WestJet
Serving 24 Canadian cities and six American cities (and counting) in California, Arizona, Florida, and New York, WestJet is the most successful low-cost airline in Canadian history. With 4,500 employees, 53 airplanes, and revenue approaching $1 billion, WestJet has experienced explosive growth since its founding in 1996.
This fast growth rate can contribute to many different challenges. In WestJet's case,
a manual time and attendance system proved to be inefficient, time-consuming, and error-prone. The solution? Kronos' Workforce Central® suite — complete with powerful data collection and time and labour applications — helped the airline streamline key processes, increase overall productivity, and gain other bottom-line results.
A manual effort breaks down
But the picture wasn't always so rosy. Jan Kerstiens, WestJet's Workforce Payroll manager, remembers some of the issues they once faced. "Before Kronos, our employees had to submit time and attendance information using timecards and other paper forms," she says. "Managers were responsible for reviewing this information and fixing any mistakes — all before we ran payroll."
Kerstiens also reports that it was hard to accurately apply different pay rules across the entire organization, and that it was difficult to track employees' leave balances. Worse, managers tended to receive critical information — such as overtime totals — after the fact, "when it was too late to do anything about it," says Kerstiens.
As a result, WestJet's managers were spending too much time pushing paper and focusing on other administrative tasks, which caused productivity to suffer. With rapid growth continuing to push the company to new heights, WestJet knew it needed a single solution for its time and labour objectives.
The upgrade path
WestJet selected Kronos and originally implemented its Timekeeper Central® solution. The airline used this system successfully for many years before deciding to upgrade to Kronos' Web-based Workforce Central suite.
This powerful suite offered a comprehensive solution for all of WestJet's challenges. "We knew the Workforce Central suite would help us improve our data collection, time and attendance, and leave management processes," says Kerstiens. Little did they know this was just the beginning.
WestJet quickly implemented Workforce Timekeeper™, Workforce Accruals®, and Workforce Employee™ applications (integrated applications for time and attendance, leave management, and employee self-service, respectively). All of these are core components within the Workforce Central suite.
After developing an extensive training and education program for new users, WestJet began working closely with Kronos' services team to complete the upgrade. "The whole process went very smoothly," Kerstiens recalls. "Both groups met regularly, and everyone was focused on the end result. If an issue did come up, the Kronos team worked to resolve it very quickly."
The Kronos difference
Looking back on the upgrade, Kerstiens is confident they made the right decision. "The Workforce Central suite has helped us save so much time and effort, and it has helped us become more productive," she says.
One clear improvement: a newfound ability to apply complicated pay rules across the entire organization. "We have three very different types of work 'schedules' any employee can work," Kerstiens explains. "Standard, or a traditional 40-hour workweek; averaged weeks, where we average hours over a rolling period of several weeks; and recurring modified schedules, which are set up to accommodate more flexible schedules."
As a result, WestJet's policies had pay rules that were difficult to administer manually, and the problem only got worse when employees worked in one schedule one week and in another the next. Before implementing the Workforce Central suite, it was nearly impossible for WestJet to apply all these rules accurately and consistently.
"Now all of our pay rules — no matter how complex — are automatically applied to employees' time and attendance data," she says, noting that employees submit their data at a Kronos data collection terminal or right at their PCs. "It's fast, it's easy, and it's accurate."
A better leave management solution
Workforce Accruals has also given WestJet exactly the solution it needed to manage its employees' leave time. "We are able to adapt easily to a policy change where our employees can take vacation time before it is actually accrued," says Kerstiens. Now, instead of tracking employees' leave balances manually, WestJet uses Workforce Accruals to automate the entire process and improve the way it tracks employee entitlements, total time taken, and outstanding balances.
This powerful application also helped WestJet track and manage Canada's statutory holidays, which used to be a cumbersome process. Kerstiens explains that employees get an additional 10 days off, but if they work on those days, there are different pay rules that need to be applied. "Workforce Accruals has a statutory calculations function built in," she says. "It automates all the calculations and keeps track of everyone's balances. So if someone changes departments, for example, the new manager will know exactly how many days they've taken."
Finally, Workforce Accruals has helped WestJet comply with the Canada Labor Code. "All the data is there, and we can easily produce any report I need," says Kerstiens. "I can see it all."
Taking advantage of employee self-service
Even considering all these new benefits, WestJet is most proud of the improvements it has made as a result of promoting employee self-service initiatives. Implementing Workforce Employee enabled the airline to push time and attendance "ownership" to the employees themselves — and reap many significant rewards in the process.
"We're very committed to empowering our employees," says Kerstiens. "And we want to do everything we can to give them control." She explains that with Workforce Employee, employees can now enter their time and attendance information right at their PC. They can also view their own labour information, such as overtime status, punches, statutory holiday calculations, vacation balances, and more.
"Employee self-service has helped us truly empower our employees," Kerstiens concludes. "Morale has improved, and managers can get back to what we hired them for — to provide excellent customer service and get our guests to their destinations on time."
Growing with Kronos
As WestJet continues to gain more benefits from its automated time and labour system, it has even higher hopes for what it can achieve. "We're really looking forward to the next version of the Workforce Central suite," says Kerstiens. She explains that they are especially interested in new scheduling functionality and workflow, a feature that will help automate additional employee-centric processes, such as requests for time off and open shift sign up.
With Workforce Central in place and a solid plan for the future, Kerstiens is thrilled with the progress they've made. "The Workforce Central suite has given us so much more than just a time and attendance system," she states. "It has really given us a solution to better manage our entire workforce, which means we can be more productive — and more competitive."
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