News Facts

• The healthcare industry is currently facing many challenges including a growing demand to provide services that deliver best-possible outcomes for the money spent as the Affordable Care Act compliance pressure is applied. The need for accessible, accurate information to deliver high- quality patient care while staying on budget is greater than ever. Addressing these issues, Workforce Tablet Analytics – an application built around the interactive capabilities of an iPad -makes it easy to reveal root causes and trends by transforming volumes of transactions into actionable information.
• Workforce Tablet Analytics provides managers and executives the metrics, alerts, and guidance needed to effectively align labor hours against budget and through real-time, configurable dashboards, graphical KPI displays, and drill-down reports. By offering visibility into specific pay or time periods and identifying trends, the application enables managers to take corrective actions easily through a single view from any unit, floor, or building.
• In addition to the tablet application, Kronos has made significant enhancements to the Workforce Analytics application itself. When combined with the Kronos for Healthcare suite, the analytics solution provides visibility and support that enables on-demand, evidence-based decision making. Enhancements include new features that improve the workflow for variance response approval including the ability to set up additional thresholds. If variances occur, the variance improvement planning tool can help managers pinpoint the reason for the variance and take action to remedy the situation, holding managers accountable for continuous improvement.
• Through the enhancements to Workforce Analytics, Kronos is continuing to help healthcare organizations stay within budget and on track with productivity targets by identifying cost-incurring exceptions before pay periods end. Advanced analytics will further help healthcare organizations control labor costs, minimize compliance risk, and improve productivity.

Supporting Quotes

• Lisa Rowan, research vice president, HR, talent and learning strategies, IDC
  “The new enhancements to Workforce Analytics are powerful and are likely to revolutionize the way quality care is delivered. The tablet application, in particular, will help healthcare leadership measure productivity levels and make necessary, intelligent changes on the fly as the application successfully merges rich functionality with ease of use.”
• Susan M. Reese, MBA, RN, CPHIMS, director, healthcare practice group, Kronos
  “The need to focus on patient outcomes while managing cost is essential. One of the costliest risks healthcare organizations can take is mismatching labor to demand. They need real-time visibility to make evidence-based decisions as they try to balance labor costs without sacrificing quality of care. By leveraging the convenience and capabilities of a workforce management mobile application with the processing power, large-screen real estate, and usability of a tablet, healthcare leaders can now achieve optimal staffing levels matched to patient requirements.”

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News Facts

• Results from Omega Management Group Corp. show that 99 percent of organizations responded positively when asked if Kronos understands their problem. Additionally, 90 percent of respondents said that Kronos is a leader in workforce management and that they are satisfied with product innovation as well as features and functionality.
• Kronos has received the Omega NorthFace ScoreBoard Award every year since the program’s inception in 2000, and is one of only two organizations to do so.

Supporting Quotes

• Chris Todd, senior vice president of services, Kronos
  “Kronos is honored to receive the Omega award for the thirteenth consecutive year. Our promise is to  provide customers with the experience they expect, including supporting them with exceptional service. Receiving this award based on customer feedback is a testament to the effort we put forth to continually deliver on that promise.”
• John Alexander Maraganis, president and CEO, Omega Management Group
  “The NorthFace ScoreBoard Award recognizes organizations who not only offer exemplary customer service, but who also have a deep commitment to exceeding customer expectations. The fact that Kronos is a repeat recipient of this award shows that a strong strategy for managing the customer experience is a fundamental way to achieve success.”

