info:HR Software Installed for Ten Years at County of Perth, Ontario
March 15, 2019
County of Perth fully utilizing and growing with software from HR Systems Strategies Inc.
The County of Perth is located in beautiful Southwestern Ontario and comprises four member municipalities including the Municipality of North Perth, the Municipality of West Perth, the Township of Perth East, and the Township of Perth South.
Perth County employs over 165 municipal employees and 100 paramedics and was a pioneer within the municipal marketplace towards implementing systems to automating standard HR processes. The decision was made to bring in the team from HR Systems Strategies (HRSS) and info:HR 10 years ago and they’ve never looked back.
Tricia Wilhelm has been in her position as HR Assistant for over 9 years and the main user of info:HR. With a two-person team managing human resources and payroll for the 165 municipal employees, HR relies heavily on their HRIS to help with their day-to-day tasks.
Tricia commented on their use of the base info:HR Engine, “We use several modules to maintain employee information, work history/compensation, attendance/entitlements, education/skills, health & safety and for generating various reports. I would say my favorite functionality in the system is that it allows me to capture all sorts of information on reports so that I can quickly and easily generate reports to assist me with my work as well as provide to others in my workplace upon request. I also like the fact that if there is a unique report that we require that, for a reasonable fee, we can have a customization made to the system to make it happen. In fact, we are just in the process of working with Jerry Rowland to have a Salary Grid report generated from info:HR customized to our specifications, to eliminate the need for Finance to maintain one.”
Jerry, HRSS Chief Technology Officer, commented, “Perth County has been a wonderful client to work with and watch them grow with interfaces to SAGE Accpac payroll, JBS Time Manager, and then implement the Employee Self Service (ESS) Module.”
Tricia said, “We are set up so a bi-weekly export is done at the end of every pay period for Finance to import into their SAGE Accpac payroll system. This allows information relating to any staff changes that affect payroll to flow over to Finance, which has reduced the need for double entry for such changes as merit increases, etc.”
“And we employ over 100 paramedic staff who use JBS Time Manager as their scheduling tool. In order for absence information (vacation, sick time, etc.) to be tracked in infoHR, our Paramedic Services department sends us an export of all absence codes every pay period which we, in turn, import into infoHR. This is a very easy way for the absence codes from JBS Time Manager to be transferred to our system, hence saving me a ton of time in having to manually enter absences every pay.”
Tricia also mentioned that the majority of their staff have access to ESS in order to view some of their employment information that they would normally be requesting from HR. She said, “This is a real benefit for them as they can easily access this information anytime by simply logging onto the site instead of having to call me. I have found that once trained, staff catch on very easily to utilizing this system and it has worked extremely well for them to update their demographics and to make vacation and time requests/approvals.”
The future looks bright for streamlining HR processes as Perth County identified a gap in their timesheet process. Tricia said, “the staff that are currently submitting vacation and time requests into ESS are also completing Excel timesheets at the end of every pay period. They inquired to see if we could assist them in this area, so HRSS provided a demonstration of the electronic Timesheet Module. This would eliminate double entry as the electronic timesheet populates with any approved ESS requests. This module is currently under consideration for implementation. Also, I’m aware that there is a new release of ESS coming out that will have a little different look, with added features while still maintaining its user-friendly style. We are very excited about it.”
“We have dealt with HR Systems Strategies since we first purchased info:HR back in 2009, and we’ve had nothing but the best service and timely support from all of their staff. I would highly recommend using HRSS as a supplier, not only for their product but for the quality customer service that they continuously provide.”
Perth County (population 40,000) is a rich agricultural community, diverse in its heritage and culture. It’s located in the centre of Southwestern Ontario, 100 kilometres (62 mi) west of Toronto. It is comprised of thriving communities that are fit for your business and life. Its population centres are Listowel, Mitchell and Milverton. The City of Stratford and the Town of St. Marys are within the Perth census division, but are separate from Perth County. Learn more about Perth County at https://www.perthcounty.ca
HR Systems Strategies Inc. (HRSS) develops, implements, and maintains info:HR, a robust, adaptable Human Resources Information System (HRIS) built for today’s human capital resource management challenges. info:HR interfaces with existing payroll and time and attendance systems, and offers employee and manager self-serve and online timesheet entry capabilities. Small- and medium-sized businesses, not-for-profit associations, municipal governments, healthcare organizations, and others across Canada are reducing the cost and effort of HR administration with info:HR. www.infohr.com
For more information, please contact Bill Kennedy at 416-599-4747 or billk@infohr.net.