Broadview needed to get a handle on its ability to manage employee human resources data across different locations. "We’d been using paper-based Excel spreadsheets, which didn’t give us nearly enough functionality or the information that we needed," said Rene Kraenzlin, Broadview’s managing director and chief administrative officer. "For example, when we needed last year’s salary information for a particular employee group, we had to track down the data and dump it into an Excel document to figure it out. It took us hours just to perform this one task."

    Broadview evaluated a number of HR management systems but soon realized most were either too expensive or too complicated for their needs. "We had a specific list of features we needed such as flexibility in design, ease of use, reporting capabilities and strong benefits management."

    Through research on the Web, Kraenzlin learned about HROffice, an HRMS system from Ascentis Software. "Ascentis gave me a demo to play around with. I became sold on the product, transferred existing data to HROffice and implemented the software in no time," said Kraenzlin.

Reporting simplified
    Kraenzlin cites reporting capabilities as a major advantage of HROffice. "Now, when we need to run a report on salaries for the same employee group I mentioned earlier, HROffice enables us to generate that report in two minutes," said Kraenzlin.

    With its ease of use and intuitive Windows-based platform, all of Broadview’s HR staff are experts on the software and can run reports too. Kraenzlin comments, "Before, in our staff of five people, only one person was able to generate a report. Now, all of our staff can perform these tasks and don’t have to spend days learning the software in order to use it."

Solid benefits management equals cost savings
    Kraenzlin applauds HROffice’s strong benefits management capabilities and comments, "Pre-HROffice, we had no way of summarizing our actual benefits costs in one simple report. Now, HROffice enables us to determine cost analysis."

Self-service functionality helps employees help themselves
    Broadview’s HR staff realizes significant time-savings as a result of HROffice’s latest technology advancement: HROffice Self-Service, an employee self-service module of HROffice.

    HROffice Self-Service enables employees to access and update their HR, benefits, attendance, and personal information through a Web browser. For example, employees can compare benefits plans, look up vacation accruals and change their benefits information.