Flight Services Company Reduces Costs, Effort to Track Employee Labor Data, Even as Company Grows

Worldwide Flight Services minimized the administrative burden once associated with tracking employee time and attendance data, even as the company added employees and expanded operations to an increased number of regional and international airports. Key to this achievement is the web-enabled Attendance Enterprise from InfoTronics.

About Worldwide Flight Service
Headquartered in Irving, Texas, Worldwide Flight Services is one of the largest ground handling organizations in the world, providing customers with customized cargo, ramp, passenger and technical services. Worldwide Flight Services operates out of nine international airports and 50 regional facilities in the US and Canada.

Worldwide Flight Services captures employee time and attendance data from its 8,000 union and non-union employees in the US, and 1,500 union and non-union employees in Canada, with InfoTronics’ Attendance Enterprise time and attendance system.

Managing Complexity
According to Audwin Donatto, Human Resource Information System Manager for Worldwide Flight Services, the move to Attendance Enterprise helped his department easily handle an expanding employee headcount, along with growing complexity in reporting. “As our company added employees and remote locations in US and Canada, and considering the growing complexity of our employee time and attendance reporting requirements, we needed a more streamlined process to manage employee data. The shift to Attendance Enterprise was an easy decision for us, given the success and overall value we had experienced with our local vendor, Dallas-based Associated Time and Parking Controls, and previous InfoTronics solutions.”

Donatto cites the system’s streamlined integration with the various collection devices as a key benefit. Hourly workers report actual hours worked, and this information is captured using badge readers or time clocks at the remote locations. Other staff members report time on an exception basis. Worldwide Flight Services is also moving toward biometric scanning devices to collect some employee data.

Detailed Reporting, Improved Decision Making
Since switching to Attendance Enterprise, Worldwide Flight Service’s frontline decision-makers access up-to-the-minute information to automatically generate useful employee time and attendance reports at each of the remote locations. Managers interpret labor data by individual employee, job type, location, shift or department such as cargo, passenger, management, administrative, etc.

Also noteworthy is the company’s ability to integrate to other databases used for the company’s human capital management. Notes Donatto, “The MS SQL structure is really the backbone of our employee data processing. Labor data moves seamlessly back and forth between our SAP system for HR and payroll, and the ease of integration is a real time saver for my department.”  The system also gives the company an advanced benefit accrual engine, and comprehensive scheduling functions.

Centralized Database Brings Benefits
Donatto notes that the company was able to cut down on the effort and cost associated with database maintenance administration. “Before Attendance Enterprise, each of our locations used individual employee databases for time and attendance record keeping. Any change to the records was time consuming, since we had to maintain each location’s database separately. The InfoTronics system saves me days of work once needed for database maintenance, and also reduces the potential for errors in the enforcement of the company’s employment policies.”

Donatto concludes, “The competitive environment at any flight services company is in constant flux. It’s just the nature of the beast. We’re constantly adjusting to changes in service volumes, contracts, airport locations, union regulations, and employee and departmental changes.  This new system lets us manage our labor resources more efficiently, lets us easily track and schedule our growing workforce, and gives us the ability to make timely decisions that impact our bottom line.”