e-HR
in action: Steel manufacturer Hadley Industries has found its new attendance
software system so popular and adaptable, it is now keen to explore other HR
avenues
Time
and attendance systems are rarely viewed as strategic tools. They are vital to many
companies but aren’t exactly a hot topic in the boardroom. West Midlands-based
steel manufacturer Hadley Industries, however, is proving otherwise.
A
year ago the company, the largest UK-owned producer of steel cold-roll frame
sections, installed HR and payroll solutions company KCS’s HR and time and
attendance (T&A) software as part of a £100,000 IT project. The intention
was to streamline the work of Hadley’s HR function and replace a manual
card-based clocking-in process used across 11 operations with 450 staff. Within
three months, the system had proved so effective that Hadley upgraded from 16
licences to 46.
"Previously
we had an inefficient, convoluted system requiring personnel time and duplicate
record-keeping," says Mike Collier, business systems manager for Hadley
Industries.
The
new system
"We
changed this, virtually eliminating paperwork and saving a significant number
of man-hours with KCS’s k-TIME T&A system integrated with k-EM and, soon,
the KCS payroll."
The
system records the employees’ working hours via a magnetic swipe card. Site
managers, supervisors, HR and management staff, have access to this data to
help them manage staffing and workflow. It also can be used to record who is in
the building.
There
are also real strategic benefits to the system.
Intergrated
information
Supervisors
can look at who has clocked in to determine whether there is likely to be a
manpower shortfall. They can also change overtime profiles to suit demand and
allocate holiday and authorised absence time.
All
this information can be integrated with the central KCS HR database, and
ultimately, the payroll system.
"Supervisors
feel in control with the new system and overtime is only approved when it is
needed," says Collier.
"Having
terminals on the shopfloor gives authority and freedom to staff making
decisions. The screens are straightforward and definable to keep detail to a
minimum."
Collier
anticipated switching to the new system would present some difficulties but
individual sections have actually requested greater access to the system.
Hadley
is at the stage of optimising use of the T&A software before it embarks on
deployment of the payroll system.
It
is also looking ahead to some form of self-service HR, where staff will be able
to view their holiday entitlement and overtime details at the clocking-in
point. However, Collier is cautious about trying to achieve too much too soon.
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"In
talking to some of the reference sites, the message seemed to be that while
some had taken all the HR modules available, they weren’t really using them
fully," he says.
"I
want us to be able to use it for comparing job descriptions and looking at
site-wide people issues," he adds.
