Towncare Dental Partnership Sees a Substantial ROI in Five Months from Kronos® Solution
Towncare Dental Partnership, Inc. is a dental practice management firm based in Miami, Florida. The company operates a network of collaborative dental offices that provide general dentistry and specialized care in more than 30 locations. Towncare Dental experienced significant growth in a period of three years, expanding from 250 employees to over 400, and now has a patient base of over 300,000.
The combination of dramatic growth and multiple office locations presented several challenges. Towncare Dental found its human resources department burdened with tremendous amounts of paperwork and data entry. Important employee information was tracked on paper forms, and creating vital reports was difficult and often impossible. The company also outsourced their payroll functions, which was proving to be costly and time-consuming.
Towncare Dental recognized the need for a comprehensive workforce management system — and Kronos' powerful Workforce Central® suite proved to be the answer. In fact, after implementing Workforce Central, Towncare Dental and an independent research firm calculated that the system paid for itself in five months. Basil Paquet, Towncare Dental's human resources director, confirms the system's impact: "Our ROI study demonstrates a remarkable 249% return on our HRMS investment."
Lack of integration and automation presents major problems
Towncare Dental was already a satisfied Kronos customer, as they used Workforce Timekeeper™ — an integral component of the Workforce Central suite — to track their employees' time and attendance. Automating the error-prone, manual processes related to tracking employees' time proved to be highly beneficial for Towncare Dental. With access to real-time labor data, managers are able to make better scheduling decisions and control costly overtime. They also are able to easily collect accurate information about employees' actual versus scheduled hours, and generate useful productivity reports.
With Workforce Timekeeper producing great results, Towncare Dental turned their attention to the important task of integrating and automating their paper-based HR systems, and bringing their payroll in-house.
"We outsourced our payroll functions, which was putting a $60,000 financial burden on the company each year," says Shauna Pierce, HR manager and Kronos project manager. "And even though we were outsourcing the actual payroll process, Towncare Dental employees spent way too much time dealing with payroll-related paperwork."
Worse, Towncare Dental's human resources department was buried in paperwork. "Managing the paperwork related to benefits was difficult enough when we were a company of 200 people. With over 400 employees, we had reached a state of crisis with the amount of administrative tasks our human resources staff was dealing with," Pierce recalls. "Our HR professionals had been reduced to paper chasers."
Towncare Dental's paper-based system led to other headaches. The company had almost no reporting capabilities to answer human resources-related questions. There was no easy way to figure out what employees signed up for which benefits, or what kind of turnover the company was experiencing. Paquet remembers, "If I needed this kind of information, it could take a week and a half for my staff to pull a report together."
Towncare Dental knew a major change was needed. "We knew we needed an integrated system that would automate all the paperwork our human resources staff was laboring through. Plus we wanted to bring our payroll functions in-house," Paquet states. "But the system also had to work seamlessly with our existing time and attendance system. And the new system needed to be able to grow with us."
A clear choice
Towncare Dental evaluated products from a total of five companies, and was quickly convinced that Kronos' Workforce Payroll™ and Workforce HR™, also components of the Workforce Central suite, were the answer. "The powerful integration of HR, payroll, and time and labor systems impressed us," explains Paquet. "We knew what to expect because we had already had a great experience with Kronos' products and customer service. Kronos' stability as a company was also a factor in our decision."
So Towncare Dental wasn't surprised when Kronos' professional services team had their new human resources database accessible in just three months. Soon after, Towncare Dental was running their first in-house payroll. "I give Kronos' professional services group an A plus," says Pierce. "The educational services team was also excellent — our team was trained and self-sufficient by our payroll go-live date."
Integrated solution provides superior results
With their integrated systems up and running, Towncare Dental has been reaping the benefits of their workforce management system.
"We have expanded our human resource department's capabilities by 50 percent," says Paquet. "We now provide many more services, including centralized recruiting, background checking, drug testing, performance management, organizational development, and training programs. And we have definitely improved our employee retention rate. Human resources is now able to think and act more strategically, and act as a full partner with our management team."
Another area of improvement is Towncare Dental's management reporting capabilities. With their Kronos solution, the human resources department is able to generate needed reports in a timely manner. "In the old days, in order to see what benefits employees were enrolled in, the human resources staff had to comb through the bills each vendor sent to us and find the employee's name on the bill," says Paquet. Open enrollment was obviously a complicated problem. Now this information is at Towncare Dental managers' fingertips, and can be quickly printed out in an easy to read report.
Paquet is also impressed with the company's newfound ability to handle compliance concerns and risk management. "We can now create reports to see whose licenses, CPR certifications, malpractice insurance, and hygiene certifications are about to expire. This gives us peace of mind knowing that a potential liability is now avoidable."
Other benefits
Paquet says that another excellent benefit of the Workforce Central suite is its robust payroll program. "We have eliminated payroll service charges, and haven't had a payroll error in five months. Our payroll administrator completes all payroll tasks in one day instead of five. The increased productivity is fantastic."
Towncare Dental's employees also appreciate the benefits they are seeing from the implementation of Workforce Central. "They are happy that their human resources questions that used to take days to answer are now answered immediately. Employees have more confidence in our human resources department now that they see speedy and accurate service," comments Paquet.
Next steps with Kronos
Towncare Dental plans to expand upon its use of the Workforce Central suite even further. "We are excited to roll out employee and manager self-service this year," says Paquet. "We know our employees will enjoy being able to manage their personal data, request time off, and explore the benefits available to them through one online system."
As Paquet thinks back to the not-so-distant past, he can't believe Towncare Dental was able to function without a system that integrated their HR, payroll, and time and labor. "We feel so much more in control of our business," he comments. "We couldn't be happier with the way the system enables us to take care of all our workforce management needs."
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