Johnson Matthey is a global specialty chemicals and sustainable technology company headquartered in London, England. It focuses on reducing transport emissions, transforming energy systems, decarbonizing chemicals production, and recycling platinum group metals as part of a circular economy. The company has operations in more than 30 countries, has 43 manufacturing sites, and employs approximately 13,000 people.
Challenges
Johnson Matthey had been using a siloed approach in managing its large global workforce. Many of its sites selected their own workforce management solution or processes to track employees’ time and attendance information and to process payroll, making it difficult for the company to gain a global view of its workforce and workforce data. Some sites used an automated workforce management solution while others relied on spreadsheets to track employees’ time and attendance and time-off requests.
Solutions
Wanting better access to global workforce data and to automate manual processes, Johnson Matthey reviewed a few solutions with global capabilities and selected a UKG® workforce management solution. The company’s 15 U.S. locations had been using a UKG solution for many years. Johnson Matthey decided to capitalize on this familiarity and expand use of UKG solutions to its major locations around the world, implementing the latest version ― with added functionality ― in the cloud.
The company is currently using the upgraded UKG solution at sites in the U.K., India, and Macedonia and will be rolling it out at other locations soon. More than one-third of employees are using a UKG solution.
“The team from UKG was always very helpful during the implementation process, because we’ve grown that relationship over a number of projects,” said Gary Carter, HR Project Manager, IT, at Johnson Matthey. “The testing side of things went exceptionally well in Macedonia. We had a lot less errors, and that’s because of the team at UKG understanding what Johnson Matthey wanted and applying that logic to it.”
In addition, the UKG team is extracting workforce data from the legacy solution and older databases to enable easy access to this data if it’s needed in the future.
“Having our workforce management processes become digital has made it considerably easier and more cost effective.”
Gary Carter
HR Project Manager, IT
Results
Johnson Matthey’s use of the UKG solution can depend on a site’s geographic location or business functions. At manufacturing sites, factory floor employees use it to clock in and out, check their accruals and pay information, and request time off. At office sites ― and for members of the leadership team working from home ― employees use the solution to access their information on a PC or via the solution’s mobile app, anywhere and at any time. Easy, timely access to information has improved the employee experience.
Change can be challenging, but employees at Johnson Matthey’s three U.K. locations, the initial sites of the global rollout, gave the UKG solution a thumbs up when surveyed. “Once people realized that the tool was actually there to make life easier and they were able to see their worksheets, their timesheets, and their holidays, they accepted it,” explained Carter. “The feedback we’ve had from the questionnaires has been very, very positive.”
In the U.K., the UKG solution’s self-service tool, which lets employees see their time and pay information, has prevented employees from being paid incorrectly on a number of occasions. This has saved time, effort, and costs for payroll staff in reissuing corrected paychecks, and it fosters employee engagement and satisfaction.
With payroll processing now automated, the HR/payroll team is no longer manually processing the payroll file at the end of each month. “Their time spent doing all of that is now redirected to something else, driving the business and effectively allowing Johnson Matthey to reallocate its resources,” said Carter.
Soon after implementation of the UKG solution at the company’s Macedonia site, they are reporting saving two to three days in processing monthly payroll, creating a significant time savings over a year.
Key benefits that Johnson Matthey has realized with the UKG solution include increased efficiency, more accurate information, and time and cost savings. “We’ve implemented an industry standard,” said Carter. “The business approach to this essentially has returned back the investment on the projects that we’ve delivered, resulting in considerable improvements. We’re a lot more efficient with the team in UKG.” Using the solution has given the Johnson Matthey leadership team a more global view of its workforce and workforce data, and is enabling managers at all levels to better manage the workforce and better monitor and control labour costs.
“Having our workforce management processes become digital has made it considerably easier and more cost effective,” said Carter. “It’s improved everything considerably.”
