US hospital sees gains from AI-powered HR system

OPELIKA, Ala. – UKG, a leading provider of HR, payroll, workforce management, and culture solutions for all people, announced that East Alabama Health, named by Forbes as one of America’s Best-in-State Employers in 2023, is supercharging its workplace journey, as well as experiencing significant cost savings and exceptional business results, with UKG.

East Alabama Health operates two hospitals, a cancer center, and several medical clinics and physician practices. Driven by a passion for excellence in patient care and commitment to providing an unparalleled working environment for its employees, the longtime UKG customer migrated to the AI-powered UKG Pro Workforce Management suite to boost its people-centric culture and drive operational efficiencies.

“Our people and patients mean everything to us. It’s important to empower our employees with innovative technology like UKG that makes their lives easier so they can focus on providing high-quality, compassionate healthcare,” said Genia Odom, director of workforce planning and payroll at East Alabama Health. “Pro Workforce Management gives our frontline staff the flexibility they deserve to balance the demands of their work and personal lives while helping us save time and money by identifying areas where we can be more efficient.”

One area where East Alabama Health felt it could be more efficient was in understanding the impact of incremental, or casual overtime, which the health system defines as overtime that is less than or equal to three hours per employee per week and is often the result of people clocking into shifts early, then clocking out late. Leaders also wanted to know if people were properly taking their meal breaks and, if not, how that impacted employees and the business.

“UKG did an extensive data analysis and determined that, during a 52-week period in 2022, we incurred more than $688,000 in incremental overtime,” said Chaisen Gulley, database coordinator at East Alabama Health. “Over a one-year span, after implementing advanced scheduling for flexibility and attestation to ensure better compliance, our combined annualized savings on overtime and meal deductions was $246,100. That would not have happened without the hard work and dedication of our internal team as well as the partnership with our UKG team who understood our unique business needs and took the time to work with us.”

As an employer of choice in an industry that continues to experience staffing shortages, East Alabama Health knows giving its people greater flexibility and more choices when it comes to shifts – including opportunities for meaningful overtime – not only creates better habits and workplace practices but helps engage and retain its hard-working staff in support of its great place to work commitment.

“In the past year, we started offering self-scheduling and shift-swapping, and we just recently rolled out an open-shift incentive program that gives employees a financial incentive for selecting shifts that are in greatest need of coverage,” said Casey Rollins, labor analyst at East Alabama Health. “In our industry, covering shifts is not optional, it’s mandatory. UKG allows us to be forward-thinking in how we support our employees’ needs while never missing a beat when it comes to delivering exceptional patient care.”

“It’s also amazing how advanced Pro Workforce Management is,” added Odom. “We have a lot of younger workers, many right out of college, who have grown up using their smartphones and expect us to be technologically driven. The UKG Pro mobile app has been instrumental in allowing us to meet our people wherever they are, through their device, in real-time.”

Another area where UKG has driven measurable change is payroll.

“UKG has been a game-changer for our payroll team,” said Penny Stewart, senior payroll coordinator at East Alabama Health. “It used to take days to process payroll and that’s been decreased to several hours because UKG has automated so much of the data that feeds into our payroll system. It’s wonderful to have so much time back to devote to our people and patients instead of processes.”

“Technology is only as good as the people behind it, and we are unwavering in our commitment to partnering with organizations to help them become great places to work,” said Jane Graham, group vice president of relationship management at UKG. “Workplaces like East Alabama Heath are fueled by great people who understand the power of innovative technology in transforming how businesses operate. Our goal, now and always, is to inspire our customers to achieve greatness by supporting them through every step of their UKG journey.”

About UKG
At UKG, our purpose is people. We are on a mission to inspire every organization to become a great place to work through HCM technology built for all. More than 80,000 customers across all sizes, industries, and geographies trust UKG HR, payroll, workforce management, and culture cloud solutions to drive great workplace experiences and make better, more confident people and business decisions. With the world’s largest collection of people data, work data, and culture data combined with rich experience using artificial intelligence in the service of people, we connect culture insights with business outcomes to show what’s possible when organizations invest in their people. To learn more, visit ukg.com.