Greater Labor Insight Leads to Greater Results for Forest City Enterprises
Forest City Enterprises is a $5.9 billion real estate company that is engaged in the ownership, development, acquisition, and management of commercial and residential real estate throughout the U.S. With a distinguished 80-year legacy and a high-energy, long-term future as an owner and manager of a diverse portfolio of premier real estate property, Forest City is always focused on running its business as efficiently — and effectively — as possible.
Which is exactly why the company turned to Kronos when it needed a better way to track employees' time and labor information. With more than 4,400 employees in 250 locations throughout 21 states and the District of Columbia, Forest City has a diverse workforce, and one that was becoming increasing challenging to manage to its full potential.
The solution? The latest version of Kronos' Workforce Central® suite. Implementing this powerful solution — specifically its Workforce Timekeeper™ application for automating time and labor practices — not only helped Forest City improve the way it managed its workforce, but led to other significant benefits, too.
Forest City's time and labor challenge — and opportunity for improvement
Jason Fenske, systems analyst at Forest City, describes the specific challenges his company once faced and just how far it has come with Kronos.
"We initially went with Kronos to help us automate our time and labor practices," he says, explaining that Forest City has been a Kronos customer for nearly 15 years. "Kronos' solutions were extremely effective in helping us accomplish this goal. So as we added more employees and continued to centralize our time and labor management processes, we were very interested in upgrading to the latest version of the Workforce Central suite."
In particular, Forest City was interested in new functionality that would allow its managers to further standardize time and labor processes. "As you can imagine, we have a very diverse workforce," he explains. "With so many employees in so many locations, we wanted to centralize all of their data and standardize all of our processes to be as efficient as possible and enable our managers to better control their labor budgets."
The company also liked the fact that its managers would gain real-time insight into its entire workforce. Combining a single database capable of holding all employee data, powerful Web-based functionality, and comprehensive reporting capabilities, the Workforce Central suite would allow Forest City's managers to access the information they needed in real time. As a result, managers would be able to make more informed decisions to optimize labor and control overtime and other labor costs.
Completing the implementation in record time — thanks to Kronos services
As soon as the decision to upgrade was made, Forest City moved quickly to roll it out to the entire employee base. And with a little help from Kronos' services team, Forest City was able to get up and running in just three short months.
Fenske credits Kronos' Professional Services and Educational Services teams for this success. "Both were great to work with," he states. "Professional Services helped us configure and install the system, and then Educational Services worked with us to develop a training program that was specific to us and that we could deliver to our end users ourselves. The whole experience was excellent."
Generating bottom-line results with Workforce Timekeeper
Now, with Workforce Timekeeper in place, Fenske reports that they have been able to accomplish their original goal — improve labor tracking and management — and a whole lot more.
The first improvement: more accurate data. Fenske explains how this is possible. "Kronos offered us a variety of data collection devices, which meets the requirements of our diverse workforce. So now, when an employee swipes in or out at a Kronos 4500™ badge terminal, for example, that information is collected immediately, and stored in the centralized database."
Moving all employees onto the Kronos system — and away from paper-based forms — has helped Forest City improve overall data accuracy. "Instead of using greatly rounded handwritten in/out times, we now know exactly when an employee swiped in or out, and this has eliminated 99 percent of the timecard estimation that used to occur," Fenske comments.
He also reports that this process has increased payroll efficiencies and saved the payroll staff considerable time in a once-cumbersome process. "These improvements have helped us grow without having to add additional payroll staff," he adds.
But perhaps the most significant benefit has been Forest City's newfound ability to provide managers with vital insight into the workforce. Because it's built on Web-based technology, Workforce Timekeeper lets managers use a Web browser to access and use employee data whenever it's convenient for them. And with many easy-to-use and insightful reports, Forest City's division managers can now see important business measures — like overtime status — in real time, so they can influence results before it's too late.
"Now, it's much easier for them to manage their budgets," says Fenske. "They don't have runaway labor costs, and they don't have to send people home in the middle of the week to avoid unnecessary overtime. For example, if our parking division has a specific event, our managers can see exactly who's nearing overtime or other criteria before they call additional people in. As a result, they have a much better handle on what's going on in their division."
Next up: Improving scheduling practices
As Forest City continues to take full advantage of its Kronos system, Fenske also reports that they're in the process of evaluating some of the new scheduling enhancements within the new version of Workforce Central.
"I'm convinced that an event-based scheduling tool would help us take the guesswork out of some of our current scheduling practices," he explains, referring specifically to Forest City's senior assisted living facilities and parking divisions. "Instead of using a manual approach to staff for a particular event, we could pre-load a range of possible events. That would save a lot of the headaches and help us create optimal schedules in the beginning of the process."
More accurate data. Improved efficiency and productivity. Greater insight for better decision making and bottom line results. While the Workforce Central suite helped Forest City improve many of its key business practices, it is also helping it fulfill its commitment to its employees.
Or as Fenske says, "At Forest City Enterprises, we hire the best people, and we have a culture that invests, supports, and believes in them. We want to give them the very best tools possible to help them do their jobs better. Kronos and the Workforce Central suite have helped us meet this goal."
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