The User Spotlight program recognizes people who use UKG solutions regularly in their day-to-day jobs. Not only do the articles introduce you to actual UKG end-users, but they also help you learn about features, resources, and solution strategies you might not have known about before.
Meet Rachel Short! Rachel is a payroll administrator at Moses Lake Community Health Center.
| Name: | Rachel Short |
| Company: | Moses Lake Community Health Center |
| Role: | Payroll accountant |
| Product: | UKG Workforce Central and UKG Dimensions |
| Experience with UKG: | Three years |
| Community Name: | RShort |
Moses Lake Community Health Center was founded in 1978 and is a community based, nonprofit, patient-centered healthcare organization in the town of Moses Lake in North Central Washington state. Moses Lake Community Health serves the entire community, with a special focus on underserved and migrant farmworkers. “We get a chance to provide healthcare to people who really, really need it, and we advocate for them. I think that's fantastic.” There are four locations, including a recently opened school-based health center.
A customer since 2008, the organization initially deployed UKG Workforce Central® 6 (on premises). More recently, they were an early adopter of UKG Dimensions™, moving to the cloud with HR and Payroll and adding Advanced Scheduling.
Rachel played a key role in the organization’s migration to Dimensions from Workforce Central. In her role, Rachel is the go-to subject matter expert for training, onboarding, and updates about UKG. When users have a question, they come to Rachel.
Rachel’s favorite things about UKG Dimensions
Reporting: When asked to share her favorite things about Dimensions, Rachel mentioned reporting. “You can add and subtract columns from reports as you need to. That's made it really easy to report out in ways that we had never been able to do before. And the custom calculations are really handy. Being able to pull that data in multiple different ways and kind of slice and dice it however you need to.”
Rachel also noted a few specific reports that she finds particularly helpful:
- “The new Accrual Detail Report with Running Balance (R8) has been the number one reporting request since implementation. Having the running balance allows us to show the encumbered methodology in a way that makes sense for the employees.”
- “The Benefits Census Report is manipulated in multiple ways to provide backup for our invoices.”
- “The Arrearage Report is used every pay period and helps us track employees’ benefits while they are out on leave.”
- “The ease of adding/subtracting columns in HCM from an end-user standpoint makes it easy for administrators with less report-building experience to feel confident to build a report for their specific needs. Each administrator builds their own reports for hours, payroll, benefits, hiring, and more.
Open enrollment made easy: Rachel loves that employees can get all of their benefits set up. “It flows seamlessly to payroll, and we don't have to really worry about it.”
What users love: When asked about what users enjoy, Rachel shared that they are especially fond of the flexibility of being able to punch in on clocks, desktops, and mobile devices.
Ideas in the UKG Community: We would be remiss if we didn’t mention UKG® Kronos Community. Rachel mentioned how much she enjoys the Ideas page. “Ideas are actually pulled from the Community and applied (becoming feature changes/additions in UKG solutions). UKG is listening to the customer and actually pulling those ideas and implementing them.”
Tips from Rachel
If you’re considering migrating from UKG Workforce Central to UKG Dimensions, here is Rachel’s advice to you.
“The two systems are not apples to apples. It is a great time to really think about how you would use the program and build up from there. Don’t just move information over directly. While some of the data might be the same, look at the new features in UKG Dimensions and build accordingly, even if it takes more time. Instead of building your business structure based on administrative needs, build it based on end-user needs. The business structure and the components of an employee's profile play a huge role in how employees’ schedules are built or their timecards viewed.”
And when it comes to open enrollment, Rachel advises you to…
“CREATE A TEST BENEFITS PROFILE! We usually set up the benefits profile and then duplicate it and assign it to our test employee. This allows us to go through every aspect of the open enrollment, including the home page tile, instructions, and notifications. In addition, try to make your notifications more generic so you don’t need to adapt them every single year with new, hard-coded data. Utilize the tags to build something that works at all times.”
Just for fun: more about Rachel
Rachel moved with her family to Northern Central Washington for her role at Moses Lake Community Health Center. “I used to live about five hours away from here in a still-agricultural community, and I was looking for a different type of job. At the time, I decided I would like to go into either healthcare or technology.”
With her job, her role as mom to three children ages 12, 11, and 9, and two cats and a dog, Rachel is busy! Her children are all at the age where they are coming into their own and forming their own unique opinions. “It’s been incredibly fun for me to see them become their own people.” I’m sure most parents can relate!
Rachel is a member of our UKG Insiders program and continues to look for opportunities to expand her knowledge of UKG Dimensions — as she is the key person users come to with questions at Moses Lake Community Health Center. She shared that mobile questions are the most prevalent.
Rachel is an active member in the UKG® Kronos Community, and you can look for her there.
Be in the next user spotlight!