Founded in 1884, Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, has evolved into an international powerhouse in higher education and a top-tier research institution, with roughly 40,000 undergraduate, graduate, and professional students.
Challenges
Temple University used a home-grown system to process timesheet information each week for biweekly payroll for its 10,000 hourly employees. Nearly 4,500 of these employees are student workers who log a maximum of 17 hours weekly at 5,600 jobs across the university.
Some students work as many as four jobs, in areas such as the library or recreation facilities, or with academic or coaching staff. Accurately tracking the time of student workers at each of their multiple jobs was challenging for students — as well as for supervisors approving their time.
One employee also worked full time entering the accrued time of full-time staff into the university's ERP system.
Solutions
As Temple University considered moving to a workforce management solution with extensive functionality, decision makers wanted to ensure they chose a solution that could accurately capture the time that student workers spend at each of their jobs. They also wanted to be sure that student time working on specific grant or work study programs would be assigned to the correct programs.
In addition, the university needed a solution that would simplify and streamline the timecard approval process for supervisors of student employees as well as track the accrued time of all full-time employees, to improve leave management and compliance.
Temple University selected a UKG® solution. Now, all hourly employees track their time in the solution while full-time employees, except faculty and adjunct staff, use it to track their accruals.
With the solution in place, the university has streamlined timekeeping and payroll reconciliation, increased visibility into workforce data, and reduced potential compliance issues. Integration with the university's Banner by Ellucian ERP solution has streamlined accruals tracking.
“Our timekeepers tell me our new [UKG] system is a lot simpler and a lot faster. And on our side, when we're processing payroll, we're able to cut down our reconciliation process to a third of the time it took before — from three hours to maybe an hour, maximum.”
Ken Thornton
HR Lead Systems Administrator
Results
Using the UKG solution's Multiple Approvals functionality, students choose from a short list of jobs — based on their UKG ID — when they input their time. Each position is coded to the correct department and to grants and work study programs if applicable.
Supervisors see and approve only time worked in their department, and timekeepers can see jobs assigned to each student during the payroll reconciliation process.
"Our timekeepers tell me our new [UKG] system is a lot simpler and a lot faster," said Ken Thornton, HR Lead Systems Administrator. "And on our side, when we're processing payroll, we're able to cut down our reconciliation process to a third of the time it took before — from three hours to maybe an hour, maximum."
Reporting provides visibility into workforce data, with staff particularly utilizing the Pay Code Per Totals and Pay Code Per Employee reports. With data flowing from the UKG solution into the Banner solution, payroll reconciliation time has been cut by 67%, and accrual reconciliation time has been cut by 75%.
