If you’re a manager at a company with separate human resource and workforce management systems, you’ve probably experienced the agonizing time-suck of entering the same employee information into both platforms—again and again. What if we told you there is a better way? A technique that makes it possible to enter data into one system and see the same data appear in the other system in real-time? It’s not magic, my friend. It’s something real and very possible—it’s integration.

Integration in a Nutshell

HR systems are central warehouses for employee information. Workforce management systems cover time, attendance, leave, advanced scheduling, and more. When you integrate these two systems, you set them both up to seamlessly connect. As a result, the data in both systems sync automatically and continuously. For example, if you promote an employee and update their information (e.g., job title, pay rate, etc.) in the HR system, the same updates apply to your WFM software.

If you’re like most managers with full plates, we probably had you at “stop entering things twice.” But there are three even more critical reasons that integration makes good business sense. Integration can free up time and money, stop data-entry mistakes in their tracks, and increase your data quality.

1. Save time and money

Entering info twice, cross-checking, and making updates and corrections are all time-consuming activities. And, perhaps you’ve already heard, time is money. When you integrate your HR and WFM platforms, you enter information once, and both systems will show real-time data. One and done.

2. Reduce the risk of human error

Accurate data is critical, and humans make mistakes. When companies depend on employees to enter the same data into multiple systems, the odds of an incorrect entry increase. That’s not just annoying and time-consuming—errors could also affect the bottom line. Imagine the ramifications of an extra zero, if you will. When you integrate your HR and WFM platforms, you enter information once, and both systems update across the board.

3. Improve your data

Being a data-driven organization requires having quality data. When you integrate HR and WFM, you eliminate data silos and gain a complete picture of your employees and their work. Only then can you genuinely make data-driven decisions to keep the company moving forward.

The thought of integrating your HR and WFM systems might sound confusing, but we love this stuff, and we’d like to help you with it. The Workforce Consulting Group provides tailored solutions and support for companies ready to integrate their HR and WFM systems. We listen to your needs, adapt our services, and deliver world-class results. Contact us today to speak with an expert.

2020 brought significant change, especially for the US workforce. Telecommuting or remote working had slowly been on the rise prior to this past year, however, with the COVID-19 global pandemic, businesses had to transition from in-office to almost exclusively remote almost overnight.

With a COVID-19 vaccine becoming available, many organizations are asking themselves “when are things going back to normal?”, The short answer is, we likely won’t return to “normal” as we knew it. Despite the angst present with state shutdowns, changing rules, and social distancing, many Americans were able to benefit from the flexibility and convenience of working in totally virtual environment. Additionally, companies have seen benefits as well, such as lower real estate costs, equal or better productivity, and fewer restrictions on where they can look for talent. What was once feared by companies, is now being embraced as a new opportunity to evolve.

A new model companies are moving towards in 2021 is not just remote, it is a work-from-anywhere model. This model requires people and processes to operate seamlessly when people are not co-located and that requires technology to fill the gaps. The key to work-from-anywhere success, therefore, will be securing the right technology stack that is flexible and customizable to fit your organization’s unique needs.

Companies are assessing how best to assist and complement their people and processes with technology and the truth is, there is no playbook. There is a lot of great technology out there, but each company will need to optimize it differently to fit the needs of their business. We are all still trying to achieve the same outcome, to optimize our workforce, but how do you do that in a work-from-anywhere model?

Some key considerations for EVERY organization:

Digital Transformation

The make-up of your office will change, taking into consideration items like remote vs. in-office, salary vs. hourly, full-time vs. contract employees. Many companies will move to a “hoteling” model, where most employees do not have an assigned desk but will identify available desks when they are in the office. This means, on most days, employees will be working from anywhere else there is internet. This may impact your policies and procedures, on boarding, training, and development.

Communication

At any given time, you may have employees in the office, employees at home, or employees in a different time zone. Setting up communication channels and expectations is imperative. You will want to consider how to ensure transfer of knowledge, how you will foster collaboration and innovation, as well as what systems and tools you will deploy to make this happen.

Culture

Company culture remains a hot topic, as many are worried theirs will diminish with more and more employees working full-time out of the office. It might look different, but there are new approaches you can try out to keep the culture alive and employees engaged.

