Ultimate Software's healthcare customers report significant improvements after implementing UltiPro

Ultimate Software (Nasdaq:ULTI), a leading provider of end-to-end strategic human resources, payroll, and talent management solutions, announced today that long-term healthcare customers, including Homewood Retirement Centers, Mather LifeWays, and Holiday Home Health, are reporting significant improvements as a result of UltiPro’s comprehensive human capital management (HCM) features—including UltiPro’s sophisticated reporting, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model, and robust functionality.

Human resource professionals in healthcare have many industry-specific HR and payroll challenges they must address in addition to day-to-day workforce management issues. With a large part of their budgets devoted to administrative costs, health services organizations in particular must stay on top of labor expenses, effectively manage recruiting, and closely monitor and track employee performance. UltiPro gives healthcare organizations the tools to manage these processes and handle other critical issues, such as:

• Unique industry reporting requirements, such as the ability to compare costs to Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements
• IT departments that are tapped out by supporting other internal systems specific to the healthcare industry
• Complex compensation requirements that may involve employees who work in different jobs at varying pay rates and in different business units in the same period

Prior to UltiPro, Homewood Retirement Centers, a nonprofit healthcare organization with 1,300 employees, used an in-house payroll solution that did not include unified HR functionality—making reporting by department, position, or on the entire company extremely difficult and time-consuming. Plus, the solution required considerable support from IT. Since deploying UltiPro in 2006 and Ultimate’s Software-as-a-Service offering in 2009, Homewood has enjoyed the benefits of centralized data for faster, more accurate reporting for federal and state legislative compliance, healthcare-specific reporting, and workplace-related business intelligence—without requiring IT resources.

“Using UltiPro, we have transformed our ability to manage human resources and payroll data and processes, so that we can monitor employee information more effectively and efficiently,” said Lin Yoder, vice president of human resources for Homewood. “With UltiPro’s one-table design for HR, payroll, and benefits information, we now have improved data integrity and organizational efficiencies as well as the ability to identify trends in staffing, turnover, and overtime. We appreciate that we can leverage UltiPro’s functionality and reporting tools without relying on internal resources for day-to-day hardware maintenance or software upgrades.”

Another nonprofit that offers continuing care for older adults, Mather LifeWays, was using a payroll service bureau before UltiPro. When Kim Childress joined Mather in 2005, she recommended the company consider UltiPro because she had used the solution with previous employers and knew advantages of the unified HCM functionality and services that Ultimate delivers. Mather LifeWays selected Ultimate, went live on UltiPro in 2006, and is also benefiting from the additional features and flexibility they now have with UltiPro through convenient SaaS over its previous payroll service bureau provider.

“With a broad range of HR and payroll functionality delivered through its SaaS solution, UltiPro is the best fit for us. It gives me the tools I need to automate manual tasks throughout HR and payroll that the service bureau we had been using could not, without burdening anyone from our IT team who is already focused on other internal systems,” said Childress. “UltiPro delivered through SaaS lets our remote offices use the Web to log in to UltiPro and manage payroll on their schedule. If a remote administrator has a question, I can quickly get into the system and see exactly what’s happening.”

Another healthcare provider experiencing HR/payroll challenges before switching to UltiPro in 2002 is Holiday Home Health. Previously, the long-term care provider was using an in-house solution that didn’t provide the flexibility to handle employees who work in different locations and jobs within the same pay period, which caused compensation and reporting challenges. With UltiPro, Holiday Home Health quickly got these complex HR and payroll processes under control.

“To manage our workforce efficiently, we needed the ability to use unlimited job codes and costs centers combined with real-time, customizable reporting, which we have with UltiPro,” said Dora Gaylor, director of human resources for Holiday Home Health. “For instance, we have individuals who may work in both the skilled and intermediate care units in the same pay period. They may even work in different jobs. I need to be able to break down the associated costs by specific unit and by the job, and then compare those costs to Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements. This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the strength of UltiPro’s reporting. I’ve used five systems in 21 years in the industry, and UltiPro is the best.”

“We’ve worked hard to ensure that UltiPro’s depth and breadth of human capital management functionality can fully support industry-specific requirements such as those of healthcare organizations,” said Greg Swick, chief sales officer for Ultimate Software. “Our unified solution and reporting capabilities, coupled with our SaaS delivery model, are the perfect fit for healthcare organizations who want to improve the productivity and effectiveness of their HR and payroll operations.”