Keene State College hourly employees will now be able to punch in and out of their jobs on campus.
The University System of New Hampshire (USNH) recently began a partnership with Kronos Workforce Dimensions which provides campus employees with a new timekeeping system to keep track of hours worked. Keene State Accounting and Banking Coordinator Liane Wiley said that Kronos is more accurate at keeping track of employees’ hours.
“Kronos enables accurate capture of time,” Wiley said. “It gives a better idea of when people are scheduled to work. There’s lots of data collection on Kronos.”
Wiley added that Kronos is better at reporting data than the past timekeeping system used, Web Time Entry. According to Keene State’s Director of Human Resources Karen Crawford, When employees used Web Time Entry they had to manually track and record the amount of time they worked.
“We want to make sure that employees are paid for what they worked and they are paid overtime if they worked overtime,” Crawford said.
Under the new timekeeping system, employees can simply punch in when they begin their shift and punch out when they leave without having to keep track of how long they worked. “It’s more manageable than before,” Crawford said. “Once people start using it, it is pretty intuitive and easy to use.”
According to Crawford, the Kronos Workforce Dimensions timekeeping system has been adopted in phases across the USNH with a select number of organizations learning to use it at a time. Kronos was first introduced on August 8 and then was incorporated by more organizations on September 18. All organizations across the USNH are expected to begin using Kronos by October 17.
Crawford said that employees have had some difficulty getting used to having to punch in and out, however employees just need to be patient in getting used to it.
“It takes a while for people to transition and we knew that would happen,” Crawford said. “We understand there will be some hiccups and struggles, but it’s more convenient once employees get used to it.”
Wiley added that those who have gotten used to Kronos seem to like the new system.
“It’s different for them. It will take some time to learn, but It’s a better tool for everyone in the long run,” Wiley said.
Employees who forget to punch in or out of their shift are able to manually enter their work hours and get approved by their supervisor. “We want employees to understand that no one will be penalized for forgetting to punch out,” Crawford said.
Wiley added that employees can access Kronos from various time clocks across campus, or from their smartphones. On their smartphones, employees can punch in just by tapping a button.
Because Kronos will be used across all campuses in the USNH, Crawford said it will bring consistency to how the university system keeps track of employee hours.
“People just need to give it time,” Crawford said. “It’s totally different and we know it will be a process to get used to it, but there is plenty of support from Payroll and HR.”
Hunter Oberst can be contacted at:
news@kscequinox.com
