Ontario grocery chain Longo's has wrapped up a pilot to test Dayforce, a workforce management application. The results have been dramatic -- simpler and quicker staff scheduling, greater efficiency, and improved employee satisfaction.

 

Steve Vetrecin was tired of juggling three computer systems to manage his staff at Longo's Wyecroft location in Oakville, Ont.

A store manager at Ontario grocery chain, Longo Brothers Fruit Markets Inc.. Vetrecin was particularly frustrated that the scheduling process took more than two hours a day to complete.

Employees would submit their schedule requests and they would go to the payroll administrator, who would manually punch those into the system. From there, department managers could request adjustments -- quite a longwinded process.

But Vetrecin's exasperation ended when his store implemented a workforce management system from Dayforce Inc..

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Since starting a pilot project in June, he says, scheduling has been reduced to a simple 15 minute job.

And Longo's employees like the change, the manager says.

Graphically, he says, the Dayforce modules are very appealing. and user friendly. "You can actually paint the schedule across a timeline, or go into a grid view and enter the numbers numerically.”

Dayforce was rolled out at two Longo's locations in Ontario for a pilot phase back in the Spring.

The rollout was extended to other store locations in province Nov. 29. Dayforce has become the new Human Resources Management System across Longo's enterprise.

Grocery stores aren't the only place this system is garnering attention since it was launched in March.

Dayforce has been named by Human Resource Executive Magazine as 2009's top HR product.

The firm itself was named one of the 20 most innovative Canadian companies for 2009 by the Canadian Innovation Exchange (CIX).

With headquarters in both Toronto and Atlanta, Dayforce aims to offer a complete workforce management package , with sales projections and productivity indicators.

Dayforce says it has adopted a user-friendly approach -- offering a single interface to complete administrative tasks such as budgeting, scheduling, tasks management, time and attendance, skills management, and employee self-service.

The firm wanted to break free of the cut-and-dried approach taken by many business applications, says David Ossip, CEO and president at Dayforce. Workers, he says, now have different expectations of computer software.

 

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