On November 13, 2009, the USGFC (representing 24 USG institutions) discussed the many problems encountered across the state with the recent implementation of the ADP payroll system and the earlier travel component in the Peoplesoft Expenses Module. Recognizing that the BOR has the best of intentions in pursuing efficiencies through centralization of business functions, the USGFC would like to express its strong misgivings with this process to date and would request that the BOR delay any further efforts at centralization until it is clear that these efforts will achieve the desired efficiencies and other goals of the BOR, and that there is sufficient time for planning, justification of potential benefits, adequate testing and implementation. To facilitate this process, the USGFC requests a response from the BOR on the following questions:
1. The measures/metrics contracted between the USG and ADP by which the software implementation is measured and a status report on the fulfillment of those metrics, an analysis of which of the contract metrics have been completed and which have not.
2. A thorough review of the impact the implementation has had upon USG employee work hours devoted to interacting with ADP -- staff and faculty.
3. A listing of the major implementation problems and recommendations for improving future implementations of this type.
4. A review of the sources of implementation problems: the ADP vendor, USG teams (OIIT, HR, ?) or institution teams (IT, HR, ?).
5. A cost/benefit analysis that takes into account the workload hours -- the view so far is that workload has been increased and further distributed, involving more hours from every employee in the system for data entry, training, re-training, policy/procedure interpretation, updating data, reviewing data, running parallel systems because the data in ADP has been in error, etc....
6. Compare the cost effectiveness of the systems in use at the three USG institutions that opted out of the ADP implementation to the cost effectiveness of ADP at the other USG institutions. Include a thorough analysis of workload impacts upon all faculty and staff using these systems.
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-We shouldn't have to prove we haven't taken leave during each reporting period -- that is wasted hours of work. All that is needed is the input of leave taken.
ReplyDeleteThis system is antiquated technology that should be pulled and our precious resources put toward something much better.
ReplyDeleteJust as faculty/staff are required to undergo assessments to ensure we are performing well, this system should be assessed, seriously and thoroughly -- especially given the enormous costs, and so potential savings, involved.
ReplyDeletethis system model didnt work several years ago in other states. It most certainly is failing dismally now. Centralization is not the way to go. Autonomous units able to function under a set of minimum standards should be adopted to save costs. This system is not worth the programming it is built on
ReplyDeleteOn the Sept.2009 payrole. I approved my time sheet with just the 8 hour furlough day. I was charged by ADP with 28 hours of furlough. It was not caught by anyone in the system.
ReplyDeleteThis system (Peoplesoft and ADP) is unnecessarily complicated, inefficient, and costly. It has set us back 15+ years in terms of running a "business-like" university.
ReplyDeleteThe system is flawed, cumbersome, and a time waster like I've never seen. It's insulting to be a salaried employee and be required to punch a time card, and it's ridulous for chairs to have to spend their time approving these silly things.
ReplyDeleteAll employees should have the right and accessibility to review their leave time accruals. This is not the case for those that are using a time clock, they must ask their supervisor to print out a report. Employee morale and trust has been impacted.
ReplyDeleteADP has been a better time and attendance system than what we use to have. It has forced all employees to properly report hours work and leave time. The problem with it was that it was implemented so quickly that no one (including Payroll) had all of the answers. If we couldn't have added staff to help work through the issues, it should have been piloted in a single department so that the issues could have been identified and resolved before implementing it system wide.
ReplyDeleteI don't quite follow the purpose of approving monthly time 10 days before the month expires. What is that? Then you have to printout and submit a form for the remaining 10 days after the month is over - regardless of whether employees were absent or not absent. How much paper, ink, processing time, and additional labor have been saved by this new technology?
ReplyDeleteFor staff and supervisors, there are some benefits to ADP; but ADP seems to treat professional employees like they are untrusted such as the double reporting somewhat required that you have to pre-report leave between the 20th and end of the month and then you have to check or correct the pre-reported leave if your planned leave doesn't work out. Delegating responsibilities in ADP leaves a lot to be desired and getting useful reports for supervisors from ADP leaves a lot to be desired.
ReplyDeleteImposing requirements that have no apparent benefits and create senseless burdens, like approving 0 sick time every month instead of letting it be a default (under the threat of witholding pay) and being forced to do so well before before the month is even over, makes it appear as if the USG and the university have anything but our best interests at heart. Sometimes we have to go through an obstacle course just to get paid.
ReplyDeleteWe've been told that USG must adhere to a new business model. A senior administrative leader said that Shared Services is a tool used by "Ford and GM." Enough said...
ReplyDeletePerhaps PeopleSoft and ADP -do- make things more efficient for the upper administration of USG and the BOR. Perhaps.
ReplyDeleteFor the faculty, staff, and departmental administators, the added workload and tedium is a large burden (I feel like I should bill USG for the hour it takes to enter in the expenses associated with a single 4-day conference). We are not HR professionals; if day-to-day personnel management and reimbursement are to be part of our duties, I hope USG will have that listed in our contracts. Our department's administrative assistant has been buried with PeopleSoft/ADP issues and related paperwork; I have a very bad feeling that the overload is going to lead to the best of our dept admins leaving for greener pastures once the economy starts to rebound.
