Nursery Chooses Human Resources Software

Overview: A nursery group with several locations around the UK employs 400 people. The company has been using the human resources software, People Inc. for a number of years and recently decided they needed to have a better way of managing the hours their employees work. P&A added on-line timesheet registration to their system. By accessing custom screens via the Employee Intranet (ESS), employees could then enter their hours and related information for managers and then HR to approve these in the human resources software.

Context: To save time on data-entry, an automated process within the human resources software, People Inc. system creates a monthly schedule for all employees for the coming month. These are based on the work patterns recorded for each employee and any holidays or other absence that has been booked.

An employee then uses the Employee Intranet (ESS) to check these hours. If they have worked according to their schedule that month, all they do is confirm that the hours are correct by ticking a box.

If there are other factors (overtime, holiday, or they have worked for another cost centre for a period of time during that month) then the employee adds this information to the system.

If new holiday or absence records are recorded in this way, these are automatically inserted into the standard absence history screen once the timesheet is confirmed (without the employee having to submit a separate absence request). Employees register any overtime worked. The nursery runs a flexi-time scheme; this enables employees to choose which of the overtime hours they have work are paid for and which they will ‘roll-over’ into the following month. Employees may work for another cost centre (or department). If that is the case, the nursery needs to be able to cross-charge this. The employee therefore makes a note of this as well.

Once all information is updated, the employee confirms this is correct by ticking a box (and saving). Their manager then checks the hours worked and authorises them. If there are overtime hours to be paid, HR will then authorise these.

Conclusion: This solution means that the nursery can collect timesheet information quickly, efficiently and accurately, and that by using the human resources software, they have full records of how many hours have been worked. It also means they have details of the amount of resource that each department has used and in particular how much resource has come from another department.

The hours are combined with hourly rates to generate pay figures. This saves the HR department several days a month because they do not have to calculate the pay information manually. They also have outsourced their payroll to us.