Whereas his freshman year, Feyaad Allie ’16 juggled punching in and filling out paper time sheets for his three different campus jobs, now all he has to do to get paid is click his mouse.
Despite some technical glitches such as slow loading times and problems with phone usage within the Kronos program, students interviewed said that they support the College’s transition to online tracking instead of paper time sheets.
At the beginning of the term, all on-campus student employees switched from using traditional time sheets to using Kronos, an online time-tracking program. Non-student College employees began using the program last fall. The transition was part of a push to make the College’s administration more efficient, director of shared services in the payroll office Cheryl Josler said.
Josler added that using paper time sheets inconvenienced employees and was a poor use of staff resources.
Media collection specialist at Jones Media Center James Broutzos said advantages of using Kronos include its universal accessibility and efficiency for both supervisors and student employees.
“Having the supervisors approve the time sheets all in one sweep is much more efficient,” he said.
Josler said that the payroll office evaluated multiple time tracking programs as part of the selection process. Kronos was picked as the best program to meet the College’s needs because of its relative flexibility.
“Kronos can handle multiple jobs, while other program vendors expect you to hold only one job,” Josler said.
This helps Tanya Budler ’15, who works in the library and other campus jobs. Tracking down her supervisors to sign hard copies of time sheets each Friday, she said, was “a pain.”
“But in Kronos you can do it in one place and you can just do it yourself without having to find people,” she said.
Dartmouth Dining Services has used the program for the last 15 years, Josler said, so there already was a familiarity with the program.
Some students said they have noticed glitches in the program through the transition. Budler said she experienced problems with the program not saving her hours properly.
“I think the program is still a little bit confused,” she said. “Kronos isn’t used to clocking multiple jobs with different pay rates.”
Joanne Zhao ’16 said that on some browsers like Chrome, Kronos automatically times out. If the user did not save their data on time, they are forced to re-enter it, she said.
Caroline Allan ’16, an intern in the housing office, said that some of her complaints with the program are that it needs constant refreshment on her computer and that it is incompatible with her phone because it uses Java.
“I can’t do it on the go,” Allan said. “I always worry that it didn’t go through, and that I’m not going to get paid. Other than that, it’s convenient to not turn in paper every week because that’s just another thing to forget to do.”
When users log into Kronos, they select their campus job from a drop-down menu, Allie said. Computing services is working to ensure that the program is stable for student use, Josler said. Having programmers on campus equipped with skills to support the program factored into the decision to implement Kronos over other time-tracking vendors, she added.
“Some people have had issues with Java,” she said. “The disadvantages of the program come with trying to support people using different computers, but even that’s worth it to go paperless.”
In order to transition to Kronos as smoothly as possible, the library hosted workshops and computer sessions at the end of spring term for student employees. The payroll office compiled a list of currently employed students and sent email notices about the impending switch to electronic time sheets.
Despite occasional errors, both employers and student employees interviewed said they found electronic time sheets more advantageous.
“Like with any transition, there were bumps along the road,” Broutzos said. “It took us time to get through the little quirks, but we haven’t had any major problems. We were able to set up and get it running fairly quickly.”
Budler said although it is sometimes frustrating to refresh and re-enter her hours when she runs into glitches in the program, the switch to Kronos “will be well worth it in the long run.”
“The pros definitely outweigh the cons,” Zhao said.
Kronos will be a permanent implementation for student employees on campus, but revisions to the electronic time sheets will have to be submitted on paper, Josler said.
Jasmine Sachar contributed reporting.
