IVR

Ultimate Software, a leading provider of end-to-end strategic human resources, payroll and talent management solutions, announced that The Paradies Shops, an operator of more than 50 airport stores, is improving its labor management operations with UltiPro Time and Attendance.

 

The Paradies Shops, which include Brighton Collectibles, Brooks Brothers, CNBC, Harley Davidson and PGA, has been an Ultimate Software customer since 1999 and uses UltiPro delivered through its software-as-a-service offering, Intersourcing.

 

“Especially since information flows seamlessly between core UltiPro and UltiPro Time and Attendance, we can more easily forecast and budget with accurate, comprehensive, cross-organizational labor statistics, which are available at our fingertips and can be ‘sliced and diced,’” said Les Russell, vice president of human resources for The Paradies Shops.

 

Before using UltiPro Time and Attendance, The Paradies Shops was collecting and managing labor records with a variety of systems – many of them manual. With more than 3,000 employees dispersed throughout the country, the 47-year-old retail business needed a consistent and efficient way to automate the process that would also give the human resources team better access to consolidated labor metrics.

 

In late 2007, the airport concessionaire began rolling out UltiPro Time and Attendance to its workforce and is already experiencing business benefits, such as improved accuracy of data; enhanced reporting, forecasting and budgeting; and the ability to better monitor and address time and attendance issues.

 

UltiPro Time and Attendance helps companies like The Paradies Shops monitor the presence, absence, tardiness, and total work hours of employees daily, if desired, in order to make adjustments before small issues become larger problems. For instance, if managers see that employees are accumulating too many work hours in a pay period, the manager can re-distribute workloads or change schedules so overtime is avoided.

 

“With UltiPro, we can identify trends and take appropriate steps that ultimately benefit both our employees and the bottom line,” said Natacha Grant, assistant manager for human resources for The Paradies Shops. “I have complete details that are current, so I’m not spending a full day trying to analyze what happened two weeks ago. In minutes, we can stay on top of what’s happening right now today at our locations.”

 

Accuracy was an issue with The Paradies Shops previously, because employees documented time using inconsistent methods that may have required deciphering handwriting, entering data manually, or using kiosks in locations that are a 10-minute walk from employee work locations. The business is automating the entire process with UltiPro as its singular solution and is using time clocks and interactive voice response (IVR) technologies, whichever makes the most sense for the individual location.

 

“If stores are far from break rooms, our employees can clock in using a special phone number they can call using only the phone near their cash register. Or if the store is very near a Paradies Shop break room, employees can use time clocks in the break room to log their attendance. With UltiPro, we are seeing marked increases in precision, and since information in UltiPro Time and Attendance links to core UltiPro, payroll accuracy has improved as well,” said Grant. “We have had a close relationship with Ultimate Software for many years, and we knew we could count on the Time and Attendance solution that provided us.”

 

Greg Swick, chief sales officer for Ultimate Software, said they have a “great partnership” with The Paradies Shops and are pleased they’ve discovered even greater business value with UltiPro by adding Time and Attendance. “Today’s businesses are finding that the more solutions acquire from one vendor the closer they move toward a holistic human resources, payroll, and talent management solution. The endgame is accuracy with business efficiency,” he said.

 

Ultimate Software markets UltiPro products as on-demand services through its software-as-a-service (SaaS (News - Alert)) offering, Intersourcing and as licensed software.