Creative design, print and new media company, Sterling Print has implemented a new time and attendance (T&A) system to help the company manage its ever-evolving complex shift patterns. The new system, Efficient Time from workforce management specialist, Captor Group, has been introduced right across the business, which employs over 130 people and operates a staggering 18 different shift patterns.

Adopting a philosophy that demands excellent service at all stages of the customer process – vital when providing high quality print and design services for the likes of Peugeot, Citroen, Texas Instruments, Tesco and the BBC – Sterling Print has to constantly juggle priorities and work schedules in order to meet customers’ deadlines and demands, often at the very last minute.

For Linda Harpham, Finance Director at Sterling Print, this has presented major headaches: “We provide creative design, print and fulfilment services for demanding clients, who often need jobs done at very late notice. This constant need for flexibility has led us to evolve a very complex set of shift patterns across the 24-hour, seven day working week. In fact, we currently operate 18 different shift patterns among our 130 staff. What we needed was a system that would enable us to manage these work patterns effectively, no matter how complex.”

Captor’s Efficient Time software – part of the company’s workforce management portfolio called Efficient People Solutions – now makes Sterling’s HR administration much easier, with more accurate payroll, a better view of holiday and sickness records, and easier access to historic data for the purposes of time and attendance analysis or for supporting any disciplinary issues that may arise.

“To be honest, our previous T&A system was supplied by the same company that managed our vending machines, which clearly was not something we could sustain as we continued to grow,” adds Linda Harpham. “As well as a system that was flexible and able to grow with us, we also needed 100 per cent reliability and accuracy.”

Captor’s Efficient Time is particularly effective in helping manage work environments where precision management of working schedules is required, including part-time, flexi-time, flexible working, contract and interim employment.

Sterling Print is now looking to integrate its own in-house holiday planner functionality into the Captor environment and is currently evaluating Captor’s Efficient Planner as a replacement for this.

Captor Group’s UK General Manager, Nick Jakowiw, comments: “Over the last five years, Sterling Print more than doubled its workforce and was looking to work with a company and implement workforce management solutions that could grow with its business.

“With such unpredictable work patterns, accuracy and speed of data which detects absenteeism and identifies any time and attendance irregularities, will be key to Sterling’s ongoing success as a business. Our Efficient software is ideal for this type of environment and will help support the company’s evolving HR and payroll processes. We’re delighted to be working with them.”

Ends

Captor Group (http://www.captorgroup.com)

Captor is a leading European provider of Workforce Management solutions to organisations in the mid-market sector. Captor develops, implements and supports systems that allow organisations to deploy, develop, empower, secure, manage and retain their workforce for optimum business efficiency and effectiveness.

Captors’ solutions enable customers to automate workforce management processes including; personnel administration, planning, scheduling, time & attendance management, access control and workforce analytics. Captor operates across and has customers in many vertical markets including; Manufacturing, Retail, Logistics, Distribution, Services, Hospitality, National & Local Government and Utilities. Key customers: Michelin, Panasonic, Pioneer Europe, Telecom Italia, Utrecht University, Yves Saint Laurent, Norbert Dentressangle, West Ham Utd, Total Gaz & Societe Generale.