City of Orlando Improves Consistency, Compliance, and Efficiency with Kronos Workforce Management Solution
As the sixth-largest city in Florida, Orlando is home to more than 200,000 residents, many of whom work in the region's aerospace and electronics industries. Orlando is one of the world's most visited vacation destinations, with over 30 million tourists annually, and is home to such popular attractions as Walt Disney World, Sea World, and Universal Studios Florida.
For the City of Orlando, providing essential services to its burgeoning population and large number of tourists is a top priority. City departments 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.
A more effective solution for time and labor
According to John Matelski, chief security officer and deputy chief information officer for the City of Orlando, managing employees' time and labor information had been a challenge for the city in the past. "We just had so many different ways that people were keeping time and delivering timesheets across the city that we weren't able to be consistent in how rules and policies were being enforced. We were dealing with a mix of automated systems, spreadsheets, and manual timecards, and everyone was doing things their own way."
The City of Orlando turned to the Kronos Workforce Central® suite — including the Workforce Timekeeper™ time and labor application — to implement a centralized, automated workforce management solution that would create consistency, compliance, and improved efficiency. The Kronos solution is helping the City of Orlando operate more efficiently in the face of decreased federal and state funding, compliance issues, and increased unionization. The Kronos solution has even made it easier for Orlando to react to and recover from natural disasters.
A city-wide solution for all employees
The City of Orlando uses Workforce Timekeeper to manage time and labor for employees in 12 municipal departments: transportation, public works, police, fire, housing, general administration, parks and recreation, finance, executive offices, economic development, communications, and Centroplex (a sports and entertainment complex). All employees in these departments are using the Kronos solution, from garbage collectors to the mayor's staff. The city's Kronos solution is interfaced 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."
One of the challenges facing the city is a significant increase in unionization. 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 experienced more consistent application of union contract rules and a corresponding decrease in union grievances.
Payday is easier, faster, and more accurate
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 Rosa Akhtarkhavari, customer services support manager for the city. "Payroll adjustments have decreased, and payroll staff has been able to move their responsibilities away from more clerical tasks, and reduce payroll department overtime."
Improved handling of natural disasters
During the hurricane season of 2004, Hurricanes Charley, Frances, and Jeanne battered the Orlando area over a period of just 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," says Matelski. "Because the data was consistent, with no contradictions in the budget and reporting, we were reimbursed by FEMA quickly and accurately."
Partnering for success
The City of Orlando worked closely with Kronos to ensure it would be able to implement the Kronos solution itself. IT staff took all of the relevant Kronos training courses, and were then able to provide implementation and training support to end users. "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."
Flexibility makes a difference
With more than 4,000 employees working in hundreds of locations throughout Orlando, flexibility is an important feature of the city's workforce management solutions. Kronos has allowed the City of Orlando to adapt to changes within and outside the organization, including compliance regulations and new union contracts. "The flexibility of Kronos really stands out for us," says Akhtarkhavari. "Being able to configure things to match our organizational changes is easy. All of the information is centralized in one place, and we can get detailed information when we need it."
Future plans will include Kronos
The City of Orlando is currently 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."
|