PeopleSoft makes it so obnoxious to enter reimburseable expenses that sometimes I've stopped bothering to try - if this is how the USG envisioned saving money with this program, mission accomplished. It's not saving printing costs, since we still have to submit paper copies of everything, anyway.
The constant new rules and decrees from on high means that morale for both faculty and staff are taking significant hits. Why not just hire a few ADP-savvy people in HR to run all the paperwork, and let faculty/staff/student employees do what they need to do to fulfill the university's goals. _That_ would be an efficient use of time.
I started using ADP two years before joining UWG this year. The errors experienced here are due to implementation procedures, not computer programs. ADP payroll was designed to be a universal application used in a world where each going concern implements systems differently. I came from the world of high technology where testing and procedures are (attempted to be) documented in advance. The beginning stages of the life cycle for ADP are always bumpy, but in the case of UWG, it has been far from ideal. Employees were thrust into ADP before thorough testing within the UWG environment was completed. Users are expected to go through a high learning curve for simple tasks, such as recording leave in advance and documenting travel expenses. UWG human resources personnel were expected to attain levels of expertise during the peak time of registration for the semester. Some of the current technical issues (connectivity problems, for example) could have been avoided if the system was tested in advance within the UWG network environment. The success of ADP is proportional to the amount of training, documentation, testing and communication invested in it.
ReplyDeleteThe intended purpose of ADP seems to be accountability and security which I believe is needed here at UWG, but it is not possible to write a program as you go and expect the accountability to be accurate. We are five months into the new fiscal year and departments are just now beginning to see payroll information from three months ago. How is it possible to balance a budget when there are no reports or information to aid in balancing? The incorrect charges due to a system "glitch" has caused numerous hours of overtime during a time when furloughs are being taken to save money. Questions of why errors are occuring or how to fix them have been ignored from shared services and ADP. The overall implementation and support is far from efficient. Morale of UWG is exceedingly low and the stress and overload on all employees is very evident.
ReplyDeleteThe entire program needs to be evaluated. How can I estimate sick days when the month isn't even over yet? This system is a step back, not forward.
ReplyDeleteIt seems very odd to me as a technology professional that all managers / approvers have to utilize a Java-based web page to accomplish thier tasks. This page takes a rediculous amount of time to load. Having worked in the technology field for several years I know for a fact there there are much faster and more efficient ways that this could be accomplished. The HTML-based page that "all other employees" use is not bad. It loads quite fast and the time shown on the screen hourly employees uses updates on the fly.
ReplyDeleteOn the subject of centralization, it seems odd to me that a service this critical would be centalized without first doing network throughput testing to ensure that there is adequate bandwidth avalable end-to-end. Generally, the goals of centralization include reduced cost AND equal or higher levels of service to end users.
Lastly, I understand that we live mostly in a Windows world but this is a university environment. Not everyone runs WIndows here. Some are Mac users, others are Linux user. Why on earth then have we moved to a system that not only requires Windows to function correctly, but IE in particular. In this day in age ANY business-critical webapp should be, at a minimum, verified against Firefox for 100% functionality so that you do not have to be on a particular operating systmen to use it.
ADP is ineffective and faulty. There have been numerous instances in which it has not been operational when I and some of my colleagues have tried to use it. This system is not at all user friendly and looks like it was constructed by incompetent amateurs. I would love to see it replaced with something that actually works.
ReplyDeleteMuch of the same can be said for PeopleSoft.
As a departmental administrative person, ADP was a nightmare in August when I was trying to get everyone registered. With 3 months perspective, it's no longer a nightmare, just a bad dream. I don't like the fact that students cannot see their own hours as the pay period moves along. I think it's ridiculous that ADP does not post to the correct account for students with more than one job on campus. Also, students do not like the "rounding" factor because a mistake of one minute costs them a quarter hour. When you are on minimum wage, that's a lot. But I do like the fact that it adds time better and faster than I did on paper time sheets. Overall rating: C
ReplyDeleteAs an IT professional I can say one good thing about ADP deployment for UWG. It is a wonderful example of how not to test and deploy a product or service.
ReplyDeleteThe ADP system seems to have several technical flaws, but the two major objections I see with its implementation may have nothing to do with the system itself. The first is the inordinate amount of time it requires of every UWG employee to learn and use on a monthly basis. In addition, every new employee will have to be trained to use it on a continuous basis. It seems that it would be much more efficient to train a few HR people to handle payroll.
ReplyDeleteThe second problem is the absolutely ridiculous requirement that employees guess what their hours will be before the month ends and then submit a paper report if that guess is inaccurate. I have to believe that requirement is not necessary to use the software, but instead is a requirement by either the university or USG. What is the purpose of entering a guess of your work hours? That is a complete waste of time -- as is the extra paperwork entailed in submitting a second report. It seems to me we are increasing the amount of time and reports needed rather than reducing them. Not to mention encouraging people to submit inaccurate reports either because they later forget to submit a correction or deem it too time-consuming or frustrating to do.
And throughout the entire process, the people who are being asked to take on this new responsibility have been given no information about how this will benefit the university and the system. People might be more willing to use it if they could be given accurate information about how much money and/or time it can save. My assumption is that it isn't saving much of either.