A Payback Measured in Months
When they first put a time and attendance system in a Dominick's supermarket the charge from the corporation was to have the system in- stalled in all Dominick's stores within two years. After the system was in operation for three months, the project manager received a call from the chain's vice chairman. "I was ordered to have the system in all 89 stores within a year," says the manager of special projects for the data processing department at Dominick's Finer Foods, Northlake, IL. The reason for the speed up was the success of the first system.
Dominick's chose time and attendance as the first computerized application to be completed chainwide. With more than 15,000 employees belonging to several unions, the calculation of payroll was a long and drawn-out process. And the miscalculation was costly.
"The multiple number of unions, each with complex rules for salary structure, make our payroll extremely complicated:" "Somebody at store level spends 10 to 15 hours each week adding up the hours that everybody worked and preparing the time sheets to send to headquarters:" "We are in business to run supermarkets, not to see how many people we can have in the data processing department:" Even with the new system, only six people work in the department.
Dominick's time and attendance system works off of data collection terminals tied into personal computers at store level. All hours and minutes that employees work are automatically recorded by the time collection terminals, and are fed into the computer where the information can be accessed for budgeting and scheduling.
While 30 minutes here and two hours there does not seem like a lot, the dollars quickly add up when multiplied by 89 stores and 15,000 employees. To save these tens of thousands of dollars, Dominick's began a search for a time and attendance system suited to its specialized needs. "We needed a software package that could handle the complexities of a supermarket's payroll and that could be operated off a personal computer." He examined six software systems before selecting a package marketed by:
Employees clock in at the time recorder nearest the place where they work, simply by passing their card through the reader. For instance, a meatcutter cannot clock in by the manager's office, saunter back to the prep room, put on his apron and start working 10 minutes later. Dominick's believes that the savings that result from having multiple time recorders are greater than the cost of the clocks.
some employees were suspicious at first, and after the system had been installed in about 30 stores, the union also began to voice concern over it. But this concern was quickly transformed into confidence as employees saw that the timekeeping procedure was more accurate.
"We invited all of the union stewards to our training center, sat them if front of a timekeeper, and walked them through a one-hour demonstration:' "We showed them all of the information available through the system. By the end of the demonstration, they knew that the system helped implement the union rules. They were true believers:"
"Some women cannot work past 3 p.m. because they must be home when their kids get back from school. And maybe a carryout boy will not work on Friday night because he always attend football or basketball games. Those are the types of things that are almost impossible for a store manager to remember, no matter how well he knows his employees.
"When a manager schedules somebody for hours he cannot work, the employee and the manager must meet to discuss the schedule. And that wastes everybody's time:"
"The system will sort seven different ways against the available people, to write a schedule that takes into account variables that are difficult for a manager to consider. One of the factors in the system is the productivity of the individual employee. This would allow the store to schedule more hours for its best workers.
This next generation time and attendance package will mean even more savings for the supermarket. And more time for the chain manager to spend away from the tedium of writing a schedule.
Labor Resource Management, Inc, 800 Roosevelt Road, Suite B-320, Glen Ellyn, IL 60137. Tel: 630-469-9301; Fax: 630-469-9312.