Australia [change]

Kronos^® Workforce Central Centralises Staff Management for Stamford Hotels and Resorts

Stamford Hotels and Resorts is the largest owner and operator of premium hotels in Australia and New Zealand. It was formed in 1995 by Stamford Land Corporation Ltd, one of Singapore's best-known public companies. It now operates 10 premium and luxury hotels in Adelaide, Auckland, Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney, comprising nearly 2,500 rooms and employing up to 2,000 staff, with 2 administrative offices.

To streamline management for a highly variable workforce, Stamford Hotels and Resorts implemented Kronos Workforce Central and Kronos 4500 Touch ID terminals across nine of its 10 locations. The system ensures staff hours are recorded accurately and consistently and gives managers up-to-date information about staffing costs.

Kronos Workforce Central has allowed the company to centralise its pay operations and reduce payroll staff from seven to two, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars each year. It has ensured awards are interpreted consistently and staff are paid fairly for the work they do. Easy-to-use tools for workforce rostering, attendance and analysis mean managers and the payroll office spend less time dealing with pay complaints and have more time to provide better customer service.

Manual timesheets meant no vacancy at the pay office

Operating 10 luxury hotels around Australia and New Zealand adds up to a lot of paperwork, particularly if rostering and timekeeping processes are manual.

Like the rest of the hospitality industry, Stamford Hotels and Resorts relies on a high proportion of casual staff to deal with seasonal changes and unpredictable ups and downs. This presents a significant challenge for the payroll office and department managers.

"When I came into the job in 2001, we were using Kronos Timekeeper Central at one of our hotels in South Australia and paper timesheets at all the other locations," said Damien Rigter, Project Manager, Stamford Hotels and Resorts. "Every hotel needed its own payroll manager. Even at the site where we were using Timekeeper Central, staff still filled in paper timesheets and then the payroll people would key these into the system."

The first step towards more streamlined workforce management came when Stamford Hotels and Resorts implemented a card-based system that allowed staff to clock in and out, recording their times automatically. This demonstrated the great benefits of automation, but also had its downside.

"We needed to keep the cards at the hotels rather than letting staff take them home, otherwise cards would go missing and people's hours wouldn't be recorded accurately," said Rigter. "The problem was, there were a small number of staff who didn't always do the right thing and there were numerous instances of buddy punching. We needed to gain more control."

Stamford Hotels and Resorts started looking at ways to consolidate its workforce management systems and apply a single, consistent process across all 10 locations. Any new system would need to be easily integrated with the company's existing MicrOpay payroll software and other third-party applications.

"We wanted to bring all the functionality into a central office, but still allow managers the flexibility to run their departments," said Rigter. "We thought a web-based system would be the best way to give managers easy access to the information they needed."

Kronos Workforce Central delivers accurate, automated workforce management

In April 2005, Stamford Hotels and Resorts began a pilot project using Kronos Workforce Central at two hotels in South Australia, and two offices in New South Wales.

"We looked at a number of different products, but the biggest thing for me was Kronos's experience with time and attendance and functionality," said Rigter. "We could have gone with a smaller company and budget-priced software, but the experience wasn't there."

Following the success of the pilot project, Stamford Hotels and Resorts rolled out Kronos Workforce Central and Kronos 4500 Touch ID terminals to all its hotels in Australia, a process which was completed by September 2006.

"Staff now put in a unique employee number and use a biometric verification process, using a finger-scan each time they clock in and out," said Rigter. "This avoids the issues we used to have with buddy punching and missing cards."

Managers use the web interface to create schedules and roster employees to work. The system allows them to check on a daily basis what actually happened compared to what was supposed to, and deal with any exceptions.

"Each Monday, managers do a final check for variations, then sign off on the hours," said Rigter. "Once that happens, the data flows through to our payroll system and only the pay office can make changes."

More efficient payroll processing

The automation and accuracy provided by Kronos Workforce Central allowed Stamford Hotels and Resorts to centralise its pay operations into a single office and reduce its payroll staff from seven to two.

"Our two payroll staff can process the same amount of data in half the time it used to take seven people," said Rigter. "This saves us hundreds of thousands of dollars a year."

"Even with 2,000 staff on board during peak periods, they run the payroll on Monday afternoons and it's all done by Tuesday early afternoon. We can also charge back payroll processing to each hotel so as to share costs."

Accurate information at managers' fingertips

Kronos Workforce Central has also increased the accuracy of payroll data, with automated systems reducing the incidence of lost or incorrectly entered data.

"Automation means the payroll office spends much less time dealing with pay complaints," said Rigter. "When there are issues, managers usually have all the information they need to handle them and they only escalate the big problems they can’t solve on the spot."

Consistent award interpretation

Running a centralised workforce management system has allowed Stamford Hotels and Resorts to more consistently interpret employment awards, simplifying payroll and saving money.

"The new system ensures if someone works the same shift, they get the same money," said Rigter. "Staff were worried at first, but it is now apparent that the system protects them as much as it helps us. If management aren't doing things right, we have an audit trail to investigate the issue."

"It sends a message to staff that we pay them what they're entitled to for the work they do."

Flexible and detailed reporting

Kronos Workforce Central produces detailed reports that allow Stamford Hotels and Resorts to make company-wide or site-wide comparisons and stay on top of employment trends.

"We can view by hotel, by department or drill down to an individual employee level," said Rigter. "It gives us instant access to information such as penalty rates, which helps optimise our scheduling and minimise costs."

"The reporting tool allows us to create multiple levels of user access to make sure people can only see what they need to see."

Kronos Workforce Central gives managers a simple interface to manage rostering and attendance, allowing them to focus on providing service to customers.

"Managers want to run their departments and spend a minimum of time on mundane tasks," said Rigter. "Kronos Workforce Central gives them excellent functionality to help with things like approving overtime."

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