Talent Attraction & Internal Mobility

The way you attract talent will change, with the need to promote a remote workforce with extremely clear career paths. Transparency and the ability to clearly define for employees how they fit within new and changing structures is key.

Productivity

You may determine that the current measures you are using to track productivity will need to change with this evolution. The first step will be to identify the right Key Performance Metrics (KPIs) that make sense for tracking in your organization and how the organization will measure results.

Automation & Outsourcing

In this shift, we have seen a surge in new technologies that allow for automating certain tasks, as well as a desire to outsource historically not transformative tasks. Companies are taking more chances in outsourcing and automation and the ROI is proving to be worth it.

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion

An inclusive work environment does not just happen, it requires sustained effort. There will be greater opportunities to look across a broader geography to reach your diversity goals. Leaders will have to work harder to ensure that all employees are included and have equal opportunity.

Data Privacy

Data security has always been important, but security in a distributed environment will be even more important. Be sure you have the right system in place to protect you, and your employee’s information.

Expense Controls

Are you right-sized from a real estate perspective? Should you invest in physical locations in the future and where is the best country, state, or city to do so? Continuous review of expenses will continue to be critical.

Organizations can, and will, make this shift into a hybrid or work-from-anywhere model provided they have the right technology, tools, reporting insights and processes in place. Follow along with PredictiveHR, as we dive deep into the roadmap for workforce optimization in 2021.

Finding Mental Health Professionals in the Era of COVID-19

 

Over the past few years, we’ve seen Americans put a spotlight on their mental health. Terms like “self care” and “wellness” have become a part of our regular vernacular, highlighting the need to take care of ourselves during difficult situations. Now, after almost a year of dealing with a global pandemic, the mental health industry is experiencing even more exponential growth. According to Mental Health America, the number of people looking for help with anxiety and depression has skyrocketed with a 93% increase in 2020 compared to 2019.

It’s not hard to understand why. The COVID-19 pandemic, and the resulting economic depression, has negatively affected many people’s mental health with worry, tension, and isolation–not to mention the existing group of people suffering from mental health issues who now have a new set of barriers to overcome.

The need for mental health professionals is expanding.

Whether someone is now out of work, lost a loved one, or just working from home trying to get by, there is not one person in America that hasn’t recently needed to check-in on their mental wellness. Even before the pandemic, the Bureau of Labor Statistics stated that employment of substance abuse, behavioral disorder, and mental health counselors was expected to rise 22% from 2018 to 2028. The disruption in behavior and the uncertainty has led to a lot of anxiety. Now, more than ever, there is a need for mental health services and professionals across all lines of work.

The problem is, there’s a shortage of mental health professionals.

The need for mental health professionals is at an all time high, and will only continue to grow. Shortages can be attributed to dwindling supply and growing demand. In general, the main issue is people are aging out of mental health fields faster than younger generations are replacing them.

You need a partner that specializes in recruiting for the mental health space.

PredictiveHR’s behavioral and mental health recruitment service will help your business deal with these issues. With over 20 years of experience in recruitment, and with a focus on the mental health industry, our team has the deep understanding necessary to help organizations successfully navigate through these transformative times.

Why try our Behavioral and Mental Health Recruitment Service?

  • We are dedicated to only delivering the highest quality of candidates.
  • We have a network of mental health professionals at our fingertips.
  • We specialize in executing high-volume workforce needs.

Predictive HR offers a customized recruiting service for mental and behavioral health providers who are in need of additional staff to serve clients. Whether you are in need of full-time, contract-to-hire, or direct hire employees, our team will take the exhaustive burden of finding the right mix of talented individuals for your organization.

 

UKG Dimensions (formerly Kronos Workforce Dimensions) has drawn increasing interest over the past year as many Workforce Central users are finally considering to make this leap. No doubt, new challenges brought on by the COVID-19 response these last several months have created a pressure test for businesses across all sectors. Leaders of these businesses are drawn to the idea of implementing adaptable, mobile-friendly workplace solutions for their new working realities. Dimensions fit that bill.

We recommend keeping a few crucial points in mind when considering a migration from Workforce Central to Dimensions.

