The Many Uses of UKG Ready Attestation in 2020

The use of UKG Ready’s Attestation solution has become increasingly popular this year, primarily due to COVID-19. Global pandemic aside, the Attestation solution is a useful tool that can help organizations remain compliant, reduce risk, and create a better working environment for all.

What is Attestation and what does the solution do?

By definition, the word “attestation” means:

evidence or proof of something
a declaration that something exists or is the case
the action of being a witness to or formally certifying something

That last bullet is crucial. Employee data certification is becoming essential in the HCM world in order to provide clear documentation and assurance of accuracy. The UKG Ready Attestation solution helps provide this type of certification. Organizations can ask questions of employees to confirm compliance with business policies and promote employee interaction and well-being. Questions can be specific and personalized, which focuses employee attention and delivers even better data to management. The reporting functionality allows easy identification of outliers and can also be used to identify trends toward management improvement.

Three ways your organization can leverage Attestation:

1. Track Meals and Breaks
While California typically gets a bad rap for meals and breaks, did you know there are more than 35 jurisdictions with required break and meal periods? Organizations can identify, track, and automate these requirements through configurations in the UKG Ready solution. While automation is a key feature to SaaS solutions, capturing exceptions is necessary too. By using Attestation, employers can set up specific questions for various groups of employees based on specific requirements or policies.
For example, at the end of a shift, a customizable question can be configured to ask the employee:

“Did you receive your 30-minute uninterrupted meal period today?”

Depending on the answer, organizations can then add a workflow to inform the manager or HR of noncompliance and even automate a meal penalty (in California, this is known as meal period premium pay) or other automatic allowance per statutory requirement.

2. Comply with Scheduling Laws

Hours worked and compensable time continue to be a challenge as scheduling laws and guaranteed minimum requirements are passed throughout the U.S. UKG Ready simplifies the approval process by triggering pop-ups and email notifications when it’s time to submit timesheets. The Attestation solution goes a step further. It allows the organization to ask employees a specific, customizable question to help ensure appropriate workflows are followed. For example:

“Were you aware of your schedule at least 7 days before your shift began?”

If the answer is yes, you can dig in even further if necessary:

“Were any changes made to your scheduled hours?”

If the answer is no, a separate subset of questions is asked. In certain jurisdictions, the answers to these questions are critical as they help ensure compliance with regulations and can also demonstrate an organization’s cultural intent toward compliance.

3. Promote Employee Well-Being

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced every organization to adjust to a new normal, and the well-being of employees is certainly at the forefront of workers’ minds everywhere. Organizations can leverage the Attestation solution to check in on the well-being of their employees. It’s important to keep a pulse on how your employees are doing. Studies show that workplaces with happier, more engaged employees have lower turnover rates and less employee burnout. With so many employees working from home today, it can be easy to feel lost or alone. Again, the UKG Ready Attestation solution can be used to interact with your employees to provide a check-in and insight into how things are going. Consider adding questions to collect employee feedback, such as:

“Congratulations on making it to the end of the week! Did you have positive work/life balance this week?”

Or perhaps you’re interested in measuring employee and manager interaction to report on events and engagement. Using Attestation, you can collect responses to questions such as:

“Have you had a meaningful conversation with your manager in the past week?”

Conclusion

The Attestation solution, while traditionally intended to capture employee time management certification, has been in high demand of late and has seen several improvements. From gathering health check responses to promoting employee engagement, organizations are innovatively using the Attestation solution to help drive business improvements. If you want to engage with other customers to see how they’re using Attestation, see our IDEAs Community. To stay up to date on product enhancements, make sure to bookmark the Release Readiness page on UKG Kronos Community and check the readyConnect panel in your product.

*UKG Ready Timekeeping is required to run the UKG Ready Attestation solution.