ERP-like solution fosters C-level control of absenteeism issues
By Staff -- Manufacturing Business Technology, 9/1/2005 12:00:00 AM
"Once you've optimized the supply chain and enterprise resource allocation, the largest expense a company has left is labor, at 30 percent to 60 percent," says Kronos' Director of Product Marketing, Clay Ritchey. "Cut that cost a few percent, and you've reduced your overall cost structure."
Kronos believes the latest version of its signature solution, Workforce Central 5.1, can save about 3 percent of that expense, per employee. Ritchey says, in some ways, Workforce Central is more like an ERP system than a basic time & attendance solution. It's a desktop decision-support tool for C-level executives looking to manage employee efficiencies and inefficiencies—in particular, absenteeism.
According to workforce research firm Circadian Technologies, Lexington, Mass., within the average enterprise, each employee takes off three unentitled days per year, and average absenteeism on any given day is 9 percent.
Says Ritchey, "We provide the tools to gain control of something that's out of control."
Medical and dental supplier Midmark Corp., Versailles, Ohio, upgraded to the latest version of Workforce Central specifically for its Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) utilities. FMLA allows 12 weeks leave per year per employee, for example, for care of a newborn.
Says Mickey Scherer, Midmark's VP of human resources, "We needed a tool to track intermittent leave in hours or half days," adding that Midmark estimates it will save several workdays per year with hands-off administration.
Workforce Central doesn't just "keep tabs"—rather, it empowers employees to schedule themselves. Circadian studies reveal that giving employees tools to, for example, swap or request shifts, decreases absenteeism by 10 percent and turnover by 20 percent.
"That's a 1.2-percent reduction in total payroll," Ritchey says.
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