CHELMSFORD, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 21, 2006--Appreciating the need to collaborate more closely with employees, FreshDirect has turned to Kronos(R) Incorporated (Nasdaq: KRON) to help drive retention. Kronos' human resources, scheduling, time and labor, and absence management solutions will allow the online fresh food manufacturing and delivery service to gain a competitive advantage by improving retention of its most valuable asset -- employees.
In order to deliver on its brand, FreshDirect schedules its employees to work varied shifts, mostly throughout the night. This ensures that the organization offers perfect orders with perfect quality at a cost effective price. However, it makes employee retention uniquely challenging. Kronos will allow FreshDirect to overcome this challenge by providing employees with self-service functionality as well as arming the HR department with the tools they need to effectively deploy and retain employees.
"When we realized the need to implement technology to better manage our workforce, there were certain criteria that the solution had to meet," said Anthony Onesto, director of HR at FreshDirect. "We wanted an affordable, integrated solution that allowed us to leverage our existing hardware and software and was intuitive enough for all levels of our staff to use. Kronos was the only vendor that met all of these requirements."
Increasing employee satisfaction through self-service
FreshDirect is using the Kronos 4500 Touch ID(TM) data collection terminals to provide its employees with self-service functionality. In addition to accurately capturing employees' time and labor data, these terminals give employees the ability to perform a variety of tasks such as verify the accuracy of their payroll data, view their schedule, check accrual balances, and request time off. The biometric terminals also will eliminate "buddy punching", or employees inappropriately entering time and labor data for each other.
Freeing HR to focus on strategic initiatives
Kronos will help FreshDirect eliminate manual employee-centric processes so that its HR professionals can focus on developing and executing strategic employee retention programs. In addition, the solutions will help consistently apply attendance policies across all departments, allowing FreshDirect to execute performance and compensation strategies that reward employees based on certain criteria such as perfect monthly attendance.
Scheduling employees to meet business demands
FreshDirect will use the Kronos solution to schedule its employees across all functions including butchers, seafood cutters, deli slicers, pickers and packers, and machine operators. Kronos also will empower FreshDirect with the technology necessary to cross-train employees allowing for job sharing. This will allow employees to be transferred into needed areas to meet customer demand and still accommodate varying pay rules by department.
"More and more, companies are turning to Kronos to not only automate their employee-centric processes, but also help them execute strategic initiatives in order to gain a competitive edge," said Stuart Itkin, vice president of marketing at Kronos. "FreshDirect is a great example of a small company that thinks and acts as strategically as some of the largest organizations in the world."
About FreshDirect
Founded in 1999, FreshDirect is one of the nation's leading online fresh food manufacturing and delivery services. FreshDirect is setting a new standard for fresh food production and distribution by offering unparalleled quality, product customization and value pricing from its state-of-the-art facility in Long Island City. The company is expanding rapidly and currently serves most of Manhattan and locations in Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, as well as New Jersey and Westchester. The company's vision is to change consumers' lives by providing the ultimate shopping experience for impossibly fresh food and meal solutions. The company currently has over 250,000 customers and has fulfilled close to 3 million orders since opening for business in September 2002. Additional information can be found at www.freshdirect.com.
About Kronos Incorporated
Kronos Incorporated is the most trusted name in workforce management. Kronos helps organizations staff, develop, deploy, track, and reward their workforce, resulting in reduced costs, increased productivity, better decision-making, improved employee satisfaction, and alignment with organizational objectives. More than 20 million people use a Kronos solution every day. Learn more about Kronos' high-impact enterprise solutions at www.kronos.com.
(C) 2006 Kronos Incorporated. Kronos and the Kronos logo are registered trademarks and Kronos 4500 Touch ID is a trademark of Kronos Incorporated or a related company. All other product and company names mentioned are used for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners.
CONTACT: Kronos Incorporated
Michele Glorie, 978-947-2855
mglorie[at]kronos.com