Data Transfer Is Largely Optimized

That has got to be a huge relief to hear! Even at launch, Dimensions offered impressive compatibility for transferring data directly from Workforce Central. Often, just the thought of transferring the entirety of an enterprise’s data between solutions is a massive inhibitor to making this big leap! UKG has put in the groundwork to minimize manual data migration efforts between Workforce Central and Dimensions. One less reason to be hesitant.

Still Plan for an Adjustment Period

As with any migration between solutions, you and your employees will need some time to understand your new digital environment. Dimensions is designed to be intuitive by drawing on mobile-first best practices, and this should help lend some initial familiarity to features and functions. Still, the change between interfaces, replacement of specific modules, and beefed-up capabilities of others—often made possible by newer automation, machine learning, and AI integrations—will require some getting used to.

Proper preparation before migration and ample training and support post-migration can all help expedite your team’s successful adoption—and keep your adjustment period minimal. This is a large part of what we do to help our partners successfully complete their migrations by working with teams upfront to set important expectations and then bringing them all onboard through platform training once their implementation is complete.

Now Is a Great Time to Adopt Dimensions

As we near the end of 2020, so to draws the end of the Adobe Flash plugin. Dimensions offers a distinct advantage by being engineered from the start without Flash integration, simplifying some of IT’s struggles in trying to phase out these soon-to-be-obsolete features across their entire enterprise—at least as far as their workforce management solution is concerned.

Not only has Dimensions made significant strides since its launch in 2017, but UKG has a roadmap planned for the platform’s future. UKG will share insights into this roadmap next month at the first UKG Works conference (previously KronosWorks). This year’s fully digital format offers free registration for anyone with a UKG solution ID so that you can join the roadmap session, network with solution pros, and more, all from the safety and comfort of your office or home.

Eager for a 1-on-1 conversation about what migrating Dimensions would look like for you? Schedule a consultation with one of The Workforce Consulting Group’s implementation specialists today!

Human Capital Management System Consulting Company one of the few companies accredited by Ultimate Software and Kronos

Boston, MA (October 15, 2020): PredictiveHR, a leading provider of customized human resource outsourcing and consulting services, announced today a partnership with Workforce Fusion, which provides Kronos consulting services and solutions across multiple industries. The partnership makes PredictiveHR one of the few companies to offer both Ultimate Software and Kronos product implementation capabilities.

The PredictiveHR and Workforce Fusion partnership follows the merger earlier this year between Ultimate Software and Kronos, now officially known as UKG, which created one of the world’s largest HCM and Workforce Management companies.

Workforce Fusion is accredited in these Kronos products:

  • Workforce Force Dimensions (Q4 2020)
  • Workforce Central (All versions up to 8.1.7)
    • Timekeeper
    • Absence Management
      • Accruals
      • Leave
      • Attendance
    • Advanced Scheduler
    • Workforce Integration Manager

In adding Kronos capabilities and products, including Workforce Dimensions Suite to its UltiPro-certified personnel, PredictiveHR is now a one-stop shop, noted PredictiveHR CEO James Troiano.

Predictive HR has UltiPro-certified personnel in the following areas:

  • Launch System Consultants (Core HR/Payroll)
  • Project Management
  • Talent Acquisition
  • Talent Management
  • Benefits Prime
  • HR Service Delivery
  • UltiPro Learning
  • Perception
  • Business Intelligence
  • Data Conversion

Workforce Fusion is very excited to become a value-added partner to the UKG team. We are excited to collaborate with PredictiveHR to provide our combined subject matter expertise in both Kronos and Ultimate products.” Peter Sperlongano CEO and Founder Workforce Fusion

About PredictiveHR PredictiveHR is a Boston-based company with a combination of more than 100 years of Human Resource practitioner experience. PredictiveHR’s consultants take a customer-focused approach to support companies in understanding Human Capital Management. Are you working towards a new HCM system implementation? Maybe you need better utilization of an existing system? Let PredictiveHR be your trusted guide through the process.

Learn more by visiting https://www.predictivehr.com.

About Workforce Fusion

Workforce Fusion Founder and CEO Peter Sperlongano is a seasoned Kronos product suite subject matter expert with over 30 years of extensive experience in project management, configuration, implementation, and product optimization coaching. Workforce Fusion has over 11 years of experience implementing, upgrading and optimizing Kronos solutions across all industries to provide the best value and most efficient workforce management processes to Kronos customers.

