Payroll reporting process goes green

February 24, 2014

On December 23, 3sHealth moved to an online payroll reporting process in conjunction with the Regional Health Authorities (RHAs), Saskatchewan Cancer Agency (SCA) and affiliate organizations.

Before making the switch to an electronic means of report generation and distribution, 3sHealth (and formerly SAHO) used to have to print, sort and ship paper payroll reports to each healthcare sector employer on a bi-weekly basis. That process was slow (where the information transfer was measured in days), costly (in terms of processing, packaging and shipping), and left employers open to the risk of confidential information being lost or compromised.

By going green, the payroll reporting process is saving tons of paper, and is much more efficient and secure. The switch is also saving some much needed green for the provincial healthcare system in terms of real dollars and cents.

For 3sHealth alone, the move is expected to generate $90,000 in cost savings annually, solely from lower printing and related contract costs. The equivalent of one FTE will also be saved, not to mention countless hours that were previously spent creating, sorting and distributing paper reports across the province. This means labour may be reallocated from paper report production to other information service activities.

Benefits to 3sHealth include:

• Reduced paper consumption by 85 per cent or 55,000 sheets of paper per month
• Freed up 275 sq. ft. of valuable office space – enough for three employees – where payroll printing, sorting and distribution activities used to happen
• Eliminated courier costs associated with physically distributing payroll reports to each region/agency

For the RHAs and the SCA, benefits include:

• More timely access to electronic reports
• Increased security of confidential information
• Reduced reliance on manual distribution of paper internally
• Ability to search and view information electronically without having to sort through paper. In the past, paper payroll reports were distributed to region/agency employees who work in the areas of payroll, benefits, finance and HR. After receiving the records, employees then had to physically process them. The work was labour intensive and time consuming, as they had to receive reams of paper from loading docks, sort it themselves and distribute it within their own organizations. They also had to find long-term storage to house all the paper reports that accumulated over time.

In addition to having significant distribution, paper and labour costs, the old process exposed employers and employees to the risk of privacy breaches due to the numerous handoffs that occurred and the potential to misplace documents on loading docks and in other areas. There was an additional risk of the information being exposed during internal distribution within employers.

Now, all the regions have to do is log on.

  3sHealth-Feb-2014-Payroll-reporting-goes-green.pdf