TriHealth Controls Labor Costs, Improves Productivity and Compliance with Kronos Solutions

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TriHealth provides comprehensive healthcare services to residents in greater Cincinnati, Ohio. The organization, which employs more than 10,000 people at 50 locations, includes two hospitals and multiple physician offices, as well as fitness, rehabilitation, occupational health, and outpatient centers. It continues to embrace the mission of its two original faith-based healthcare organizations by focusing on improving the health of all members of the community.

In managing its workforce, TriHealth was using an antiquated and soon-to-be unsupported time and attendance system with no scheduling module. Scheduling this large number of employees was extremely challenging with its manual scheduling systems that varied by department. Without an automated solution, lack of consistent oversight caused sizeable overtime and agency labor costs, as well as employee frustration. Payroll employees were also spending extra time each biweekly pay period to manually edit pay.

TriHealth knew an automated time and attendance and scheduling solution was long overdue. After evaluating several options, they chose the Kronos^® Workforce Central^® suite because of its superior scheduling solution and ability to grow with the healthcare organization’s increasing staff. With its Kronos solution in place, TriHealth has been able to reduce agency staffing costs by close to $1.5 million in the first year, improve workforce productivity through streamlined processes, and mitigate compliance risk.

TriHealth provides comprehensive healthcare services to residents in greater Cincinnati, Ohio. The organization, which employs more than 10,000 people at 50 locations, includes two hospitals and multiple physician offices, as well as fitness, rehabilitation, occupational health, and outpatient centers. It continues to embrace the mission of its two original faith-based healthcare organizations by focusing on improving the health of all members of the community.

In managing its workforce, TriHealth was using an antiquated and soon-to-be unsupported time and attendance system with no scheduling module. Scheduling this large number of employees was extremely challenging with its manual scheduling systems that varied by department. Without an automated solution, lack of consistent oversight caused sizeable overtime and agency labor costs, as well as employee frustration. Payroll employees were also spending extra time each biweekly pay period to manually edit pay.

TriHealth knew an automated time and attendance and scheduling solution was long overdue. After evaluating several options, they chose the Kronos Workforce Central suite because of its superior scheduling solution and ability to grow with the healthcare organization’s increasing staff. With its Kronos solution in place, TriHealth has been able to reduce agency staffing costs by close to $1.5 million in the first year, improve workforce productivity through streamlined processes, and mitigate compliance risk.

Automated scheduling boosts employee satisfaction, controls labor costs

Implementing Workforce Scheduler™ has provided multiple benefits. Employees use the solution’s self-service tools to request specific shifts and time off. “Now with every schedule posted at the same time, employees feel like they’re treated more fairly with shift and time off requests,” notes Payroll Manager Cindy Crump. “We’re a lot more efficient, employees are happier, and that means less turnover and less competition for good talent. And better employee satisfaction makes a better caregiver.”

Ongoing visibility into scheduling allows supervisors to review, approve or reject an employee’s shift selection and then repost the schedule with the remaining shifts. Regular department staff members have first option to pick up open shifts — as long this doesn’t create overtime — which has significantly reduced use of agency staff.

Workforce Scheduler also lets managers know if employees are scheduling themselves for the required number of hours to receive benefits. “Because we can now see schedules, we have better control of employees,” says Crump. “Before, we had a lot of employees who weren’t working to their standard hours, but were receiving benefits. Seeing schedules gave us a reality check.”

Improved workforce productivity

Workforce Timekeeper™ gives TriHealth managers real-time visibility into employees’ time and attendance. This is especially helpful in a healthcare setting that requires specific numbers of staff on the floor in order to deliver quality healthcare. “Our managers were blown away with how effective it is to have a system that warns them when someone didn’t clock in or out,” explains Crump. “With our previous system, there were no warnings and everything had to be reviewed after and corrected, with edits sent to payroll.”

This was an extremely time-consuming process. Before, managers were sending 30,000 pay edits for payroll to process bi-weekly. If payroll staff misinterpreted the edits, another correction was needed. With Workforce Timekeeper, payroll corrections have been cut in half, from 200 per payroll period when TriHealth had 8,500 employees on staff, to now less than 75 corrections with more than 10,000 employees. “Managers have saved approximately 50 percent of the time they used to spend on payroll, which frees them up to do other things,” says Crump. ”I have also decreased full-time equivalents in the payroll department and still do a better job of taking care of employees.”

Centralized policy administration mitigates compliance risk

To consistently apply labor and pay policies across the organization, TriHealth built all policies into Workforce Central, which applies them throughout the Kronos solution. In the first six months, Crump estimates that TriHealth saved more than $230,000 in the correct administration of shift incentive programs. Employees must work their standard hours before they are eligible for an incentive shift, and there is no more guessing whether a shift is eligible for a pay incentive. 

“Due to recent events, there has also been a push to ensure we are handling meal breaks correctly,” adds Crump. “With Kronos, we have the ability to set it up so employees have no lunch deducted unless they clock out, or the system automatically deducts lunch because they must take it. These benefits are huge and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are complying correctly.”

‘Doing the right thing’

To make sure everyone is using the Kronos solution — so employees will be treated consistently and fairly — TriHealth produces a Kronos report that provides a snapshot of hours each pay period. A listing of agency hours, overtime, and standard vs. scheduled and total hours provides a glimpse of how well managers are scheduling employees.

“Managers need to be scheduling within 5 percent of standard hours, because that’s how we pay employee benefits, and benefits are a huge expense,” explains Crump. “The report is a tool for directors to see if managers are doing the right thing, especially since we’re all responsible for doing more with less time.”

With Kronos helping TriHealth more efficiently fulfill its mission, it’s easy to see why Crump says, “Kronos is the kind of organization we want to invest our dollars in.”