PP Control & Automation is an award-winning provider of outsourcing solutions to many of the most respected and successful machinery builders worldwide. The company employs more than 200 people at its manufacturing facility in Cheslyn Hay, West Midlands in the United Kingdom and is one of the largest independent suppliers of control and automation solutions in Europe. It serves the food processing, machine tool, medical equipment, packaging, printing, scientific, semiconductor plant and processing, security, energy, and power and distribution industries.
Challenges
PP Control & Automation had been using a UKG® timekeeping solution for many years, but managers manually entered employees’ holiday time online on internal forms. If they forgot or didn’t properly enter the information, employees weren’t paid for this time. The company’s HR/payroll staff received upwards of 50 pay queries every month and completed back payments monthly to correct these errors.
Solutions
Recognising the impact of these issues on employees, PP Control & Automation decided to update its workforce management solution. Ensuring that employees are paid correctly was a top priority in selecting a new solution, according to Malcolm Condon, HR People Partner at the company. Other selection criteria included a cloud-based platform that supports remote timekeeping and solution access, HR functionality, and scalability that could handle future growth. Following a review, PP Control & Automation migrated to the UKG Ready® solution to meet these requirements.
“From a customer experience perspective, I would like to see my employees and colleagues treat our customers as well as UKG has treated us.”
Malcolm Condon, HR People Partner
Results
With the implementation of UKG Ready, PP Control & Automation has put the employee experience at the forefront of its workforce management processes. Now, inquiries about hourly employee paycheck errors are no longer a concern. “The fact that people are being paid correctly has been a massive success story from day one,” said Condon.
The same has been true about having a cloud solution that streamlines workflows and enables employees to see their information in real time from anywhere with the mobile app. Condon noted that younger generations expect mobile functionality, making it a valuable recruitment tool.
Using the app, employees can view their time, pay, and accrual information; fill out forms and change their address; and request holiday and other time off. Managers have the flexibility of using the app to review and approve employee time and time-off requests from home or when on the go.
“The cloud is just a better way of doing things and has been absolutely marvelous, especially the cloud element of holiday booking remotely,” said Condon. “And with people able to check timesheets, it’s driven accountability down to the line managers, who have to approve timesheets. If there’s an exception, we’re getting it right the first time, every time, which is magic.”
While hourly employees working at the manufacturing facility clock in and out on site, salaried staff working from home use the mobile app to clock in remotely. Geofencing built into the solution indicates where employees are when inputting their time.
“This kind of system helps with recruitment and employee experience and engagement,” said Richard Spears, Marketing Manager at PP Control & Automation. “For a company of this size, this is really quite sophisticated. You don’t see many of our competitors using a system like this, so it gives us a competitive advantage.”
New hires complete their employment forms in the solution, and completed documents are directed to relevant staff, streamlining the new-hire process and getting new employees on the job faster.
Using the solution to conduct quick employee pulse surveys to gauge employee interest in company programs is an added benefit. “It’s a good way of gathering data and messaging, such as if they’re interested in participating in our support of a local charity,” Condon explained. “It’s quite good as a communication device.”
The UKG solution also creates a paperless HR system that protects the privacy of employee information. Condon noted that instead of employee sick notes floating around, employees can upload their medical information directly into the system, eliminating the chance of their personal information being seen by unauthorised staff.
The company is seeing operational benefits as well with the solution. “Managers have got much more control over their department as a result of the app,” said Condon. “From a manufacturing point of view, that’s a priority. We’re all about being as lean as we can to get our product out at the right price, and the apps help facilitate that.”
With the UKG app and solution, managers know how many staff hours they can allocate each month. “The way you pull reports out of the system is remarkably brilliant,” he said. “We can understand how much every product has cost us to make by attaching labor to specific jobs.”
As to how the solution is benefitting him, Condon said having everything for HR in one place is advantageous. “It’s definitely made my job easier. If employees have a payroll query, they can do it through their phone and it goes to their line manager. Before, they would have been knocking on my door. You can design the system so the right people are answering the questions.”
He credits his UKG team with providing valuable support in getting PP Control & Automation’s UKG Ready solution successfully implemented and operating. “They’re really friendly, approachable, and very patient in explaining how everything works,” he said. “From a customer experience perspective, I would like to see my employees and colleagues treat our customers as well as UKG has treated us.”
