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PRODUCTS


spending up to three hours per week manually trying to allocate people to key hospital tasks, and inevitably, errors were being made and hours were not being counted properly. “Supervisors had developed their own manual rostering techniques because all the information was not in one place,” she explains. “It was essential we adopted best-practise labour scheduling for our client, and we’re now extremely glad we did.”


Resetting labour management


The task ahead of Sodexo was a complicated one. “Labour management needed taking to the next level,” Prince says. “Our healthcare staff are typically paid by the hour, based on clocking-in and clocking-out. But the system the hospital had before Kronos was open to interpretation, would introduce more errors than we wanted, and would cause inefficiencies. Sometimes two people would turn up to the same shift because of a double booking. Meanwhile managers were wading through paper-based booking sheets for hours each week – which meant reacting to unforeseen staffing requests was difficult. For flexibility, a portion of Sodexo’s hospital staff are agency based. In extreme cases, agency staff would be leaving their important jobs 15 minutes early each day, just to find a manager to sign off their hours – which was creating huge productivity problems.”


Absence-flagging reduces sickness


A time and attendance solution from Kronos was introduced first, in 2014-15 – to automatically clock people in and out using InTouch biometric clocks, to calculate hours worked, and to build an attendance profile of staff. This included highlighting absence data, which wasn’t being flagged before, so that early interventions could be activated by managers to help reduce it. “Our success at bringing sickness down by 5.2% -saving £31,000 annually- immediately proved the technology was working,” says Prince.


Labour scheduling next


With the Kronos technology proven, the Sodexo team had the confidence to roll out the labour scheduling solution – for potentially even greater improvements. “Having got time and attendance right, the scheduling element was about getting the right people to the right place, at the right time,” says Prince. “This included being able to avoid incurring costs that would eat into precious NHS budget, like unnecessary overtime or booking staff in for key tasks at the weekend when more expensive rates are applied. Improved scheduling would benefit Sodexo too, as the hospitals can levy fines ranging from £250 for not cleaning a staircase to £3,000 for not providing evidence of consistent staffing levels.”


Significant time and cost savings


The scheduling solution generated significant time savings. “We’ve saved around three hours per supervisor per week through automated labour scheduling. With 25-30 people managers dealing with 1,000 staff, a conservative estimate is that two full days of administration is being saved per week,” notes Prince. Since using Kronos, scheduling accuracy has also improved


for Sodexo, with more people working according to the schedule. “Scheduling exceptions have reduced from 25-30% to an average of 3%, smashing the 7% target,” enthuses Prince. Cost efficiencies have been delivered in a multitude of ways


through improved scheduling. “Premium rate overtime has been reduced by more than £44,000 per year – a reduction of 14.34%. And in retail alone, a £60,000 (6.11%) saving has been achieved,” says Prince. Managers can now look at much cheaper ways of meeting service levels, and there is advanced warning about potential


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skills gaps looming so contractor agencies are given more notice to find replacements. “As soon as trends are noticed, we’re much more prepared,” adds Prince. Automating time and attendance now means payroll has


seen a 94% reduction in invoices, and error-rates have been virtually eliminated.


Employee engagement boosted


A key, yet sometimes less visible benefit, has been a real change in the engagement of employees. It’s well documented that improved engagement increases employee productivity, as staff are much more willing to go the extra mile. Through real- time visibility of staff arriving for work late, Sodexo is now able to properly manage lateness, starting with a formal discussion with the employee concerned. This has resulted in staff being less aggrieved when asked to cover the work in question. “When our employees feel their work is more organised and efficient, they feel much better about their jobs – it’s a very simple but important correlation,” says Prince. She adds: “Employees that want to work more hours are now more visible, and while we can only schedule six weeks ahead of time, people’s hours are more predictable and known earlier.”


Proactive management achieved


According to Prince, the change means she and her team can now manage their people proactively, rather than reacting to situations as was previously the case. Proper planning means staff costs are now under control – employees used to volunteer to do more weekend work to take the pay premium this gave. But now, some of these essential jobs are allocated for weekdays instead. Sodexo also can run detailed real-time reports that show absences and skills shortages ahead of time, enabling fast responses to prevent issues. “We can communicate with the hospital that an employee is absent, along with our plan to rectify the situation, well before the absence becomes a problem,” notes Prince. “This proactive approach contributes further to maintaining a positive relationship with our client.” Concludes Prince: “We have up-to-the-moment data on the


very simplest things – like knowing who is on-site, right up to more complex people management information. Kronos has enabled us to manage-in-the-moment from a single place with a single view.”


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