Wakefield District Housing

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Cascade HR helps to streamline WDH’s HR & Payroll processes and procedures by introducing Cascade’s .NET HR and HMRC accredited Payroll solution.

Cascade HR helps to streamline WDH’s HR & Payroll processes and procedures by introducing Cascade’s .NET HR and HMRC Standard Payroll solution.

WDH Overview

Wakefield and District Housing (WDH) became the largest single housing stock transfer organisation in 2005, taking responsibility for over 31,000 homes in the Wakefield District.

Business Challenge

Manage an effective ‘in-house’ payroll service for our employees. Empower HR to support our employees and spend less time on repetitive and monotonous administration.

Solution

Fully integrated HR & Payroll software solution from one supplier with the ability to streamline HR processes and procedures.

Results

An accurate and efficient payroll service. The ability to tackle real HR issues, rather than wading through tons of paperwork and waiting for inefficient processes to kick in. Enabling employees to manage their own HR processes through intelligent ‘self service’ functionality.

Interest Areas

• Core HR
• Payroll
• Learning & Development
• Workflow
• System Designer
• Self Service
• Recruitment
• Timesheets
• AD Single Sign On

Key Services

• Project Management
• User Training
• System Consultancy
• Implementation Services
• Workflow Consultancy
• Ongoing support and product development

Core Technologies

• Microsoft SQL Platform
• Microsoft .NET

Louise Muirhead, led the project to implement Cascade’s .NET HR and HMRC accredited Payroll Solution.

Business Need
Louise comments, “Fundamentally the service level agreement with the local authority was due to expire on the 31st March 2009, following which WDH would have no payroll service.

There was also a business driver to procure a system which would enable WDH to have a central data source for all employee data, with the ability to query complex statistics and reports.

Key objectives of the project were to deliver efficiencies, have a direct relationship with a single supplier to provide a fully integrated HR and Payroll solution which was web-enabled and accessible anywhere at anytime.”

Selecting the preferred supplier

Louise comments, “A full OGC tender was conducted using a comprehensive specification of requirements. This was developed directly from key stakeholders needs, given the capabilities of the legacy system and desirable functionality. Cascade was selected as the preferred supplier following successful completion of the tender and an in-depth presentation whereby stakeholders were given demonstrations of the various functions within the software.”

Why Cascade?
Louise comments, “The fundamental elements which Cascade were able to offer included:

• System configuration—specifically bespoke screen design and module setup.
• Full integration between the HR and Payroll systems therefore enabling seamless automated transfer of HR data into the payroll system.
• User definable workflows which can be easily created and edited using user friendly workflow designs.
• Intelligent self service functionality which would enable employees to manage their own HR data, with the appropriate controls and security built in by default.”

The Project
Louise was recruited to the project to work alongside the existing payroll team and HR representatives. A project board was set up with key stakeholders from the business, a Service Director was appointed as the project champion.

Data Migration
Louise comments, “The data migration exercise took approximately 1 month using in house expertise. We were lucky that I had worked on the legacy system in my previous role so I had a clear understanding of the data structure in the legacy system. I was then able to match that against the data template Cascade provided. It is vital to have a thorough understanding of the legacy system if you are going to successfully export relevant data for use in the new system.”

Understanding Technology
Louise comments, “Having a good relationship with our ICT team meant that we were able to install and configure the hardware required for Cascade within a few weeks of the contracts being signed.”

Rolling out Module by Module
Louise comments, “Our initial focus was ensuring we could smoothly switch over to the new payroll system in line with the deadlines of the project. We therefore spent the first 6 months of the project carrying out parallel runs against the existing payroll system and Cascade.

Working with Cascade we were able to complete 4 parallel runs, achieving a 96% reconciliation. The further 4% could be accounted for due to the specific configuration differences between the two systems.”

Following a 100% successful first payroll run (all 1400+ employees were paid correctly!) we have implemented further HR elements such as Learning and Development, Health and Safety, Recruitment and Grievance/Disciplinary.

Self Service functionality has been introduced for annual leave, payslips and sickness absence recording.

Benefits Gained
Louise comments “We are now running an efficient ‘in-house’ payroll service and by meeting our project deadlines saved paying a £37k invoice to our previous payroll bureau service provider. HR have adopted Cascade and are using the system to effectively manage real HR issues. Statistics and reporting of HR data has improved tenfold since the introduction of Cascade. We now have bespoke reports available with little effort or development.

Our sickness absence levels across the organization have decreased following the introduction of manager self service for sickness reporting. Our absence rate average per employee has dropped from 10.5 to 9.75 days lost to sickness.

Further work will be carried out post implementation to ensure we have met the target benefits which were set out in the business case.”