Memorandum

City of Lawrence

 

TO:

David L. Corliss, City Manager

 

FROM:

Jonathan Douglass, Assistant to the City Manager

James Wisdom, Director of Information Systems

Lori Carnahan, Human Resources Manager

Marlo Cohen, Human Resources Management Analyst

Jennifer Pereira, Personnel Specialist

 

DATE:

July 12, 2010

 

RE:

Time & Attendance System Overview

 

 

City Manager’s Office, Human Resources Division and Information Systems Department staff has been investigating the feasibility of implementing an electronic time and attendance system for the entire city organization.

 

Overview of current time keeping system

 

The city currently uses a paper-based system for the recording of time, following the process outlined below:

1.    An Information Systems employee creates and prints the bi-weekly time sheets on carbon paper forms.

2.    The time sheets are sent to the billing/payroll specialist in Finance for distribution via inter-office mail to all of the departments and divisions of the city.

3.    Individual paper time sheets are completed by hand. Some part-time temporary employees (such as Parks and Recreation seasonal employees) have their time recorded on a common sheet for their entire division. In some divisions, such as Solid Waste, employees clock in and out and a supervisor transfers that time to the official individual time sheets at the end of the pay period.

4.    Paper time sheets are collected (sometimes from multiple work sites), reviewed by supervisors, and are then signed by the supervisor, division head, and department head.

5.    Time is transferred from the paper time sheets into the AS/400 by designated personnel in each department.

6.    The paper time sheets are all hand delivered to the Finance Department on Monday morning of each pay week.

7.    The billing/payroll specialist audits all of the entries in the AS/400 against the paper time sheets before running payroll. In 2008, the total number of employees (full-time regular, part-time regular and part-time temporary) ranged from 915 to 1162.

 

The cumulative time to complete all of the steps listed above is at a minimum 59 hours every two weeks. The entire payroll process takes city employees at least 1,542 hours annually, and with the associated materials costs the city approximately $57,099 annually. Implementing an electronic time and attendance system has the potential to save the city an estimated $46,978 annually in labor and materials costs spent on payroll tasks. Some payroll related tasks, such as supervisor review, would still remain whether the system is automated or not, but they would be simplified and expedited.  

 

A study of the automation of time and attendance systems conducted by the American Payroll Association estimates that lost time (i.e. tardiness) and human error cost an 800 employee organization approximately $1,081,600 annually. While staff views such estimates with appropriate skepticism, the city is likely to experience savings from reduced lost time and errors by automating the payroll process.

 

Reasons for implementing a time and attendance system

 

Reasons for implementing an electronic time and attendance system include the following:

 

§  Customer service. Once an electronic time and attendance system is fully implemented and employees have been trained and are comfortable using it, the system will provide employees with better service than they currently enjoy. Employees can potentially check their own leave balances and histories without having to contact the Human Resources Division. They will eventually be able to ask for time off or schedule changes, and have those requests approved through the proposed Time and Attendance system.

§  Cost savings. The city will save both staff time and materials dedicated to entering time on paper timesheets and then transferring time into the AS/400. Much of the savings will be in the form of staff time that can be spent on mission critical activities rather than administrative activities. Other savings will be in the form of time that is currently paid but not worked (e.g. late arrivals and early departures). Other cities (which were contacted as references for the time and attendance system vendors we have considered) reported that they observed increased productivity due to employees being more conscientious of arriving on time.

§  Accountability. Greater accountability and recognition for the time and attendance records of individual employees will be possible with an electronic time and attendance system. Employees will not have to mentally recall time worked in order to enter it on a time sheet, risking errors that harm the city or the employee. With the recent improvements to the city’s compensation and performance appraisal systems, accurate accounting of time in order to evaluate employees has taken on more importance. The ability to rely on accurate data to recognize top performing employees is vital.

§  Accuracy. Accuracy of time recording should increase with a modernized system. The experiences of other organizations indicate that this alone saves significant amounts of money and protects the organization and the employees from errors in pay. While our current system meets all Department of Labor requirements, the automated Time and Attendance system provides a far more accurate and less disputable record of time worked should the city be audited.

§  Analysis. Better analysis of operations (scheduling, overtime usage, work load, attendance, etc.) will be possible when we have details of time recorded in a workable electronic format. For example, recently staff performed an analysis of the effects of the city’s definition of “hours worked” on calculations of overtime, and just the data gathering took many hours of staff time by a number of people. Individual time sheets had to be pulled out and examined one by one in each division to determine why each instance of overtime was earned. This sort of analysis could be performed more quickly and more accurately, leading to money saving policy changes and scheduling practices.

§  Workers compensation management. Processing temporary total disability (TDD) payments is currently a difficult process that requires manual calculations and time consuming communication among departments and the Risk Management Office. A time and attendance system could allow the Risk Manager to view real time hours and leave accruals for affected employees to make TDD payments more accurate, efficient and timely.

§  FMLA Tracking. The Human Resources Division has long had concerns about the city’s ability to effectively track Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) hours. There is currently no city-wide method for tracking FMLA hours, and it is cumbersome to reconstruct FMLA history and determine FMLA usage, especially when it crosses calendar years. Correct accounting of FMLA is important for performance evaluations and termination decisions. A time and attendance system could greatly i mprove our ability to track FMLA hours, protecting both the city and the employees. While more sophisticated FMLA tracking software may be available, a time and attendance system would be a step in the right direction in terms of tracking FMLA time.

§  Equipment replacement/maintenance. The city currently has two line printers located in Information Systems.  One printer serves as a primary printer, and the other was retained for backup printing purposes.  These two printers are used for printing forms on non-standard (typically green bar) paper. Primarily, these two printers are used for printing time sheets, water shut-off notices, and labels.  Information Systems already has an alternate way of printing the shut-off notices, so if the City no longer needed to print paper time sheets, we would be down to finding a better solution for printing labels which would allow us to eliminate one or both of these printers, thus allowing them to be decommissioned reducing maintenance and replacement costs.

 

 

Next Step

 

Staff prepared a Request for Proposals for a time and attendance system to fit the diverse operational needs of the various city departments and divisions. Staff has recommended ExectuTime’s Time and Attendance software product to be implemented. While the cost savings from implementing such a system are difficult to project with certainty, it seems a prudent investment to modernize the system for improved accuracy, accountability, analysis and efficiency of the city workforce.