Understanding UKG: The Time Collection Module
By Cheryl Morris
Senior Consultant
Vertilocity
The UKG platform is a human capital management system that allows user organizations to manage, in essence, the entire employee lifecycle. Our clients, mostly healthcare systems, use the platform to simplify the payroll process, from time collection and tracking to payments.
The system is integrated, comprehensive, and incredibly flexible. It allows employees to clock in from wherever they are working. The system tracks their hours, does payroll, and retains data on pay, taxes, and their benefits. And all with incredible accuracy and security.
The system contains four modules: Time, Payroll, HR, and Scheduler. Clients can implement each module individually or as a complete suite. I’ll use this blog to focus on Time, the time collection module, how it streamlines the process and allows for tremendous flexibility.
Different classes and types of employees access time in different ways. For example, a nurse in the field can be in several different locations in a single day, needing to assign time to each, as opposed to an in-house staff member working from their desk and clocking in at the beginning and out at the end of their shift. For individuals whose shifts include overnight hours, the system can allocate the time accurately to each day. For workers clocking in from home, the client might dictate that for security reasons they gain access to the system only by an access profile tied to an IP address. The system can even accept manual entries through access directly to the timesheet.
Clients using paper time sheets and Microsoft Excel spreadsheets have historically had trouble accurately paying for overtime by hand calculating average weighted overtime, the blended regular and overtime hours. Converting to UKG has allowed those clients to pay their employees accurately, as the system calculates weighted and blended overtime.
Healthcare systems typically allocate hours worked from time to time to grants. The allocation of the time provided by the entry system allows the combination use of labor distribution, work-day breakdown, default cost centers, and a secure limit list of cost centers. UKG Ready does not limit any one company to any one way to allocate or collect time.
The system can also collect time based on the location of time clock, or a mobile device being used. It charges the time to the location where the employee is clocking in, a kind of geomapping that allows the system to require the employee to be at their assigned location or “X” distance to be able to clock in.
The mobile app is completely functional. That allows a travelling nurse, for example, who isn’t tied to a particular cost center to create their own labor distribution based on where they clock in. They can clock in, but are not limited to clocking. They can also request time off, see their accrual balances and pay stubs, see their W-2, see their benefit plans, update their direct deposit, change their bank account, update and change their W-4.
Benefits of the time and attendance solution include:
Automate time and attendance
Collect and approve time
Respond to time off requests
View calendar coverage before approving time off
View and gain greater visibility in information and time
Proactive approach for better quality decisions based on business needs
Increased productivity
Streamlined time collection
Robust time reports
DOL compliance
Risk minimization by using timesheet rules
Automated and accurate overtime (OT) weighted calculation
Notifications as employees approach OT
Easy access to clock in mobile, desktop, or timeclock
The wage and employment-related uses of UKG for in-house, remote, and mobile employees are virtually unlimited. Through its broad functionality, it saves time while increasing accuracy and responsibility, a long list of benefits for employers and their employees.