|
Centralized Applications Increase Data Accuracy and Analysis Capabilities, Enabling District to Improve Service to Constituents and Reduce Administrative Costs
ST. PAUL, Minn. - Oct. 19, 2005--The latest Lawson Software applications are helping Albuquerque Public Schools streamline administrative processes with improved payroll and employee benefits administration. Already using Lawson's Financials, Procurement and Reporting suites, the school district went live on Lawson Human Resources July 1, 2005. The comprehensive ERP system assists in enabling the organization to improve service to employees, students and the community, while reducing administrative costs.
Serving 87,510 students, New Mexico's Albuquerque Public Schools is the nation's 31st largest school district. It includes 129 schools and employs 13,700 staff.
The district used the Lawson system to replace and consolidate several homegrown, disparate HR applications. Because these legacy systems maintained data in silos, staff spent significant time on administrative tasks, such as manually inputting and verifying data for each payroll cycle. Furthermore, district administrators had limited data collection and analysis capabilities. The Lawson system now centralizes and consolidates the district's HR data, and also provides employees with more visibility into their personal HR information.
"We recognized that our HR technology and business processes were not uniform and, because our staff have different work-years and pay schedules, we were duplicating efforts and spending too much time on administrative tasks," said Albuquerque Public Schools Chief Business Officer Michael Vigil. "Lawson gave us the technology foundation on which we've driven process changes within our HR department. This allows staff to focus on more strategic activities, such as recruitment and retention, while helping us become more accountable and effective."
To ensure a smooth implementation, Albuquerque Public Schools created a cross-departmental task force to oversee the project, which included district principals, functional department directors and executive leaders. The task force was responsible for discussing progress and issues with the implementation to ensure the project stayed on track. It also communicated progress to the unions that represent the district's teachers and other personnel.
Additionally, the district recognized that employee buy-in would be critical to a successful implementation. While still on the legacy HR system, administrators changed the paper on which employee checks were printed to look like the checks that would come from the Lawson system. This helped make the change less dramatic once the Lawson system went live.
The district selected a go-live date of July 1, 2005, to coincide with the start of its fiscal year, allowing the district to begin its next fiscal year entirely on the Lawson system. Without any payroll processing issues, 6,700 of the district's teachers received their summer paychecks from the legacy system in May through mid-August with the July 1 payroll cycle producing checks for the remaining district employees on year-round contracts. The district successfully completed its next payroll cycle for all 13,700 district employees on Aug. 19, 2005.
With the Lawson Human Resources suite now live across the district, Albuquerque Public Schools plans to extend the system's functionality by rolling out self-service benefits to employees later this year. During the annual benefits enrollment period, district staff will receive training on the new automated, paperless system, which allows employees to view benefits information and then enroll online.
"With union and non-union staff, school district employees have different salary schedules, pay frequencies and time-off policies, making payroll a complex and time-consuming task," said Ken Munson, industry marketing director - Government and Education, Lawson Software. "We help K-12 organizations address this challenge by centralizing and consolidating their HR processes, so they can minimize administration costs and direct more resources to the classroom."
Lawson serves more than 100 government and education clients, including three of the top six digital state governments and four of the 25 largest school districts in the United States. Lawson's software is in use at almost 3,000 schools with combined enrollments exceeding 1.75 million students and 200,000 staff members. School districts, cities, counties, state governments, publicly owned utilities, municipal districts and membership organizations rely on Lawson's solutions to help meet the needs of a variety of stakeholders - students, constituents, members, employees, vendors and the community - while helping to maximize limited budgets.
About Lawson Software
Lawson Software provides business application software and consulting services that put time on the side of services organizations in the healthcare, retail, government and education, banking and insurance and other markets. Lawson's software suites include enterprise performance management, distribution, financials, human resources, procurement, retail operations and service process optimization. With headquarters in St. Paul, Minn., Lawson has offices and affiliates serving North and South America, Europe and Africa. Lawson Software and Lawson are registered trademarks of Lawson Software, Inc. All rights reserved.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements that contain risks and uncertainties. These forward-looking statements contain statements of intent, belief or current expectations of Lawson Software, Inc., and its management. Such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future results and involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from the potential results discussed in the forward-looking statements. The company is not obligated to update forward-looking statements based on circumstances or events that occur in the future. Risks and uncertainties that may cause such differences include but are not limited to: uncertainties in the company's ability to realize synergies and revenue opportunities anticipated from the Intentia International acquisition; uncertainties in the software industry; global military conflicts; terrorist attacks in the United States, and any future events in response to these developments; changes in conditions in the company's targeted service industries; increased competition and other risk factors listed in the company's most recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and as included in other documents the company files from time to time with the Commission.
|
For Payroll and Human Resource Professionals