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News Facts

• The “Nurse Staffing Strategy” survey showed that current scheduling processes in hospitals are largely manual — which can result in inefficient scheduling processes, a lack of visibility into the larger staff scheduling picture, little or no alerts to compliance with staffing policies or regulatory requirements — leading to extremely high levels of fatigue and absenteeism that can be disruptive to operations.
  • The majority of survey respondents either considered current staffing levels as inadequate (39 percent) or unsatisfactory (38 percent). Thirty-four percent said they use manual processes such as whiteboard and paper and more than 20 percent use basic programs such as online calendars and Excel to schedule. Only 28 percent stated that they have the ability to self schedule.
  • Fifty-seven percent noted that they had witnessed inequitably distributed workloads in the last 12 months and 54 percent had personally experienced an excessive workload. Seventy-eight percent of respondents said they currently use 12-hour shifts within their organization.
  • Ninety-six percent reported having felt tired at the start of their shift and more than 92 percent while driving home after working their shift, both of which may negatively impact patient care and employee safety.
• Sixty-three percent of respondents agreed that nurse vacancies impact scheduling and staffing overtime more often than anticipated during a payroll cycle. Despite the fact that 79 percent said that they monitor key performance metrics for overtime, absenteeism, rest periods taken, and deviations between scheduled and actual hours worked, it is often after the payroll cycle and therefore not preventable.
• Also, according to the survey, the majority of organizations have policies to regulate shift length, overtime, and on-call shifts. But more than 56 percent neglect policies requiring rest periods and nearly 65 percent have no policy on cumulative days of extended shifts.
• Without a centralized, automated scheduling system, it is nearly impossible to proactively handle staffing vacancies in an optimized, cost-effective manner. Kronos offers the market’s most advanced, clinically focused workforce management suite that helps align labor with anticipated demand while consistently adhering to all organizational and regulatory scheduling policies. Supporting the premise that there is no such thing as a static schedule, Kronos offers paperless workflow, mobile applications, and self service to more effectively manage the modern workforce.

Supporting Quotes

• Susan M. Reese, MBA, RN, CPHIMS, director, healthcare practice group, Kronos
  “With heightened scrutiny around the environment of care and need for safety, staffing is one of the most critical operational functions that nursing leadership must address. Nurse fatigue, patient safety, and revenue streams are inextricably linked. A centralized, automated workforce management solution that takes into account organizational policies, metrics, and nurse manager insights to create equitable workload distribution and intelligent schedules is a necessity today. This will enable healthcare organizations to further control labor costs, minimize compliance risk, and improve productivity.”

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News Facts

• “Scheduling Integration: How Will You Leverage Existing Technology” surveyed public safety professionals employed in supervisory positions such as chief, lieutenant, captain, and sergeant, as well as in roles of officer, EMT, firefighter, and corrections deputy. Agencies included were fire, EMS, police, corrections, and state and federal organizations. The survey explored the types of workforce management technology currently used in public safety and their role in operations as well as perceptions among public safety professionals about how such systems should integrate with other technology.
• More than 50 percent of respondents noted that they did not have any scheduling and resource management automation. Specifically, 38 percent said they use a manual spreadsheet such as Excel™ to create schedules and 14 percent stated that their employer still relies on pencil and paper.
• The survey also found lack of integration between scheduling or workforce management solutions and other key technologies as an overarching problem. And more than 60 percent of respondents agreed that better integration will save data entry time and reduce errors.
  • Public safety agencies rely on CAD systems for dispatching service calls and 65 percent of respondents noted that their agencies do not leverage integration between their scheduling and CAD systems. And 60 percent of respondents agreed that pre-loading roster and personnel information into the CAD system will save data entry time and reduce errors.
  • Nearly 60 percent of respondents indicated that their agencies do not have integration between their scheduling and RMS used for incident tracking, personnel records, training, and inventory. And 65 percent of respondents agreed that pre-loading roster data such as name, ID#, and unit will save data entry time and reduce errors.
  • 60 percent of respondents also reported that their agencies do not integrate scheduling and payroll systems. And more than 60 percent agreed that automatically importing payroll data from a scheduling system will reduce errors and eliminate data entry.
• Kronos TeleStaff^™, the public safety industry’s leading scheduling and notification solution, centralizes scheduling, roster, personnel, and payroll data. TeleStaff delivers an out-of-the-box set of parameters already defined and ready for export to CAD, RMS, payroll, and time and attendance systems to help agencies share data across the enterprise, eliminate redundant work processes, and reduce errors.

