With a staff of 1,800, the Phoenix Suns are a U.S. professional basketball team and have been a member of the National Basketball Association (NBA) since 1968.
Challenges
The Phoenix, Arizona-based organization wanted to enhance its employees' work experiences by delivering more powerful tools and better information to its people at all levels. The parent organization for the Suns had been using outdated software, and the system lacked the necessary access, flexibility, and convenience for employees to update their HR and payroll information.
Solutions
With UKG Pro® as its solution of record, the Suns can impact the entire employee experience ― from onboarding to talent management ― regardless of whether the person is in the office or on the road.
"Pro was the driving force in the Phoenix Suns' ability to successfully put our people first," said Sheila A. Yammer, Senior Director of Payroll Services for the Suns. "UKG designs its functionality with input from users, which gave us confidence that our employees would embrace the new tools and be happy with them."
“UKG Pro was the driving force in the Phoenix Suns' ability to successfully put our people first. UKG designs its functionality with input from users, which gave us confidence that our employees would embrace the new tools and be happy with them.”
Sheila A. Yammer
Senior Director of Payroll Services
Results
Wanting to impact employees from the very beginning, the Suns rolled out UKG Pro Onboarding. With UKG Pro's user-friendly portal, employees can review and electronically sign all documents quickly. The documents are then stored electronically in Pro, vastly reducing the accumulation of paper files and automatically storing the information for later use.
"If we are going to create 'People First' experiences, we need to start from the beginning and impact new employees," said Dianne Tillman, Director of HR for the Suns. "With Pro, employees can be productive faster than before, and they appreciate the ease of use, speed, and convenience of Pro Onboarding in a time when there is probably a lot on their minds. In fact, the time it takes new hires to complete necessary government and company forms on their first day of work has decreased from one hour to under 15 minutes. I think it also provides a good first impression of the Suns."
This accelerated onboarding process has also aided the Suns in achieving its goals to ensure the safety of its employees and customers by automating employee credentialing. Through integrations with Pro and a third-party system, the Suns' security operations team is able to issue credentials within two hours of an employee's hiring.
"Employee credentialing is a critical part of our security procedures and ensuring our people and our venue remains safe," said Yammer. "Pro makes the credentialing process so much smoother. Automating this through Pro eliminates the need for our individual departments to maintain numerous spreadsheets and separate employee contact information, which makes for a more organized, more convenient, and more efficient process."
To improve its performance management and further enhance the employee experience, the Suns are better managing their talent with Pro. Pro's interactive performance management functionality empowers managers and employees alike to create, develop, and track their goals, and helps ensure all employees continuously know how their personal accomplishments contribute to the organization's big picture.
"With Pro for performance management, we can do so much," said Tillman. "For example, we're able to connect employees' individual goals to the overall success of our organization, tracking and recognizing employee achievements throughout the year and providing ongoing opportunities for their professional development. It's a feature we greatly credit in helping us fulfill an essential objective: improving our employees' experiences at work."
