One of the largest and most successful further education colleges in England, Preston College has signed a five-year contract for MidlandHR’s fully integrated HR and payroll solution iTrent.
Robin Newton Syms, director of corporate strategy and planning of Preston College, comments: “Having used two separate systems to manage our HR and payroll, we wanted an integrated solution going forward. We selected MidlandHR because we were impressed by iTrent’s flexibility and extensive functionality as well as its ability to integrate our separate HR and payroll data and processes into a single system.
“With MidlandHR’s help, we are looking to merge four separate payrolls into one simple function so that all of our information will be in one place, removing the pain of repetitive administrative tasks, therefore driving efficiencies and freeing up the time of our people, allowing them to take a more strategic role within the college.”
Lawrence Knowles, MidlandHR’s managing director, explains: “Because iTrent also offers industry specific functionality as standard, customers such as Preston College can benefit from Staff Individualised Records (SIRs), flexible term time calculations, multiple employment options and more. iTrent’s ability to create user-defined fields is also an invaluable tool for providing information to the Learning and Skills Council and the Institute for Learning. Both higher and further education customers can also request a pre-configured database which works immediately once installed, saving colleges both time and money from day one of implementation.
“The college’s employees will also benefit from Employee Self-Service which gives its people control over their own personnel details as well as holidays, learning, expenses, electronic payslip options and more. Pushing the responsibility of this administrative process away from central HR provides clear efficiency savings and increased data accuracy. We are looking forward to working with Preston College, and matching its passion for education with our passion for creating value through HR and payroll.”
The college will implement the complete iTrent solution to service its 1,100 people. Core HR, Absence and Payroll modules are scheduled to go live before April 2010, with implementation of the remaining modules including Absence Management, Employee Self-Service and Manager Self-Service to follow soon after.
