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Managing care with biometric T&A

Taking care of the welfare and burial needs of the Jewish community around Johannesburg that requires an annual budget in excess of R200 million, (of which 70% comes from fundraising and donations), emphasises the necessity to implement sustainable cost-saving initiatives.

Established in 1988, Chevrah Kadisha is the oldest Jewish organisation in Johannesburg. The NGO has a full portfolio of welfare projects such as three care facilities for the aged, facilities for physically and mentally challenged people, place of safety for children, maintaining over 40 000 graves at three burial sites, and protected employment programmes for people unable to function in the open market. The Chevrah has a total of 1000 fulltime residents and over 1000 families and individuals are assisted with food, rent, healthcare, counselling and education.

To run an organisation of this magnitude takes a permanent staff complement of 600 with another 400 outside contractors and many more volunteers. The support services such as fundraising, finance and operations are centrally managed at the headquarters in Sandringham.

Corene Breedt, chief operations officer, Chevrah Kadisha

Corene Breedt, chief operations officer, is responsible for functions such as logistics, transport (44 vehicles), external contractors, donation stores, building and garden maintenance, catering and housekeeping.

“I came on board in March last year. A priority efficiency improvement initiative was to improve payroll processes and to minimise the administrative burden on payroll staff. We needed to ensure that people were paid correctly for shift work and to eliminate the mistakes inherent in uncontrolled and unsubstantiated manual signing off, particularly with overtime claims. Queries are bound to happen and this could take time to sort out before payment was issued. Apart from tightening controls through minimising the administration work we are freeing up valuable time of our 11 section managers.”

To this end, EXCO proposed to Chevrah’s Board to go the electronic route with a biometric fingerprint time and attendance system rather than a card system. “We preferred taking two steps forward than one step with a card system and then later upgrade technology to biometrics”.

Centurion-based ERS Biometrics implemented Phase 1 in September of 2013, piloting three smaller Chevrah operations involving approximately 200 permanent staff members. In January this year the project was fast tracked to include all permanent staff, including management. Only one person’s fingerprint – that of an elderly lady – could not be loaded onto the ERS device, even though four fingerprints for each staff member was loaded. ERS is currently completing all sites which will bring the total devices installed to 20. Added advantages are that managers who travel between facilities can clock in on all the sites. Another benefit is that the system also allows for clocking in via a cellphone.

Chevrah has high praise for ERS with the contract: “Whoever I have dealt with at ERS Biometrics has been accommodating and helpful, whether it is the person confirming tickets we have received, the technicians, on the implementation etc.,” commented Cindy Krawchuk, group human resources manager.

Breedt said that ERS Biometrics was sympathetic to Chevrah Kadisha as an NGO and structured the costs to be affordable. Delme Hawkins explained: “We formulated the deal in that there would be no capital outlay for Chevrah. We never charged for training, implementation, or annual support and maintenance of the hardware and software and the additional access control hardware or labour involved. Instead, we structured a rental arrangement where Chevrah pay a fixed amount per month per device that will, in time, cover the cost of the hardware and operational costs incurred.”

The outside contractors will be put into the system at a later stage as Breedt “wants to keep an eye on the ball and iron out any shortcomings timeously.”

An important function of the ERS Biometrics system is the Enforcer module that prompts management via e-mail when a discrepancy is discovered – when employees miss a clock in or out – to update their records with the missing information. Failure to do this within a designated time prompts an e-mail to be sent to the operations manager. This ensures that records are rectified before close of day.

“From the Chevrah managers’ point of view, the Enforcer module improves our efficiency as they can immediately be aware of shortages of staff in certain sectors. This can be critical when caring for aged or infirm people. The time period to react is significantly reduced,” says Breedt.

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