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City of Orlando Minimizes Compliance Risk, Improves Workforce Productivity with Kronos^® Workforce Management Solution

Sunny Orlando, Florida, home to more than 200,000 residents, is one of the world’s most visited vacation destinations, with more than 30 million tourists visiting annually. For the City of Orlando, providing essential services to its burgeoning population and large number of tourists is a top priority. City department heads must carefully manage their budgets to ensure tax revenues are used effectively and efficiently. The city’s employee base of 4,000 increases significantly during the summer months, as seasonal workers are hired, making the accurate tracking of time and labor even more complex.

Managing employees’ time and labor information had been a challenge. “We had so many different ways that people were keeping time and delivering timesheets, we weren’t able to be consistent in how rules and policies were being enforced,” says John Matelski, chief security officer and deputy chief information officer for the City of Orlando. “We were dealing with a mix of automated systems, spreadsheets, and manual timecards.”

The city turned to the Kronos® Workforce Central® suite — including Workforce Timekeeper™ — to implement a centralized, automated workforce management solution that is providing consistency, minimizing compliance risks, and controlling labor costs through improved efficiencies.

Centralized system minimizes compliance risks

The City of Orlando uses Workforce Timekeeper to manage time and labor for employees in 12 municipal departments. All employees, from garbage collectors to the mayor’s staff, are using the Kronos solution, which interfaces with Infinium for payroll, as well as SunPro, a rostering system for 24-hour departments such as fire and police services.

Creating a centralized, automated system has made it easier for the City of Orlando to have confidence in information and react to the changing makeup of its workforce. “It was important for us to have all the data in one place, along with a set of consistent processes,” says Matelski. “Kronos lets us address various legislative, union, and policy-based challenges. We can do a change in one place using Kronos and not have to worry about how 400 managers across the city are going to interpret the rule. Kronos does it all.” Compliance is no longer a concern.

Following an economic downturn in 2001, a number of new unions were established, increasing the city’s unionized employees from 40 percent to 90 percent of its workforce. “This is another big advantage for an automated solution like Kronos,” says Matelski. “Now when union contracts are revised, we only have to make the changes once. And we aren’t relying on each supervisor understanding and misinterpreting the contract changes.” Since the implementation of Kronos, Orlando has seen a decrease in union grievances.

The flexibility of the Kronos solution also stands out. “Being able to configure things to match our organizational changes is easy,” adds Rosa Akhtarkhavari, customer services support manager. “All of the information is centralized in one place, and we can get detailed information when we need it.”

Automated system streamlines processing, controls labor costs

Payroll is another area where the City of Orlando has realized significant improvements. Prior to Kronos, timesheets were sent out for management approval to over 200 locations, a time-consuming and error-prone process. “Now employees’ time is captured accurately in Workforce Timekeeper and transferred directly to our payroll system,” says Akhtarkhavari. “Payroll adjustments have decreased, and payroll staff has been able to move their responsibilities away from more clerical tasks, and reduce payroll department overtime.”

During the hurricane season of 2004, Hurricanes Charley, Frances, and Jeanne battered the Orlando area over five weeks, causing widespread damage and flooding. In an innovative use of its Kronos solution, the City of Orlando used Workforce Timekeeper to track law enforcement, fire department, public works, and parks and recreation hours that would be eligible for FEMA reimbursement. “Hours were charged to specific projects through our Kronos solution,” explains Matelski. “Because the data was consistent, with no contradictions in the budget and reporting, we were reimbursed by FEMA quickly and accurate

Easy to own, easy to use

The City of Orlando worked closely with Kronos to ensure it would be able to implement the Kronos solution itself — and quickly. IT staff took all of the relevant Kronos training courses, and were then able to provide implementation and training support to end users. The result? Being up and running fast for greater control of labor costs and a faster payback.

“Every time we’ve needed Kronos support, it’s been there,” says Matelski. “The training was very good, and we were satisfied that Kronos offered a solution that we could implement ourselves. We know that with Kronos, we have a strong partner.”

Future plans will include Kronos

The City of Orlando is upgrading to the latest version of Workforce Central, and Matelski is looking forward to a number of features the city will be implementing. “Now we’ll be able to better handle effective dating for pay rules and configurations in union contracts, which will save us a lot of time and aggravation.”

Whatever comes next for the city, Matelski is confident that Kronos will be a part of Orlando’s workforce management solution. “Kronos has the support of our users. It would be extremely difficult to take it away from them.”