WESTON, FL, May 20, 2010 -- Ultimate Software, the leading provider of unified, end-to-end human capital management (HCM) SaaS solutions in North America, announced today that The Water Works Board of the City of Birmingham, the largest water system in Alabama, has improved HR effectiveness and enhanced its talent management using UltiPro delivered through Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).
Prior to UltiPro, The Water Works Board of the City of Birmingham (BWWB) used an application that the organization had created internally to manage HR, benefits, and payroll. However, this solution did not provide the strategic features or reporting capabilities that HR leaders wanted in order to improve HR processes, maximize productivity, and better manage talent. The utility company switched to UltiPro in June 2006 to streamline its people management practices and then moved to UltiPro's SaaS delivery in 2009. Through the convenience of SaaS, BWWB was able to take advantage of UltiPro's talent management functionality and, as a result, has:
• Minimized the use of paper for performance evaluations
• Standardized performance indicators by job across the company
• Increased HR's visibility into talent management metrics across the organization
"Before UltiPro, we handled our performance appraisals like most companies -- managers used a paper form. When HR received the forms, we recorded the overall ratings on a spreadsheet to upload into payroll for merit increases and then filed the paperwork," said Paul Lloyd, director of human resources for BWWB. "Today, like most of our HR processes with UltiPro, performance management is electronic and moves very quickly -- without the costs, manual data entry, security issues, or delays involved with paper. Automatic workflow keeps HR and managers on the same page and on schedule. Employees, managers, and HR are all benefiting."
Another advantage to both employees and managers of UltiPro's talent management features is that businesses can standardize performance evaluations based on key competencies that are valued by the company, so reviews are consistent and relevant. Competencies also can vary for specific roles, jobs, or other relevant criteria.
"UltiPro allows HR to standardize the employee assessment process by job, so feedback and ratings are more consistent throughout the organization and better connected with the strategic goals of the company," said Lloyd. "In addition, our leadership team can quickly provide feedback to team members by selecting from UltiPro's library of pre-set comments, and they have flexibility to customize these comments. Our managers have found this functionality to be very helpful."
By leveraging UltiPro, BWWB's supervisors also have around-the-clock access to workforce metrics about their teams relevant to performance, employee training, and development. With its previous legacy system, BWWB's HR team required significant assistance from IT staff for report generation. The team did not have the business intelligence tools to provide key HCM metrics to executives and managers quickly. Today -- with UltiPro -- managers, executives, and HR have visibility into critical performance management metrics, including dates, ratings, and trends.
"UltiPro gives us the ability to see analytics, such as how employees are performing throughout the company, on a particular team, or in a specific job, and we can view specific employees for in-depth details," said Lloyd. "Our goal is to manage our talent strategically with real-time data that will help us maximize productivity, operate as efficiently as possible, and make the employment experience positive at BWWB."
"For organizations like The Water Works Board of the City of Birmingham, the requirement for strategic talent management goes beyond just the need to automate or save time and resources," said Greg Swick, chief sales officer at Ultimate. "HR leaders at these companies are driven by the objective to improve overall business performance by identifying and cultivating top talent, boosting employee engagement, aligning individual goals with company goals, and optimizing the productivity of their workforces."
About Ultimate
The leading provider of unified, end-to-end human capital management (HCM) SaaS solutions in North America, Ultimate markets its award-winning UltiPro solution as an on-demand service through Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). Based in Weston, FL, the Company employs approximately 1,000 professionals who are focused on developing the highest quality products and services. In 2009, Ultimate was awarded first place in the People's Choice Stevie® competition for Favorite New SaaS Product and was ranked the #1 best medium-sized company to work for in America by the Great Place to Work® Institute for the second consecutive year. In 2008, Ultimate was the first HR/payroll SaaS provider to be audited and awarded the ISO/IEC 27001:2005 Certification for security management and was recognized for having the #1 "Best Product Development Team" in the nation by the American Business Awards. Ultimate has more than 1,900 customers representing diverse industries, including such organizations as The Container Store, Culligan International, Elizabeth Arden, Major League Baseball, The New York Yankees Baseball Team, Nikon Inc., and Ruth's Chris Steak House. More information on Ultimate's products and services can be found at www.ultimatesoftware.com.
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