Larimer County Expands HR Functions, Empowers Employees with UKG

Larimer County is one of the largest employers in Northern Colorado, with more than 2,000 employees serving more than 360,000 residents, and is led by 10 elected officials. The county provides diverse resident services, including natural resources and open spaces, human services, law enforcement (jail and patrol), public health, and more.

Challenges

Larimer County had been using a human resources and payroll solution that would no longer be supported and sought a new solution with greater functionality. Key requirements were a user-friendly interface as well as an application that would let employees access their own information. The goal was to give employees more autonomy and ownership of their employment information and to free up HR staff from answering questions that employees could get answers to themselves with the right tools.

"Our biggest driver was for employees to have access to their own information at their fingertips," said Bridget Paris, SPHR, CCP, CBP, Human Resources Director for Larimer County.

Solutions

Following a review, the county selected UKG Pro®. "The main shift for us was getting people the information they need, where they're at," said Paris. "It takes a big load off me in HR."

“The main shift for us with UKG Pro was getting people the information they need, where they're at.”

Bridget Paris, SPHR, CCP, CBP

Human Resources Director

Results

In addition to its 2,000 full-time employees, Larimer County has 300 to 400 seasonal employees and hires 200 to 300 election workers during nonprimary elections and up to 1,000 during major elections. Recently, the county used the UKG Pro Onboarding solution to onboard election workers. "We cycle them in quickly and keep all records about election workers," Paris explained. "Eligibility to work is a huge thing, and Onboarding has been fabulous for that."

Employees have anytime access to their information using UKG Pro self-service tools. They can view their pay statements and W-2 forms, check their leave requests, and access a company directory and other information on a PC or using the solution's mobile app.

The county also is seeing significant benefits from UKG Employee Voice™, which it uses to conduct yearly employee surveys, new-hire surveys, short pulse surveys, and exit interview surveys. The yearly surveys empower employees to share their views and give managers and supervisors insight into employee assessments of their department, the managers themselves, and the organization. No longer is HR staff responsible for compiling employee survey results and sharing this information with managers but instead has taken on the role of HR coach.

"We don't have to tell managers the trends anymore," said Paris. "We guide them to the information and Voice gives them trend data. They can see how they're doing, and they're like, 'hey, can you help me?' It actually changed the relationship between us and our leaders, in terms of feedback and outreach. It makes me a partner."

With UKG Pro, employees have access to their employment documents, and HR staff can locate employee files quickly. "I love that employees can access their own file without a bunch of pain," said Paris. "It's their stuff."

Larimer County will soon be going live with UKG Pro Document Manager for added functionality. "Hopefully it will get us to a place where I can get trust back in the departments and with employees so they'll stop keeping paper everywhere," Paris added. "I think Document Manager will be the tool that gets us there given its ability to create that access."

Having remote access to employee information and documents was critical when the pandemic hit and employees weren't in the office. Paris said that in terms of HR services, nothing changed because employees had access to what they needed. Because the county uses modern technology, she said the shift to remote work was easy.

Employees could see their timecards and action history, complete surveys, and access their documents. Orientation for new hires was handled virtually with UKG Pro Onboarding, enabling new hires to complete forms, engage with their hiring managers, and remotely connect with their assigned supervisors. And with payroll handled electronically, paying employees continued uninterrupted.

The reporting capabilities of UKG Pro are giving the county greater insight into its workforce. "We are really strong in reporting, and I love that we continue to build data sets and views that allow us to look at data," said Paris. The benefits include the integrity and auditing accuracy of the county's data and having access to basic demographic information. The county is now cataloging data in a data warehouse to help identify workforce-related trends.

As Larimer County looks to the future, Paris said they expect to further capitalize on the value they have seen from the integrated UKG software for HR functions and to continue building connections that will expand efficiency and value for both HR staff and administrators.