Now that Kronos and Ultimate Software have officially rebranded as Ultimate Kronos Group (UKG),  customers of their separate solutions want to know what this merger means.

If you are a Kronos Workforce Dimensions, Workforce Central, or Ultimate Software UltiPro user, fret not. These trusted offerings are only growing closer as a family of compatible, people-centric business solutions under the banner of UKG.

As long-standing Kronos service partners, we are excited about what UKG UltiPro HCM offers our Kronos Workforce Dimensions and Workforce Central clients. And we are also excited about how Kronos workforce solutions will help UltiPro payroll and HR software customers fortify their workforce management capabilities.

In anticipation of this merger, we knew our Kronos clients would want access to expert guidance on using UltiPro to serve their HCM needs better.

View Case Studies

Tap Into Single-Source UKG Workforce and UltiPro HCM Support

We are primed to help client partners customize and implement their complete set of UKG solutions. Whether you are grandfathered into UKG as an Ultimate Software or Kronos customer or new to these solutions altogether, our seasoned Kronos consultants and UltiPro experts are working together to deliver you the best in combined implementation support.

Our expertise gives us the confidence to ensure we can help businesses squeeze the most out of using UKG HR and workforce management solutions together. As UKG service partners, we deliver the added attention to tailor these solutions to more custom needs — helping users achieve their specific business goals in ways a standard, out-of-the-box implementation otherwise could not.

UKG Support and Implementation Experts

Your search for support ends here, whether you are a Kronos customer seeking to add strong HR, payroll, recruiting, and benefits capabilities with an UltiPro implementation, an UltiPro customer seeking the productivity and workforce management advantages of Workforce Dimensions, or someone newly interested in UKG’s combined offerings. Reach out to speak with one of Predictive HR’s UKG consultants, and we will pull together the best resources available to suit your business’s unique UKG implementation and optimization needs.

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Most Workforce Central customers are no doubt familiar with its responsive and user-friendly interface on desktops, but far too few have taken advantage of this solution’s native mobile capabilities.

Workforce Central has a connected app called Kronos Workforce Mobile, available for both iPhone and Android phones, which is specifically designed to simplify and streamline many of the standard processes of the core platform for productivity on-the-go.

With remote work becoming an immediate necessity as part of COVID-19 prevention measures, employers can move quickly enough to work from home with the core desktop solution, but the native mobile extension offers features that can aid both managers and their employees while working apart now that they can continue to benefit from once they all return to the workplace later.

Access Information At Your Fingertips

Both employees and managers can appreciate having the daily information they need as accessible as possible. Items like scheduling, accruals, pay stubs, and more are especially helpful when they are only a few taps away—so employees can get a clearer picture of their personal status at any time. Likewise, managers can gain real-time insight (and alerts) at a glance for everything they need to focus on making sure work presses on by using Workforce Mobile’s dashboards on-the-go.

Manage Employee Requests With A Tap

Not only can employees quickly access their schedules and accruals with Workforce Mobile—the app’s intuitive setup allows them to request shift changes, swaps, and time off right from their phone. Likewise, managers can receive their requests as concise notifications, analyze related employee data, and give an approval on-the-fly, instead of having requests piled high in their inbox. This also gives managers an opportunity to promptly respond directly when concerns arise and expedite matters that are important to keeping employees engaged and happy.

Minimize Downtime With Offline Features

Network connectivity, for both internet and mobile, always finds a way to disappear or flake when you need it most. Kronos Mobile helps mitigate problems with untimely connectivity issues by giving its users access to Smart Views and even timecard punches when offline. These help keep productivity on track and prevent basic necessities from becoming disruptive, technological headaches.

Are You Using Kronos Workforce Mobile To Your Best Ability?

If you are a Workforce Central customer who feels you may be under utilizing Kronos Mobile and would like to enact better remote management capabilities for your remote needs now—and for improved processes when we return to “normal” circumstances—let’s talk. Together, we can build a path to better-than-usual administration once office life resumes. Speak with one of our implementation specialists about your path to making Kronos Mobile work harder for you.

Workforce Dimensions vs. Workforce Central

It’s hard to believe it has already been almost two years since Kronos Inc. (now UKG) revealed its revolutionary Workforce Dimensions platform. Yet, even amid the excitement for this new solution, Kronos has continued to improve and support Workforce Central — a platform which countless businesses already rely on and trust. improve and support Workforce Central — a platform which countless businesses already rely on and trust.