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A 2002 study found that 94 percent of the bills tested were contaminated with bacteria. Most of those bacteria are harmless, but 7 percent of the bills carried dangerous pathogens like Staphylococcus aureus and E. coli. Money can be a rather hospitable environment for these pathogens, too: on most surfaces viruses and bacteria live for around 48 hours, but the flu virus can survive on paper money for up to 17 days. Concern about the cleanliness of money is so high in Japan that ATMS that can sanitize yen were introduced in the 1990s.

The Federal Reserve regularly tests money and removes from circulation those bills with a high “soil content,” so the average life span of a dollar bill is 5.9 years. That may seem fairly short, but it’s still a long time for a bill to be accumulating dirt, grime, and worse. And older bills are also more susceptible since their increased numbers of creases and folds harbor more bacteria.

While there’s no need for an individual person to worry too much about the contents of their wallet, the unsanitary nature of cash is a valid concern for companies and organizations, especially those where cleanliness is important. The food service industry has always tried to ensure that workers don’t handle food after handling money, but guaranteeing that every employee follows company policies at all times is next to impossible. Some restaurants are starting to eliminate cash altogether, streamlining their payment processes while also eliminating any concern about “dirty money.”

The biggest concern is for organizations where cleanliness is an absolute necessity, such as laboratories, hospitals and other healthcare organizations, and pharmaceutical companies. In these locations, introducing something like Staphylococcus aureus by handling cash would be a disaster. For pharmaceutical companies, cash can even cause problems during FDA or similar inspections; if cash is accepted at a company cafeteria or other locations the company must be immaculately careful with handling procedures. Failure to handle cash properly could result in violations during an inspection.

Since accepting cash can present such a big risk for healthcare and pharmaceutical companies, offering cashless payment options is of vital importance, and going entirely cashless is an appealing option which is often seen as the safest course of action.

Source: MasterCard.com

MasterPass pushes the idea a little further in hopes of creating a more universal service – one that can be used with multiple payment types and in various locations. Customers can connect various forms of payment to their MasterPass account, including all of their credit and debit cards as well as mobile wallets created by individual banks and merchants. Once this digital wallet is loaded up with all of these payment options, it can be used to make purchases online or at physical stores.

The MasterPass system also offers the benefits that come with any digital payment service. The increased speed and convenience of cashless transactions is the big advantage, but consumers also benefit from the potential for loyalty programs and discounts, while merchants gain the advantage of collecting better data about who’s buying what, and when and where they’re buying it.

One scenario that MasterCard envisions involves customers using their phones to purchase items right from the rack at a store – the store would then ship the item to the customer. Customers would get the advantages of being able to see the item in person (and in the case of clothing, even try it on) but still avoid waiting in line at the store or having to carry their purchases for the rest of the day. While it remains to be seen if consumers will think MasterPass really provides something different from the other competitors in the digital wallet arena, scenarios like this do provide some interesting implications.

News Facts

• Kronos’ 2013 Sick at Work survey showed that a majority of hourly employees – 53 percent – are not paid when they are out sick.
• Thirty-three percent of hourly employees said their employer discourages them from coming into work when they are sick, while 17 percent said their boss expected them to drag themselves into work no matter how sick they are.
• When faced with the decision of whether to stay home or go to work when they are sick, the top three factors that hourly employees considered were:
  • “I don’t want to pass my sickness onto my co-workers” (54 percent);
  • “My health comes first – I stay home when I am sick” (49 percent); and
  • “If I don’t report to work, I don’t get paid” (39 percent).
• Thirty-eight percent of hourly workers said they feel grateful to co-workers who stay home when they are sick, 33 percent say it has no impact on them, and 21 percent say they are stressed because it means they have more to do.
• When a manager is faced with hourly employees calling in sick, the next step is often to find a replacement worker. In terms of how this communication occurs, 70 percent of hourly workers are contacted by phone, 19 percent by text message, 13 percent by email, and just two percent via social media such as Facebook or Twitter.
• Calling employees to find a replacement is a time-consuming and inefficient way of solving the problem. By automating workforce management processes with Kronos, organizations can take advantage of mobile solutions that enable an employer to send text messages to multiple employees at one time about an open shift – anywhere, anytime, and all with the click of a button. Organizations can configure the solution to take into consideration issues around union rules, overtime, and skill/certification constraints.

