District Administration - July/August 2012 - (Page 2)

sponsored web seminar digest The Challenges of managing absenteeism in K12 A District Administration Web Seminar Digest • Originally Presented on May 24, 2012 What’s the real impact of employee absenteeism on your district? In a recent study of K-12 school districts, 50 percent of respondents said they rely on manual processes like three-part leave slips and handwritten time sheets to track and approve time and absence. Consequences include human error and the potential for erroneous absence tracking. But inaccurate time tracking also impacts productivity, FMLA compliance, revenue, and pay-outs upon separation or retirement. This web seminar addressed the real costs of manually managed absenteeism, and how automated systems can improve efficiency, productivity and the bottom line. LArry Fitch Senior Workforce Management Consultant Kronos As an analyst, I see a lot of information. And one of the things I come away with is that there is no incentive for employees to record exceptions. Employees are paid on the honor system. Why would I want to tell you if I wasn’t here on time because you are only going to take a benefit from me. The other issue is how hours are logged into the system. At a K12 district in the Midwest, I found more than 300 of the audited hours were incorrectly keyed, and more than 50 percent of those resulted in no reductions in leave time being applied. On average, non-teaching staff utilize 24 percent more leave than the teaching staff. Is that because teachers just never take a day off, or is it because you never receive any paperwork documenting their time? JOSePh MOrriS Lead Analyst Center for Digital Education I want to share some findings from a recent survey that we’ve done and tell you how we got involved in looking at this issue. We were seeing something bubble up all across government and education in the form of news articles over and over again regarding spending controls and overtime payments. So we decided to conduct a survey that touched on K12, higher education and state and local governments. And I want to go over some of what we found about K12 education. There was an article in March where a school district paid $14 million in overtime in the past four years. That’s $3.5 million in overtime a year. We keep seeing this over and over again in education and we wanted to see what steps K12 was implementing to manage absenteeism. We surveyed 125 decision makers or administrators in senior roles. The survey had 30 questions and was conducted online in late January. Setting the stage: • 50 percent of respondents did not have automated time and attendance. • 40 percent felt their tracking systems were out of date. • 50 percent rely on employees to track their own absences in a centralized system. • 80 percent feel they are accurately calculating pensions based on actual hours worked by their employees. • 33 percent allow employees to apply unused leave to years of service calculations. • 84 percent believe their tracking systems are FMLA complaint. • 44 percent believe that absences reduce group productivity by anywhere from 25-75 percent. First and foremost, our study showed how prevalent aging systems are in the education space. Fifty percent are relying on manual systems; 64 percent do not use automated requests for approval of time off. The second large issue we uncovered was that time tracking responsibility often relies on the employee to

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - July/August 2012

District Administration - July/August 2012
Contents
From the Editor
Letters
News Update
District Profile
Administrator Profile
Research Center
Professional Opinion
Supervisor's Opinion
Crisis Response
Going Mobile
Gaming Gains Respect
A Running Start for ELLs
Paul Vallas for Sale
Unsung Heroes
CIO News
Avoiding the Pitfalls of Virtual Schooling
Noteworthy Books
New Products
Product Focus
Problem Solution

District Administration - July/August 2012