Kronos Launches Workforce Ready Management Suite for Small Businesses

Workforce management solutions specialist Kronos announced the launch of Workforce Ready, a suite of cloud-based applications aimed at small and midsize businesses. The solution set provides companies with single-source access to real-time employee data, including a Time and Attendance feature designed to streamline time tracking, with automated collection of time and attendance information.

Small business IT departments are feeling the pressure to squeeze more productivity out of limited budgets, and Workforce Ready is designed to help HR departments, payroll and other human capital elements more effectively manage their duties, using hosted multitenant architecture, and a flexible software-as-a-service-based pricing approach.

The platform can also go mobile, allowing employees to view schedules, request time off and view their pay statements, while managers can approve timecards, manage exceptions and find replacement workers from their smartphone. In addition, an analytics feature provides diagnostic views of key labor metrics and point-and-click reporting that identifies areas for cost savings. The Human Resources application provides secure management of employee records and robust performance and asset management tools.

“Small and midsize businesses are feeling the financial pressures of a tight economy and having to compete with larger organizations with more resources,€ Lisa Rowan, program director of HR, learning, and talent research at IT analytics firm IDC said in a prepared statement. €œA workforce management solution tailored to the needs of SMBs can help them uncover and reduce hidden costs, leading to improved productivity and smarter decision-making. Workforce Ready is an extremely robust solution that SMBs should consider.”

Among the platform€™s other features is an Absence Management application to help reduce compliance risks by confirming employee’s eligibility for paid and unpaid leave based on vacation time, sick time and other organization-specific criteria. The Payroll application offers an alerts feature, which lets multiple individuals work on payroll simultaneously, while on-the-fly scheduling capabilities helps to reduce understaffing and overstaffing as well as overtime management. All the applications are available on a per-employee, per-month basis, a company release noted.

“SMBs are always looking to do more with less. Workforce Ready delivers enterprise-level capabilities in an easy-to-use, easy-to-afford, cloud-based environment,€ Kronos CEO Aron Ain said in a press statement. €œStaying competitive is complex — your workforce management solution shouldn’t have to be.”

In April, the company launched its Workforce Analytics solution, which provides real-time visibility into workforce and operational issues through a graphical management dashboard, which helps organizations access and leverage workforce data to identify, predict, and manage opportunities for cost savings and productivity gains. The platform is also interoperable with a company€™s existing business intelligence (BI) tool, and offers built-in security features to help minimize privacy concerns.