12 WORKFORCEMANAGEMENT
THE CO-OPERATIVE STREAMLINES PAYROLL ADMIN
W
hile updating its core workforce management (WFM) systems (page 11), The Co-operative
Group has also streamlined payroll processes for staff in over 5,000 retail trading outlets. Within a four weekly cycle, The Co-
operative’s people services payroll department in the company’s Glasgow offi ce was being asked to produce around 80,000 payslips, the majority of which are produced during a short window of time – just three days from when payroll closes to delivering staff payslips to produce, print and distribute the payslips. The team had been doing this job with
four standard desktop printers and was just about coping. But when the Group took over the Somerfi eld chain of supermarkets, the number of staff needing payslips suddenly increased by 30,000. Lynora Waddell, The Co-operative Group project and systems team manager, said: “The payroll staff were doing an excellent job, producing the payslips, but the sudden increase in employee numbers and the corresponding payslips meant we simply couldn’t complete the job, in the short timeframe, with the print equipment we had.”
JOHN LEWIS CALLS ON INVISION WFM
John Lewis recently revealed it is to implement demand-oriented workforce management (WFM) software from cloud-based provider InVision Software for scheduling the 800 agents at its newly established two main contact centres. John Lewis, part of John Lewis
Partnership, is the UK’s largest department store retailer with 32 shops across the UK, 28 of which are department stores with four John Lewis at home outlets, and its online business
johnlewis.com. The responsibility for handling incoming customer calls was moved from the John Lewis stores to two new contact centres in Scotland (Hamilton) and Didsbury near Manchester in June 2010.
RETAIL TECHNOLOGY JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2012 One of the key features that
supported John Lewis’ selection of InVision was the ability it offered to enable an optimised staff scheduling for telephony and back-offi ce activities at the same time. Besides demand-oriented scheduling of its agents, the provider said it requested a controlling tool enabling the planner to perform a target-versus- actual analysis and assessments in real time. At the same time, the employees’ motivation and acceptance of fl exible shifts can be boosted by the Infothek Interactive Schedule module, which enables agents to swap shifts, alerts them to scheduled changes in activities, as
well as to changes made to an existing schedule, and also allows automatic holiday approval against agreed thresholds. “An excellent service as well as high customer satisfaction is essential for our day-to-day-business. Therefore, the satisfaction and motivation of our employees is very important to us as well,” stated Michael Bullard, John Lewis resource planning manager. “With the help of the workforce management system InVision Enterprise WFM, we are able to provide the required service quality by optimising the scheduling of our agents, considering their working time and holiday requests at the same time.”
The Co-operative has installed one of
Ricoh’s 110-page-per-minute Pro production print devices as part of its payslip print solution. Being able to carry out the payslip production job on one printer instead of four has made the whole process much easier and simpler to manage.
Waddell added: “We are legally obliged to
print and distribute The Cooperative Group’s payslips on time for payday, so the Ricoh printer is at the crux of what we do. If we didn’t have this equipment - and the speed and effi ciency which it delivers - we just couldn’t get the payslips out on time.”
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