CHELMSFORD, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 20, 2006--As the summer vacation season approaches, employers need to plan ahead for unscheduled absences in the workplace. Best practice organizations such as City of El Paso, Cleveland Clinic Health System, and Tower Automotive are automating the administration and tracking of employee attendance and leave benefits with solutions from Kronos(R) Incorporated (Nasdaq: KRON).
According to the 2005 CCH Unscheduled Absence Survey, published by CCH INCORPORATED, almost two out of three employees who fail to show up for work aren't physically ill. The survey found that personal illness accounts for only 35 percent of unscheduled absences, while 65 percent of absences are due to other reasons, including family issues, personal needs, entitlement mentality, and stress.
"Unscheduled absences cost employers billions of dollars in lost productivity, impact their organizations' ability to deliver superior customer service, and burden working employees, which negatively affects satisfaction and morale," said Stuart Itkin, chief marketing officer at Kronos. "Most organizations only react to unscheduled absences and lack the tools to change the game. Best practice organizations recognize the impact this has on their business and are addressing absenteeism by implementing workforce management solutions to proactively manage this problem. Such solutions empower employees by providing options and flexibility, which reduce unscheduled absences."
Engaging employees makes them part of the solution
A survey conducted by Harris Interactive(R) and commissioned by Kronos found that more than half of employed adults believe that their work performance is negatively impacted when attendance policies are not fairly enforced. The three most common responses when asked how work performance is impacted when attendance policies are not fairly enforced are: negatively impacts morale at work; makes employees less motivated to get anything accomplished; and employees only do what they have to do and nothing more at work.
Kronos solutions help organizations solve the problem of inconsistent workplace rules by applying and enforcing attendance policies fairly and accurately across an organization. Organizations also benefit with seamless integration to Kronos' time and labor, payroll, HR, and scheduling products.
Reducing the cost and burden of administering leave
In addition to unscheduled absences, there are also a variety of other absences, including paid time off, FMLA, long and short term disability, and workers compensation that are not tracked consistently throughout some organizations.
Many organizations track this myriad of leaves in disparate systems providing silos of information. As a result, it is nearly impossible to consistently manage and control leave liability and its impact on an organization's labor costs and productivity levels. In addition, organizations put themselves at risk for non-compliance.
Kronos absence management solutions automate the administration of paid and unpaid leave benefits all in one system, providing consistent application and enforcement of leave policies. The solutions minimize administrative time spent tracking and monitoring leave while meeting compliance deadlines. And more importantly, the organization has one view of all of its leaves, allowing for effective management and control of the direct costs of leave benefits, as well as the productivity impact. Employees benefit by receiving accurate pay while on leave and organizations successfully comply with mandated leave policies.
Solving the absenteeism issue
A variety of organizations, with a total of more than one million employees, will benefit from the use of Kronos absence management solutions, including Bongard's Creameries, Coaster Company of America, Tryton Foods, and WestFarm Foods.
-- Bongard's Creameries, a nationally recognized creamery, links
employee absenteeism to an incentive-based program. Bongard's
selected Kronos' absence management solution to help manage
the employee program consistently across the workforce. The
solution provides employees with real-time access to
absenteeism information which streamlines communication
between managers and the HR department. -- Coaster Company of America, one of the leading national
furniture distributors in the U.S., turned to Kronos to help
manage its perfect attendance policy. The Kronos solution
triggers consistent reward or disciplinary action across the
workforce, which ensures the new policy is applied
consistently and accurately throughout the organization.
Employees are engaged in the process with online access to
attendance status and the ability to schedule time off, which
improves productivity and reduces unscheduled absences.
-- Tryton Foods, home of the Aunt Bessie's product range and one
of the UK's leading food manufacturers, wanted a system that
could automate complex attendance policies and ensure that
reward or disciplinary policies are applied fairly. The
organization turned to Kronos to automate the administration
and tracking of maternity, paternity, and parental leave
policies to help achieve compliance with government
legislation. Since implementing the Kronos solutions, the
organization has reduced employee absences by 27 percent. -- WestFarm Foods, one of the largest dairy producers in the
nation, implemented the Kronos solutions to reduce the time
supervisors spent managing employee absenteeism. The
organization wanted a solution that would not only automate
the process but create an efficient system that produced
accurate, timely, and consistent information, allowing the
managers to have better visibility and control of absenteeism.
With the Kronos solutions, supervisors now have more time to
spend on strategic business issues.
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 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