While Kronos has promised further support for Workforce Central in the years to come, many workforce leaders are now asking us which solution is right for them and if/when is the time to migrate solutions.

The answer is not a simple one, as we’ve come to know the many intricacies of each platform, but there are several key factors that inform our expert recommendation for each customer business. These factors balance both the current and future goals any leader has for their business and their employees. Take the following key differences into consideration when weighing these solutions, and reach out to speak to one of our experienced consultants and implementation experts on these factors and more as they relate to your specific industry, challenges and vision.

It’s worth checking out the successes of our clients, including Sequoia Living, who have experienced significant advantages by using UKG products implemented by PHR.

Range of Mobility

How important is it that your employees have flexible access to their productivity solutions, such as timekeeping, scheduling, etc.? For remote and field workers or frequently travelling staff, mobility is a must, but even workers with a regular, centralized workplace could do well with greater ease of access.

There’s no comparing the mobile-first and fully responsive design of Workforce Dimensions, which offers workers and their managers access to important administrative and productivity solutions across smartphones, tablets, laptops alike.

With each update, Workforce Central is becoming more mobile, including the recent elimination of outdated Flash plug-in requirements for certain feature access, but Central, now in its 8th iteration, was not designed from the beginning for fully mobile access.

Administration At-scale vs. Scalability

Do you expect your workforce to expand dramatically or stay relatively the same? Workforce Central is a reliable option for maintaining a strong, consistent and familiar administrative infrastructure.

On the other hand, Workforce Dimensions is primed for scalability, bolstered by its AI-integrated D5 platform. With increasingly advanced automation and machine learning, Dimensions is the right path for businesses looking to maximize the efficiency of their administrative processes and arm themselves with a dynamic suite of tools and further integrations to face the future.

Employee Engagement and Benefits

Speaking of integrations, the value these technologies both hold for employees should also be taken into consideration. Workforce Central’s strengths lie in familiarity and consistency of experience, perfect for businesses that need an effective solution that delivers reliably for workers at every level. Kronos is committed to providing support for this platform for years to come.

Workforce Dimensions, on the other hand, offers a robust technology partner program, delivering new integrations from third party experts that expand features beyond workforce management into employee engagement, development, wellness (health and financial), and more. These all help business leaders strengthen their company’s relationship with their employees, offering greater support in and outside of the workplace.

How to choose?

These are only a few of the many factors we take into consideration in making a recommendation. For those already using Workforce Central, migration to Dimensions has some great advantages with reliable data transfer. For those seeking a new implementation, many more questions await.

Our consultants are here to help you navigate this important decision, geared up to answer your toughest questions and to consider your biggest goals along the way. There’s only so much one blog post can introduce, so let’s dig through the details together. Have a question on your mind?

 

Last time we saw this kind of battle for talent was in the late 90s with a hot economy put on steroids by Dot Com and Y2K. Our reaction at that time was to build out world-class externally facing Talent Acquisition functions to bring the war to the marketplace. High turnover was the norm and our answer was more external recruiting.

In 2019-20, the situation and opportunity are very different. We now have the technology and access to data that allows us to assess and recruit people from all possible sources of talent both externally and internally, in real-time. In other words, as people’s skills develop and they change jobs, we are able to monitor those developments as they unfold, as opposed to viewing their skills on a resume if we get one.

Smart companies are recognizing that one of the most important competitive elements is speed. External recruiting alone is slow and transactional. It simply takes too long to open a new recruiting requirement, find a candidate, and manage the interview process from beginning to end, which can ultimately take months.

By combining external recruiting with internal recruiting, you have an engine built to perform through every stage in the recruiting process.

This combination creates a Perpetual Pipeline and it is always turned on and ready to deliver candidates. But, how do you build a talent pipeline that delivers continuous results?

The holy grail for hiring managers is to always have deep bench strength at every level in the company plus, an equally deep pipeline of external candidates. Pivotal to that is the ability to grow people from within, through precise skills and competency gap analysis, and proactive training, as opposed to constantly going outside the market to fill those gaps.

