Kronos TeleStaff Solution Restores Oakland Fire Department Confidence in Overtime Scheduling

Kronos TeleStaff Benefits

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“The Kronos TeleStaff solution has touched almost every aspect of our daily operations, from payroll and overtime tracking to the management of vacation and training time to assignment changes and tracking of personal information. It has been especially helpful in tracking for strike team and USAR deployment and reimbursement for disaster-related funding.” — Captain Chris O’Rourke, Oakland Fire Department

• Automates scheduling
• Speeds scheduling communications
• Supports client-specific configuration
• Improves operational efficiency
• Increases staffing accuracy
• Helps ensure compliance
• Controls labor costs
• Promotes employee satisfaction
• Integrates with the Kronos workforce management suite
• Integrates with third-party systems

Oakland Fire Department at a Glance

Industry: Municipal Fire

Location: California, USA

Residents: 411,000

Employees:530

Service Calls: 60,000 annually

Service Area: 56 square miles

CHALLENGES

With more than 500 dedicated men and women and 25 stations, the Oakland Fire Department responds to 60,000 service calls annually, with 80 percent of them medical related. The need for a dependable and proven scheduling solution was required to streamline daily scheduling records and ensure that the department’s overtime policies and procedures are consistently applied.

SOLUTION

With the purchase and implementation of the Kronos® TeleStaff™ solution, the Oakland Fire Department sought to better handle the management of overtime and actively keep all scheduling and personnel information up to date. In addition, the department wanted to help ensure that its scheduling policies and procedures were consistently followed and increased accountability.

BENEFITS

Configuration consistently applies department’s scheduling rules

During the implementation of the Kronos TeleStaff system, the Oakland Fire Department configured and tested its scheduling policies and procedures to help ensure that employees are consistently scheduled fairly, including an equitable distribution of overtime. The solution’s audit-tracking features further enable authorized users to hold personnel accountable for their scheduling activities.

“It was not until we began using the Kronos TeleStaff solution that we saw the benefits to our staffing issues, as well as issues we did not know we had until we began using it,” says Captain Chris O’Rourke.

Interface with payroll system saves time, enhances data accuracy

With the establishment of an interface from the Kronos TeleStaff solution to the department’s Oracle payroll system, the Oakland Fire Department has been able to streamline its payroll operations, ensure the accuracy of scheduling information, and reduce payroll labor. In addition, the Kronos TeleStaff solution has eliminated staffing errors due to miscoded work codes and missed projections.

Time on scheduling overtime reduced and consolidated

Before implementing the automated solution, the department had four stations spending up to eight hours managing their overtime scheduling needs. Now, with the Kronos TeleStaff system, overtime scheduling is consolidated to one station and the solution’s automation has drastically reduced the number of hours spent on overtime management.

With the Kronos TeleStaff system firmly entrenched, the Oakland Fire Department has instilled confidence among its personnel in the department’s overtime scheduling.

More information about Kronos customer success stories may be found at www.kronos.com/resources. © 2011, Kronos Incorporated. Kronos and the Kronos logo are registered trademarks of Kronos Incorporated or a related company. TeleStaff is a trademark of Kronos Incorporated or a related company. For a full list of Kronos trademarks, please visit the “trademarks” page at www.kronos.com. All other product, company names, or marks mentioned, if any, are used for identification purposes only and may be the trademarks of their respective owners. All specifications are subject to change. All rights reserved.