Lee County Streamlines Payroll Processing and Improves Accountability with Kronos Solution

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Lee County, a small county in central North Carolina, oversees the delivery of government services to area residents. The County employs approximately 360 full-time employees, and an additional 50 to 120 temporary or seasonal employees, in a range of departments. A diverse workforce — from employees in public safety and public works to social services and parks and recreation — spread out across six to 10 facilities, depending on the time of year, keeps department supervisors busy in efficiently managing staff members and
county business.

Adding to this challenge was the County’s tedious manual payroll system. Employees were paid on the 25th of each month, but paper timesheets had to be submitted anywhere from the first to the fifteenth day of the month, depending on the department. Full-time salaried employees were paid ahead of time worked, whereas payments to hourly employees were typically several weeks behind because of the long processing time. The system was fraught with delays and extra work.

Determined to find a more efficient payroll system, Lee County Finance Director Lisa Minter, CPA, set out to find a solution. When an outsourced payroll company demonstrated its system, it incorporated a Kronos solution into the presentation. Minter decided she wasn't interested in the expense or hassle of outsourcing payroll, but was impressed with the Kronos solution. "It was much more affordable than I dreamed it would be,” she says, “and I realized that with this automated system we could move to biweekly payroll with a much smaller impact."

Challenges of a manual system

Prior to implementation of the Kronos solution, department heads collected paper timecards, as well as compensatory time sheets for salaried employees, and submitted a summary sheet to payroll. Minter’s staff examined each sheet, checked for irregularities, entered the time, and more thoroughly checked compensatory time records after payroll was processed.

The sheriff's department was on a different pay schedule than the rest of the county. With the payroll cycles not matching up, Minter and her staff were forced to review months of timesheets and records to check the accuracy of compensatory time accruals — about 30 minutes per employee history. This scheduling mismatch also presented significant liability issues in paying employees and calculating accruals accurately.

Automated system delivers increased functionality

After enduring these payroll headaches each month, Minter was eager to say good-bye to paying employees in advance and move to an automated system that allowed the county to switch to biweekly payroll. A new county manager had used an automated solution in another county and after seeing the Kronos demo, Minter says, “He could see what you pay for with Kronos — more information on the screen for employees and supervisors and more functionality.” They selected a Kronos solution because of its connectability to the County’s financial package, ease of use, and breadth of reporting.

With the Workforce Timekeeper™ solution in place, the County collects time and attendance information at time clocks in two facilities, while other workers log in via their computers or remotely through Workforce Teletime^®, a Kronos telephony solution. Social services workers and housekeepers use telephony year-round to clock in, while temporary employees clock in remotely from County pools and sports fields in the summer. Minter estimates that in just the social services department, an employee has saved 20 hours a month in processing timesheets and checking accruals.

Better tracking boosts visibility and accountability

Logging into the system, supervisors now have increased visibility into their staff's time and can easily see when employees are tardy, which has resolved tardiness issues and increased employee productivity and accountability. Supervisors have increased accountability as well and can monitor employees’ time each day to see if they are approaching overtime or need to use compensatory time. Minter says Lee County has seen a reduction in time abuse and overtime because supervisors can better track and verify time, especially for remote employees.

"We're also breaking even on compensatory time now that we’re better tracking people's time," she notes, explaining that real-time tracking helps supervisors manage employee hours.

Complete record keeping improves compliance and employee satisfaction

With timesheets due well before payday under the manual system, maintaining accurate accrual balances was one of Lee County's biggest issues. "We knew we wanted our records to help protect us if we were audited," says Minter. "For me, the biggest value was the improved record keeping and decreased liability."

Now, if employees want to know their accrual balances, they can log into the system to see an up-to-date balance, without having to call HR or payroll. "With this access, employee satisfaction is up over what it was before," she adds.

Expanding solution utilization

As use of the Kronos solution becomes second nature for employees, Minter says they look to leverage more of its functionality to further time savings and use of workforce data. Supervisors are increasing their use of reports with detailed information now at their fingertips.

"If I said to the department heads and supervisors, 'I'm going to take the Kronos solution away and you have to do things manually again,' they would probably run me out of the County," she adds. That's proof enough for her that she made the right choice in advocating Lee County move to an automated workforce management solution.