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Datamatics Management Services, Inc. helps Erie County MR/DD better manage, control and reduce labor costs
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Datamatics Management Services, Inc. helps Erie County MR/DD better manage, control and reduce labor costs June 22, 2007
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Article taken from FastPitchNetworking.com
Erie County MR/DD got much more than they bargained for while looking for a time and attendance system and realized that the biggest solution provider is not always the best provider of solutions for organizations with challenging problems.
Fords, NJ June 22, 2007- Erie County MR/DD had a problem: Automating the time and attendance records of a 55 year old public entity, quickly, affordably, and with minimal disruption of the activities of professional personnel.
Gerald Plassenthal had a big problem. When he became the director of the Erie County Board of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities (MR/DD) they had only paper records of employee attendance and performance. This may have been adequate years ago. But today, when public mistrust is at an all time high, accountability is key. Paper records that are filled out after the fact are simply unacceptable. He needed to track time and attendance of all MR/DD's employees, especially the Service and Support Administrators - who work 80 non-consecutive hours over two weeks, in real time.
Fortunately for Gerald, he was familiar with time and attendance software. He had used it in his former position, also for a government entity, and was ready to present its merits to the board of directors. So far, the solution appeared simple. It wasn't.
Gerald's experience had been with one of the industry leaders, the biggest (and also the costliest) time and attendance vendor. So, they were his first choice because he knew (or at least thought he knew) that they could do the job. To make sure that they were the best vendor, Gerald asked MR/DD's IT director, Eric Wightman's help. He recalled that MR/DD's access control provider, Johnson Controls, had a time and attendance package available. Both He and Gerald were very glad Eric remembered this detail as it saved MR/DD countless hours and many thousands of dollars, eliminating the solution Gerald had thought would solve all their problems and bringing in Datamatics Management Services' TC-1 software solution.
How did this come about? The answer is relatively straight-forward. Gerald Plassenthal wanted to automate time and attendance. Virtually any software solution could do that. But, not every solution can be configured to interface with existing accounting software and deliver payroll data to the county auditor's payroll check system in the format they needed. The big guy couldn't and wouldn't take the time to attempt to write a patch that would do the job.
"Beside accuracy and accountability, we needed to save time," said Plassenthal. "Our payroll/HR department spent nearly all of its time attending to the payroll function and had little, if any time available to address the needs of the employees, accruals, vacations, sick time, benefits and the like. When K____ couldn't deliver the payroll data to the county auditor and told us we had to create a report that would be manually entered, the time savings of the time and attendance 'solution' they offered was greatly reduced."
When MR/DD presented the problem to Datamatics they said it was no problem at all. As a matter of fact, "They told me, 'If we can't make it work to your satisfaction, you don't have to pay us!' They had my confidence from that moment," says Plassenthal.
Not only did Datamatics install TC-1, IT Director Wightman says, "The installation was smooth, seamless, and professionally done in record time." And Plassenthal adds, "We saves huge amounts of money by choosing TC-1"
Besides the obvious benefits, which Plassenthal expected, accuracy, accountability, and time savings, there have been a number of additional benefits that MR/DD realized through TC-1.
Kathy Wise, MR/DD's payroll manager, and a former user of the K solution in the private sector, is greatly pleased by the choice of TC-1. She said, "I prefer TC-1 over what I had used before. It has the human resources component that simplifies and streamlines HR functions. It has editing and comments of payroll records in real time and after the fact, before they are transmitted. It has way more reports, FLSA and others. Anything you can do with paper records you can do with TC-1, just faster, easier, and with 100 percent accuracy."
As managers, with overall accountability for the organization and the people in it Gerald Plassenthal and Sharon Travis, Director of Service and Support Administration and Medicaid Services, have more to think about than just the control and accuracy of data. They need to make sure that the people, both inside and outside the organization - employees and clients - are taken care of as well.
According to Travis, "Not everyone who works for the Erie County Board of Mental Retardation/Developmental Disabilities works a regular 7:30 to 3:30 shift. For that matter, every one of their SSA's (Service and Support Administrators) works weird hours, coming in early, often taking afternoons (or morning hours off) then working into the evening handling the needs of hundreds of clients."
This arrangement works well for clients, and the SSA staff has become accustomed to the 80 hours over two weeks, whenever it meets the needs of the clients and the requirements of the organization work situation. But, then there's the matter of accountability. As a publicly funded entity MR/DD, receiving 60 percent of its funds from local tax levies and the other 40 percent from the federal and state government, the obvious question to anyone who sees a SSA shopping or getting their oil changed when the public perception is that they should be working, "are they doing what we're paying them to do?" For Plassenthal and Travis, "It's a matter of accountability."
Under the old system, when questions arose they could be answered and doubts dispelled, but not in a timely manner. "Doubt and suspicion often linger long after the question is answered," states Travis. That was not good enough.
In addition to accountability, TC-1 has made all of the managers at MR/DD better at performing their jobs. Problems are addressed, and often prevented in real time, not after the fact. The HR function has become a primary, rather than a secondary process, since TC-1 gives the HR department the time to answer employee questions when they arise instead of 'we'll get back to you."
"We were looking for accuracy and accountability in our time and attendance solution," Plassenthal remarked. "But we got a much better deal than we were looking for. We got huge savings, a program that is easy to use, one that integrates seamlessly with our existing payroll and accounting systems, and a management tool that enables MR/DD to perform our services to our clients efficiently and effectively, while saving the public money." Any questions may be directed to: Datamatics Management Services, 800-763-0366 or info@datamaticsinc.com
About Datamatics Management Services, Inc.
Datamatics Management Services, Inc., is a New Jersey-based software development company that creates applications relative to the management of labor assets -- specifically for employee scheduling, attendance record keeping, benefit tracking, labor allocation and access control. The company's open architecture approach to developing software provides enterprise-wide, integrated solutions that address the many challenges of managing people and business. Datamatics' premier labor management solution, TC-1, is a scalable and flexible application that bridges culture with technology. Datamatics also offers TimesheetPlus, a web-based time and attendance system and V-Core HR, a human resource program designed to provide policies, forms and employee development.
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