Canadian HR Reporter

www.hrreporter.com 17 Cathy Eberts is the deputy CIO and enterprise applications director at the University of Toronto. expectations and excitement across the university. Expanding digitization The leadership team decided to deploy the centralized solution across the university, automating the tedious tasks involved with monitoring time and attendance for its more than 8,000 shift workers. There were three specific areas that saw heavy investment to replicate the success of KPE across all divisions: Automated payroll: With a solution that automatically tracks employee time and attendance, the university has been able to reduce the manual payroll errors and leave inflation that can occur naturally as a result of human intervention. Historical timekeeping data insights have also meant better understanding and control of overtime costs as well as minimize risk by enforcing and tracking complex compliance requirements and unionized pay rules and employment standards. Intelligent timekeeping: Modernized physical time clocks have been installed in some areas of the university, both to minimize compliance risk by empowering employees to clock in and out appropriately and to prevent them from working outside their scheduled hours. The clocks also enable employees to access their scheduled hours, freeing up managers from frequently responding to time-off inquiries. Mobile-friendly platform: In addition to providing in-person touchpoints through an intelligent time clock, the workforce management solution is cloud-based, providing accessibility and visibility at the touch of a button or screen and enabling employees to clock in and out, submit and respond to time-off requests, as well as access other critical workforce information at any time and place. Any new technology, regardless of its benefits, can create a culture shift within a team or division, so the university is offering customized training so that staff have the time and resources they need to feel comfortable and successful within their new workflows. The measurable impact Shifting from manual timesheets to a centralized and automated time management system has had a significant impact on department managers and the hourly workforce. The University of Toronto has seen a dramatic increase in payroll accuracy and associated decrease in administrative burden, and it expects to continue to see substantial savings across the three campuses moving forward. Since implementing the new workforce management solution, staff no longer have to grapple with thousands of paper timesheets, which had previously bogged down work-life balance and made schedule visibility near impossible. Now, they feel confident in the accuracy of their payroll data and can focus on strategic and value-added initiatives, such as relationship-building within and across departments, while employees can enjoy the convenience of automated electronic timesheets rather than chasing down their managers to sign their timecards. To date, timekeeping and payroll processes have been centralized across 16 departments, helping to maximize productivity, reduce manual payroll errors, ensure compliance and engage employees. And the university has been able to save nine tons of paper annually. Plus, for every 2,000 employees who move to the solution, it's estimated the university saves more than $200,000 each year in staff time. By placing workforce management at the centre of its human capital management strategy, the school has been able to tether HR processes to employee engagement and, in turn, the success of the university to the success of its people. In many ways, it's only just begun to scratch the surface of what it means to fully modernize the HR systems and engage employees across the university. CHRR The Donnelly Centre for Cellular + Biomolecular Research at the University of Toronto

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