ALCAL Industries is Central and Northern California's largest independent electrical distributor. It is the parent company of Alameda Electrical Distributors and California Service Tool. The two subsidiaries have 12 branches and provide one of California's most respected offerings of electrical products, tools, tool rental and repair services, safety equipment, and project management.
Challenges
Prior to using the UKG Pro® solution, ALCAL developed a compensation plan with bands and ranges tied to specific employee ratings for managers to apply to their employees. However, because managers completed this salary-planning process manually on spreadsheets, they had difficulty comparing how their employees were ranked within the company's compensation system. In addition, HR was required to invest a substantial amount of time reviewing the data manually once it received the spreadsheets back from managers.
Solutions
ALCAL sought to provide managers with the necessary visibility and insight to make the best pay decisions for the company's 280 employees and selected UKG Pro.
"UKG Pro Compensation ensures that our managers understand our compensation plan and have clarity around the factors that drive it," said Courtney Paulsen, HR Analyst at ALCAL. "As managers input their changes into Pro, they can see compa-ratios in real time and have instant visibility into all their employees. Pro's flexibility and analysis tools enable managers to identify pay disparities, even when men and women are in different roles with different pay ranges. Managers are able to make corrections when women's compa-ratios are falling at the low end, with recognition made easier because the performance ratings are also visible. As a result, managers can make better decisions, without relying on HR, and before HR runs its official analysis."
Paulsen notes that Pro makes the review and approval paths simple to set up, and the next level of management is also able to gain broad insights and easily compare manager worksheets.
"UKG Pro Compensation has expedited our compensation management process, while at the same time elevating our conversation with managers about making decisions that are fair and consistent," said Paulsen. "HR is no longer viewed as an enforcer of compliance and laws, but rather as a trusted advisor regarding meaningful compensation decisions. Pro has made managers more sensitive to, and responsible for, a fair and equitable culture."
“HR is no longer viewed as an enforcer of compliance and laws, but rather as a trusted advisor regarding meaningful compensation decisions.”
Courtney Paulson
HR Analyst
Results
According to Paulsen, UKG Pro's Pay Equity report provides HR with the transparency to be more proactive with its annual compensation process, and to ensure that any disparities that exist after the process are nondiscriminatory.
"The Pay Equity report is highly visual, easy to use, and simple to run because it is integrated into UKG Pro Compensation," said Paulsen. "We can see easily if employees are falling outside of recommended ranges without having to move over to UKG Pro People Analytics. Thanks to the ease of exporting data out of Pro, I am also able to run my own manual descriptive analysis, linear-trend analysis, forecast analysis, and correlation matrix. Although I ran my own review outside of Pro, it returned the exact same results as Pay Equity."
