Technology Drives Intelligent Transport Systems

Delivering intelligent transport and road management systems across the African continent demands a pioneering approach using top technology to manage a large workforce and related data.

This is the view of business leaders at InstaToll Africa, which provides a variety of services for road infrastructure, relying on its more than 1 000 employees across Africa to deliver its solutions.

From compliance to fair labour practices, financial management, time and attendance tracking, and every element associated with the InstaToll workforce, the company found that manual interventions were inadequate.

Before breaking away from Group 5, InstaToll had been using cloud-based software, Kronos WFM, to efficiently manage its workforce.

As it established its independent footprint across Africa, the team realised this was not a task that could be undertaken without technological intervention.

Without a reliable WFM workforce management system, managing payroll and timesheets across the plazas would be time-consuming, a far greater number of human resources would be required, and both the business and its employees would suffer the brunt of inevitable human error, said Ayanda Zwelibanzi, payroll officer at InstaToll.

The companys management leaned on the expertise of its long-term solutions implementation specialists, LabourGenie.Net to find the best fit for the business.

Having had experience with the Kronos system, the cloud-based UKG Dimensions, now UKG Pro Workforce Management under the UKG Pro product suite, was a natural, yet considered choice.

According to InstaToll HR/IR Manager, Thuli Madikiza, the UKG implementation was prefaced by in-depth assessment, planning, and training.

This resulted in a seamless implementation. The team at LabourGenie.net provided invaluable support in all phases of the project, with particular focus on secure data cleansing and migration to the new system, configuration, and training.

UKG values its partnerships and customers in South Africa.

Onboarding InstaToll and supporting LabourGenie.Net has been a priority in the territory, said Wendy Wood, UKG senior director.

What InstaToll needed was a robust time and attendance solution that could grow with the business, scale up as it expanded further into Africa, and which offered sound absence management as a module.

For these reasons, we chose UKG. It is the best fit for our business, and the plug and play modules it offers give us the flexibility we desperately need, states Sipho Thamane, financial director at InstaToll.

From a risk perspective, the solution not only increases productivity and efficiencies correct schedules, limited overtime, less absenteeism but also mitigates the risk of CCMA cases, as human error is eliminated.

In instances where a CCMA case does occur, irrefutable time and attendance records often offer vital, submissible evidence. This is another benefit of data-driven business management, said Madikiza.

While the WFM solution offers several marked benefits, to InstaToll the most critical are uniform pay policies across the organisation and fair remuneration of labour.

With the solution, we ensure we have the right person, at the right place, at the right time, and with the right skills all while also accurately monitoring and assessing labour budgets and payroll, proactively tackling absence management, and effectively tracking employee leave, Madikiza said.

In the highly regulated labour space, sound HR management and compliance are critical business success factors.

Labour costs make up 40 to 50 of our financials if these figures are manual, it is seen as a huge red flag even the smallest of errors can have disastrous knock-on effects, said Thamane.

The ability to make data-driven decisions also ensures sound business strategy, accurate and timeous reporting to the board, a deep understanding of risks and how to mitigate them, and empowers us to overcome reactive management.

Now the business is streamlined, scheduling capabilities are enhanced, data is transformed into meaningful insights, and all facets of workforce management are integrated into one solution.

The result is a future-proofed organisation, leaning on a highly configurable, cost-effective tool, said Dereck Sigamoney, managing director at LabourGenie.net.

As a cloud-based solution, InstaToll further benefits from no need for on-premises servers and associated maintenance costs, automatic updates, access to the latest features and security patches, easy scalability, seamless remote access, and improved data security measures with full compliance to General Data Protection Regulation and Protection of Personal Information Act.