Rockingham County in New Hampshire is located in the southeastern part of the state and includes all 18 miles of the state’s Atlantic coastline. The county has nearly 300,000 residents and comprises one city and 36 towns.
Challenges
Rockingham County’s 600 employees are spread across a range of departments, including finance, HR, the county attorney’s office, registry of deeds, sheriff’s office, jail, county nursing home, and an assisted living facility.
The county’s seven unions have different bargaining agreements with a variety of pay and work rules. Updating the county’s prior timekeeping system to match changing pay and accrual policies was difficult and expensive.
Most departments were using an automated timekeeping solution, but it couldn’t handle the complex pay rules of the bailiffs, nurses, and unions without costly changes. All sheriff’s office employees filled out timecards before the office manager calculated their pay using a matrix with pay codes and then sent the information to payroll for processing ― a complex, time-consuming process.
Solutions
Using a UKG® solution to automate all workforce management processes, Rockingham County is able to track all employee time, better control labor costs, minimize compliance risk, and improve productivity. The solution also interfaces with the county’s Munis payroll system.
“In the nursing department we have over 90 pay codes, including 15% bonuses and call-in pay codes, which are based on shifts, weekends, holidays, and overtime, and each zone of that gets a different pay code. Having a work rule that put the right pay code in for those hours [in UKG] has made it a lot easier for us.”
Benjamin Wing
Financial System Analyst
Results
All county employees punch in and out in the UKG solution, including salaried employees whose time is tracked for accrual purposes. The solution has been configured to handle the bailiffs’ and nurses’ complex pay rules.
“In the nursing department we have over 90 pay codes, including 15% bonuses and call-in pay codes, which are based on shifts, weekends, holidays, and overtime, and each zone of that gets a different pay code,” said Benjamin Wing, Financial System Analyst at Rockingham County. “Having a work rule that put the right pay code in for those hours [in UKG] has made it a lot easier for us.”
Sheriff deputies and some engineering and maintenance employees receive guaranteed minimum-hour pay when they work partial shifts. The solution automatically calculates this pay. Varying holiday accrual, time-off, and pay policies for hourly and salaried employees are also configured in the solution.
For employees who work at the county nursing home, their time is tracked in the solution, and required PBJ information for direct care hours is reported electronically each quarter to CMS, ensuring compliance.
