In 2016 they made a significant change and moved from hourly pay to a monthly, one twelfth payment process, an unusual step within the cleaning industry. They were experiencing large fluctuations in pay, driven by the irregular working pattern of the education sector. This created difficulties with budgeting and KGB Southwest decided it would be simpler to move to monthly salaries, adding in overtime hours when necessary. At the time CleanLink didn’t have the functionality to manage a one twelfth payroll system and when KGB Southwest asked CleanLink for help they were delighted when the response was an emphatic yes. Once the software had been modified there were a few transitional issues, mainly with staff not used to operating a monthly pay system.
More recently the one twelfth system has thrown up some additional challenges, most notably how timesheets are managed. Currently managers capture changes such as overtime on to a paper timesheet, which is sent to head office and manually updated onto the system. This process has several issues – it’s time consuming, has a high risk for human error and uses a lot of paper. The business is also seeing a higher than normal turnover in managers following COVID and the current process requires manager training. KGB Southwest doesn’t want to rely so heavily on manager training and realised they needed a simplified system.
Again, working closely with CleanLink, several adaptations to the current process have been implemented. There has been a move to electronic timesheets which can be accessed via PC’s and iPads. Once completed, the electronic timesheets are now sent to head office via email. The timesheets are then directly imported into the system, removing the need for the manual inputting process. There’s also been a revision to the list of changes to the base salary such as holidays and sick days. Due to the one twelfth process KGB Southwest needed a broader range of options so they could effectively manage changes such as sick pay. Finally, there was an ask to include the one twelfth monthly salary figure into the system. The CleanLink software had been designed to only add up hourly pay, and benchmark this against a monthly salary budget. With this modification KGB Southwest will now be able to have the same comparison as hourly paid cleaning companies.
KGB Southwest have been very impressed with how CleanLink approach tailoring the software to their requirements and help to simplify processes. Whenever they’ve asked for modifications CleanLink have always investigated these requests and nearly always deliver a solution, something that KGB Southwest are very grateful for.
‘We see CleanLink as an extension to our business, we work very collaboratively together and have a great working relationship with their support team. Most significantly we have had great continuity with their staff and, this has been very important to us. We have no intention of slowing down our growth and see CleanLink as the partner to help us achieve our ambitions. They modernise and evolve helping to keep the industry moving forward”
Sharon Rhatigan, Financial Director at KGB Southwest.
