could easily generate and manage a complex roster. Some Travelex outlets operate 24 hours a day. “To create a roster manually for this volume of trading hours and employees would be a nightmare,” Koch said. Koch expressed that, as with Starwood Hotels, Travelex had no way of managing payroll costs because it couldn’t react until timesheets came in – after the event. Instead, “with e-tivity we can get a snapshot of the current roster at any time which means we can actually make decisions before incurring costs.” According to Koch, the biggest saving for Travelex has been in overtime, which has halved since e-tivity was implemented. “In many cases, overtime usually comes down to ineffective rostering techniques – for example, putting an employee on for six days in a row or for shifts of more than 10 hours,” he said. “E-tivity, however, allows you to look at overtime and actually flags where you’re incurring costs so you can make the necessary changes before it’s too late.” While not discussing dollar amounts, Koch estimated e-tivity had probably made a 10% saving in staff costs. In this day of troubled financial forecasts, it’s positive to see technology really doing what technology should – giving solid real-time information to management upon which sound decisions can be made, and streamlining the business processes in genuine ways. |
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