The WorkForce Team Automated & Streamlined Labor-Tracking Processes

Wackenhut Services, Incorporated (WSI), a wholly owned subsidiary of The Wackenhut Corporation (TWC), contractually performs security, law enforcement, operations and maintenance, fire suppression and prevention, facility services management, training, emergency medical services, airfield management, and aircraft operation and maintenance for federal, state and local government agencies.

Wackenhut Services, Inc - Savannah River Site is the security contractor on a 300-square mile government/state site, and its headquarters is an administrative, law enforcement, and training complex.

Challenges & Issues

The Georgia Department of Community Affairs (DCA), a branch of government that audits financial controls for government organizations, initiated Wackenhut’s search for a workforce management solution. During an audit, the DCA questioned the validity of their employee time and attendance logs, including the tracking of leave and other areas of employee time. Having accurate employee information is critical to ensure state and federal labor law compliance, to generate accurate paychecks, and to reduce liability risks.

“It was difficult getting employee timesheets in on time from the multiple field locations and getting accurate information into the payroll system,” said Larry Adcox, manager of information resource management at Wackenhut Services. “Having a manual process leaves room for calculation errors, missing time-off hours, or data entry errors.”

Many department managers spent up to two hours a day on employee timesheets when the process was manual. Wackenhut has a number of different shifts and rules that need to be supported, such as the 9/80 work week, where employees worked 80 hours in 9 days, and pay differentials for employees who worked shift A or shift B, and countless scheduled start and stop times that needed to be automated.

Selecting WorkForce Software

Wackenhut has complex timekeeping and payroll rules caused by the number of shifts, schedules, bargaining units, and exempt and non-exempt employees. Even employees with different shifts and schedules needed to be paid the same start and end times for a given period.

“We chose WorkForce Software’s EmpCenter® after going through a lengthy evaluation process,” said Adcox. “We were impressed that all of our requirements could be configured without changing the base program. Other vendors could only meet our needs if developers reprogrammed their software, which would make future upgrades more expensive and time consuming.”

Implementation

“The most important phase of this implementation was the process of gathering requirements,” said Adcox. “We learned a great deal about our process and how we could improve it from the WorkForce consulting team. They asked the right questions and discussed best practices during this week long process. Based on the information we provided, the WorkForce team configured EmpCenter with rules and processes to automate our entire process.”

When moving from a manual to an automated system, there are many data points to consider. Pay rates, shift pay differentials, accruals and overtime calculations, labor distributions, scheduling, and more play a role in the requirements gathering phase and brought everyone together to deploy the best system for Wackenhut and its employees.

“We were very impressed with the roll-out of WorkForce’s EmpCenter and the team who made it happen,” said Adcox.

Data Collection

Today, Wackenhut has operation security specialists (OSS) entering employee time for the various areas. Because Wackenhut employees are spread out over a 300-square mile site, with several employees at security posts, it is easier to have one point of contact to enter time. Now, OSS personnel enter employee information into the system once and then send it to the supervisors for approval.

Wackenhut uses online timesheets to enter and track the following:

• Track hours worked
• Request time-off
• Manage leave
• Track accrual banks
• Support activity based costing
• View schedules
• And more

Testing & Rollout

“I highly recommend a thorough testing phase when rolling out any enterprise system,” said Adcox. “Six of our eightmonth software roll-out was spent on testing. Our testing and comprehensive employee training were the reasons why we had no glitches in the process – EmpCenter was rock solid. This project was one of the best I have been involved in and it was a great experience for everyone.”

“WorkForce Software’s project team was always positive and delivered what they promised. It was an enjoyable experience to work with an honest and upbeat team.”
Larry Adcox, Manager of Information, Resource Management, Wackenhut Services, Inc.

Results

“WorkForce’s EmpCenter provides an audit trail that helps us ensure regulatory compliance and verify data accuracy,” said Adcox. “EmpCenter automated our entire processes and improved employee productivity along the way.”