Supporting Quotes

• Joyce Maroney, director of The Workforce Institute, Kronos
  “For hourly employees for whom presence is required, calling out sick more often times than not means they won’t be getting paid. Our survey shows that this is one of the top three considerations of hourly employees when considering whether or not to go to work sick. Particularly during a harsh flu season like the one we are in, employers should encourage sick employees to stay home when they are sick. An automated workforce management solution with mobile capabilities can help ease the burden on employers by making it easier and faster to find replacement workers.”

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News Facts

• Enhancements to Workforce Ready include:
  • Improved employee self-service features that enable employees to view schedules, review punches, make and display time-off requests, and display pay statements all on the revolutionary Kronos InTouch™ time clock.
  • Enhanced mobile capabilities including more flexible geo-fencing capabilities that enable organizations to be more precise about the location where employees punch in and out from a mobile device, and the ability to review and approve timecards from a mobile device.
  • New overtime pay calculation settings that provide more detailed information and allow for better planning.
  • Additional pay rules including expanded holiday hours and guaranteed hours per week.
  • Support for French language (joins support for Spanish and English).
• Capitalizing on its hosted multi-tenant architecture, Workforce Ready uses a simple SaaS-based pricing approach. Applications are available on a per-employee, per-month basis, accompanied by fixed-price implementation services.

Supporting Quotes

• Mark Ellis, general manager, small business, Kronos
  “The latest updates to Workforce Ready are designed to help small and midsize businesses more effectively manage their workforces. Enhanced employee self-service, more mobile capabilities, and the ability to use out-of-the-box functionality for more specialized needs are highlights of this release. These Workforce Ready enhancements will give organizations an even greater competitive advantage. We are thrilled to see there is such an appetite in the market for our solution and expect that sales will continue to rise.”

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News Facts

• Mobile applications – New webTA mobile applications improve productivity by making it easier for managers and employees to complete a wide range of workforce-related tasks using a variety of mobile phones and tablet devices. The apps give employees and managers flexibility in how they interact with each other and provide an anytime, anyplace, instant connection to webTA.
  • Employees may track their work in real time, leading to the automatic creation of timely and accurate timesheets. Employees can request time off, and, if appropriate, perform time in/time out (TITO) entries.
  • Managers may use their mobile or tablet devices to monitor resource data, resolve exceptions, and respond quickly to employee requests, such as approving timesheets and granting time-off requests.
  • Kronos mobile applications for webTA are available for Apple iPhone and Blackberry, as well as for the Apple iPad tablet. For information and downloads, customers may visit https://kronosfederal.com.
• Enhanced data capture – With escalating budget pressures and a demand for higher degrees of transparency, federal government leaders are requiring not only more granular levels of data capture across accounts and projects, but across activities and cases (projects associated with funding) as well. The webTA solution now includes products that enhanced data capture and reporting for activities and cases by allowing:
  • Automatic capture of data at the account code, activity, and task levels in a single timesheet;
  • Tabbed summary of labor and case hours fed directly from timesheets; and
  • Case tracking assignment at the employee or organizational levels. In addition, the Case Coordinator role, newly defined in webTA, provides for a more effective management of the case tracking process.
• More than one million employees within 70 U.S. federal government agencies use a Kronos workforce management solution.

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The settlement is the result of a massive anti-trust case brought by retailers against financial firms such as Visa and MasterCard. The card issuers were accused of unlawfully fixing “swipe fees” – the fees the merchants are charged every time a customer pays using a credit card. Merchants had hoped to see lower swipe fees, but the settlement only requires an eight-month reduction in those fees.

The settlement also allows retailers to pass those fees on to customers by adding a credit card surcharge if they choose. But since charging customers more for using their credit cards would be bad for business, most merchants aren’t happy with that alternative – leaving them stuck with the high swipe fees. Many retailers won’t even have the option, since those surcharges are illegal in 10 states – California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Oklahoma, and Texas.

This new agreement most likely spells bad news for both merchants and customers, which means now is the perfect time to evaluate other options. For retailers, this means looking at alternative forms of cashless payment with no transaction fees, such as Quickcharge.