Large Credit Union Achieves Peak HR and Payroll Efficiencies with UltiPro® Workplace

Ultimate Software (Nasdaq: ULTI), a leading provider of unified human capital management (HCM) SaaS solutions for global businesses, announced today that the Polish & Slavic Federal Credit Union (PSFCU), one of the largest ethnic credit unions in the U.S. with $1.4 billion in assets, is achieving a wide range of business benefits from UltiPro’s cloud HCM solution—including enhanced talent management, time management, business intelligence, and business continuity.

Prior to UltiPro, the New Jersey-based PSFCU was using a payroll service bureau to handle payroll and manually managing HR functions with paper files, spreadsheets, and emails. When Vice President of Human Resources Lori O’Toole joined the credit union, she and HR Training and Development Manager Agata Krol vowed to make dramatic improvements to the organization’s processes for human capital management. They wanted a unified solution that would help them function more efficiently and strategically, and in September 2009, PSFCU went live with UltiPro Workplace. Today the nonprofit financial organization is benefiting from Ultimate’s HR, talent management, time management, and payroll functionality delivered through Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).

"UltiPro is providing monumental benefits to us. I am an HR person, not an IT person, so I really appreciate how the cloud makes our work easier. Because Ultimate manages the solution, we don’t have to rely on IT to get our jobs done. With role-based access, our employees can manage their own individual profiles, and they can access their information from anywhere at any time,” said O’Toole. "And one key advantage with SaaS is our capabilities for business continuity. We had a fire last year which shut down our offices for more than a week, but our payroll and HR team never missed a beat because we could handle those processes from home with UltiPro. UltiPro is a central part of our disaster recovery plan. This solution has taken our HCM processes to new levels of control, effectiveness, and efficiency.”

Previously, O’Toole and Krol handled HR with a range of disparate spreadsheets, and now with UltiPro, they are using one system of record to consolidate and centralize all employee information. Business intelligence on turnover, overtime, employee performance, and comparative salary information are generating actionable workforce insight. With UltiPro’s feature set for performance management, the HR team can see trends on individual performance or metrics related to a specific manager or position. Information is accurate because it’s all unified within UltiPro.

"I used to keep an employee performance spreadsheet that I would send to each manager when evaluations were due. Managers would complete it, and I would manually compile the information for executive approvals,” said Krol. "The process had the potential for numerous errors, and the results would be stressful for everyone. With UltiPro, we have a new perspective into talent management, and our HR team has cut the administrative time spent on performance appraisals by 50%.”

Another time saver for HR has been UltiPro’s features for time management. Using finger scanners, employees clock in and out, and PSFCU’s business rules are then applied automatically. Before UltiPro, HR had to print each employee’s time card prior to payroll, and double check these documents for errors.

"It was a total nightmare. The time-consuming activities, like manual corrections combined with the rigid rules and codes of the service bureau, meant payroll used to take us one full week,” said O’Toole. "With UltiPro, everything is in sync and extremely flexible and efficient. We have reduced the time and strain we used to have, and we’re very glad to get away from being on the service bureau’s schedule.”

"Previously, my team was held accountable for information that was fraught with errors. We used to tremble when we had executive requests for information. Now with UltiPro we can address these requests with ease. We’re confident the information we are supplying is based on accurate data,” said O’Toole. "Our employees love having 24-7 access to their information, we are no longer working evenings and weekends, and everyone is performing in an optimal way. We’ve eliminated bad information and seen a notable increase in productivity.”

With instant information available on employee performance, labor costs and allocations, compensation, and benefits, PSFCU’s HR team is functioning more strategically and has begun to initiate new programs to help the company recruit and retain high-performance employees. The team also has launched a new community outreach campaign that is providing financial assistance to a local charity as well as strengthening the credit union’s community presence. "Because of UltiPro, we now have the time to roll out value-added initiatives for our employees, credit union members, and the communities we serve,” said O’Toole. "UltiPro is adding phenomenal power to our organization.”

"At the heart of strategic HCM is accurate and comprehensive employee data. Achieving optimal business operations for HR and payroll is extremely difficult with disparate, outdated systems as well as manual, error-prone processes,” said Chris Phenicie, senior vice president of UltiPro Workplace. "Polish & Slavic Federal Credit Union recognized the opportunity to boost business performance with a unified HCM platform, and we’re thrilled that yet another HR team is seeing these benefits realized with the UltiPro solution.”

About Ultimate

Ultimate is a leading provider of unified human capital management (HCM) Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions for global businesses. Ultimate’s award-winning UltiPro^® solutions deliver the functionality businesses need to manage the complete employment life cycle from recruitment to retirement. Based in Weston, FL, Ultimate employs more than 1,200 professionals who are focused on developing the highest quality solutions and services. In 2010, Ultimate was named an Optimas Award winner by Workforce Management magazine. In 2009, Ultimate was awarded first place in the People’s Choice Stevie^® competition for Favorite New SaaS Product and was ranked the #1 best medium-sized company to work for in America by the Great Place to Work^® Institute for the second consecutive year. In 2010, Ultimate’s security practices were recertified for ISO/IEC 27001, and Ultimate was the first HR SaaS vendor to be ISO/IEC 27001 certified in 2008. Ultimate has approximately 2,200 customers representing diverse industries, including such organizations as Adobe Systems Incorporated, The Container Store, Culligan International, Elizabeth Arden, Major League Baseball, The New York Yankees Baseball Team, and Ruth’s Chris Steak House. More information on Ultimate’s products and services can be found at www.ultimatesoftware.com.

UltiPro is a registered trademark of The Ultimate Software Group, Inc. All other trademarks referenced are the property of their respective owners.

Follow Ultimate Software on Twitter: www.twitter.com/UltimateHCM