What was done in the last war for talent will not work in this one. Unlike the 90s era of hidden away, dog-eared folders of resumes; everyone has access, in some form or another, to all possible candidates to fill a position. We have the opportunity to deploy next-gen technology platforms and processes to get to those candidates quickly and effectively and to stack rank them in real-time as the candidates acquire new skills and experiences. By leveraging technology and analytics we can combine the externally focused talent acquisition and internally focused employee-development functions into unified talent acquisition, development, and management function.

Companies that embrace a Perpetual Talent Pipeline model will create a center of gravity and employment brand that people will want to work for.  This will reduce turnover, improve hiring performance, and reduce cycle time when companies need it the most.

Oh, and by the way, employees will love this.

Why does a great employee have to leave the company to get the promotion they deserve? How does that help the company?

A Perpetual Talent Pipeline model is employee engagement at its most effective. This is what employees want most – upward mobility, the opportunity to work on new and interesting projects, or to be recognized for learning new skills. If the employee knew that an internal talent manager was tracking their progress the same way the Talent Acquisition manager was prospecting in the open market, they would work hard to fill whatever knowledge or experience gaps that are required in order for them to move up. In a perfect world, they might even be able to look at the people they are being compared to.

The hiring manager could have a living, breathing pipeline of talent options, both internal and external, that are unified into one, 360-degree view of their talent. The same hiring manager would be on the pipeline themselves for their own internal mobility.

Conversely, and sorry for the tough love, bad hiring managers would be very quickly revealed. We already know that a bad boss is the #1 reason for turnover, even above the quality of the company. It is time to make managers compete for talent internally in the same fashion as they do externally. That will put the spotlight on management to create an environment that people want to work for.

It’s early, but progressive firms will be looking at this closely as they consider their 2020 HR budgets in the context of an ongoing “War for Talent” and the need for faster business cycles. The result of a well-executed Talent development and mobility strategy and supporting technology platform will include improved employee retention and satisfaction.

Satisfied employees that are growing professionally are less likely to leave the company. That enables a much-needed competitive advantage for the company in an overheated talent market.

It’s time. The technology is ready. The TA function is ready. And the company needs this to compete.

If you’re ready to gain a competitive advantage with intuitive analytics and predictive insights, PredictiveHR is here to help. Schedule a demo with us today.

Forget China

We Still Have a Major Labor Shortage.

Since my last blog on this topic, the unemployment rate has gone down and the net job openings have gone up.  This is not a tactical problem.  This is strategic.  The concept of retaining your best employees is not a new one.  But, the new wrinkle of unprecedented levels of full employment puts sellers in control.

Sports remains a decent metaphor and, I believe, a signal of what is to come when there are simply not enough great people to do great work.  We are in a free agency market.  Talent moves unencumbered from one opportunity to the next.  What used to be called “job hoppers” are now just free agent athletes seeking the best return for their talent.

Companies are projects. As long as they remain interesting to the employees, the employees will stay.  In fact, interesting is better than money.  How many times have we all stayed at a job or taken a job because it was more interesting?  Plenty. By the way, money is only a motivator before it is given.

So.  What do we do?

Many of you are doing a lot. Employment branding.  Employee Engagement.  Better Benefits.  Compensation Models.  Etc. Etc.

What we are learning is that the company has to be true to itself.  A terrific “employment brand” is ruined with one bad Glassdoor rating. Everyone understands that Glassdoor is a vehicle for post termination payback.  But, if there is enough data in the sample, then the conclusion matters. Employees want to work for a company that people want to work for.

So, the real lesson learned is that from the CEO on down, the people have to be believable and trustworthy.  The business has to make sense.  If the business makes sense, then the rest is on management.  If management is not good, and even if the business model is good, people will still leave.

Before you embark on an Employment Branding exercise, first reflect on the business itself.  Is it the kind of business that people want to do for a living?  If not, you better think about re-engineering the company.  If it actually is a business people want to work for, and they still are not knocking down your door, then look in the mirror.

Leadership skills will become much more important than ever in this new world order.   I want to work for someone I believe in.  If the idea is also good, then even better.  But, a great idea with a bad leader is doomed. A decent idea with a great leader will flourish.

Most business are decent. They solve a problem.  They can be made into a destination employment environment with some tweaks.  It starts with good data.

Good decisions come from good data so maybe we should start there.  What’s your employee data telling you?