Guilford Technical Community College (GTCC) serves about 30,000 students a year across six campuses in Guilford County, North Carolina. Offering more than 70 degrees along with short-term career training programs, GTCC has roughly 1,800 staff and faculty. Every department relies on TimeClock Plus to track time and manage time off.
GTCC’s Enterprise Applications Manager, Trey Bentley, has worked with TimeClock Plus from the start. As a systems administrator at the college for more than a decade, he helped implement it in 2015.
Punch clocks and paper forms
Before TimeClock Plus, GTCC ran on loud, clunky mechanical punch clocks. Every employee’s punch card lived at a single clock, so punching in or out meant each employee had to make their way back there, regardless of where the workday took them.
For staff who moved around campus or between multiple campuses, the walks back and forth added up. A technician working at another campus had to head back to home base to clock out for lunch. When the bookstore manager sent someone to cover a different location, the punch card had to go along for the ride, and any missed punch needed a manager’s approval.
The inefficiency didn’t stop at the time clock. Every time off request started with a paper form, employees who didn’t know their accrual balance had to call the payroll office to find out, and payroll staff entered every employee’s time by hand.
GTCC needed a solution that would let employees clock in and out from anywhere, take manual data entry off the payroll team’s plate, and speed up time off requests.
Two things made TimeClock Plus stand out:
1. Several of GTCC’s sister community colleges used it
2. It offered the best integration with Ellucian Colleague, the college’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) software
A quick and smooth rollout
With TimeClock Plus selected, the work started with data. GTCC spent the first month building and verifying the college’s ERP employee file. After that, “the rest was a breeze,” Bentley says, and configuration with the TCP team came together in about a month.
While configuration wrapped up, GTCC got its people ready. Payroll staff received dedicated training, and every employee attended at least one required session, with separate training for team members and team leaders.
Once GTCC went live, the change felt smooth from day one. Self-serve time off balances were one of the first wins. Employees who used to call the payroll office about their accruals could look them up on their own and plan their time off requests accordingly.
“We can check our time off accruals without having to bug payroll,” Bentley says.
Time back for employees, payroll, and supervisors
Time off requests no longer start with a paper form. Employees submit them in TimeClock Plus, and supervisors get an email to approve them. Once a request is approved, the employee receives a confirmation email.
Filling out a request takes far less time.
“A paper time off request used to take about 15 minutes. TimeClock Plus brings that down to two, maybe three minutes,” Bentley says. “That adds up over time. It no longer feels like a chore.”
But the biggest improvement is how quickly the request gets resolved.
Plus, the time savings reach beyond employees. The payroll team no longer keys in every employee’s time by hand, since hours from TimeClock Plus flow into Ellucian Colleague through the integration.
Supervisors gain time, too. Tracking absences and attendance used to take three to four hours a week. Now, because supervisors have everything they need in one place instead of their own spreadsheets, it only takes 30 minutes. For example, one quick look at the manager dashboard shows whether punches match the hours employees worked.
Timecard corrections also move faster. Fixing errors, including on student worker timecards, used to take supervisors and payroll staff days. Now most issues take an email or two per affected employee.
One badge for doors, printers, and clocking in
GTCC employees already used radio frequency identification (RFID) badges to get into buildings and use campus printers. Bentley wanted the time clocks on that same card, so he arranged for employee badge numbers to be uploaded to TimeClock Plus. To get the sync running, he worked with TCP customer support and was grateful for the representative’s knowledge.
“They were helpful and we were able to meet the goal in a timely manner,” he says.
Now employees use one badge for doors, printers, and TimeClock Plus kiosks. Signing in online is just as simple, with single sign-on through employees’ college network credentials. With badges and sign-in working at any kiosk or college computer, employees clock in at the nearest spot.
“TimeClock Plus makes it easy to do what we need to do,” Bentley says. “The fact that it’s accessible from nearly any company computer is incredible.”
Results at a glance
| Process | Before | After |
| Time-off approvals | 3 days | Hours |
| Time-off requests | 15 minutes | 2–3 minutes |
| Weekly attendance tracking | 3–4 hours | 30 minutes |
| Timecard corrections | Days | 1–2 emails |
Still the right fit after a decade
More than a decade in, TimeClock Plus has kept pace with GTCC. The college moved from an on-premises installation to the cloud version hosted by TCP, which Bentley says is much easier for the IT team to manage. That gives his team time to build reports and connect new integrations.
“I don’t see it going away or being replaced,” he says. “TCP has treated us very well.”
GTCC first chose TimeClock Plus in part because sister colleges used it. Now, Bentley is the one other colleges ask. He even offers to help them with their own configurations, like the badge sync.
TCP Software’s employee scheduling and time and attendance solutions are flexible and scalable to accommodate your business and employees as you grow.
From TimeClock Plus, which automates even the most complex payroll calculations and leave management requests, to Humanity Schedule for dynamic employee scheduling that saves you time and money, we have everything you need to meet your organization’s needs, no matter how unique. Plus, with Aladtec, we offer 24/7 public safety scheduling solutions for your hometown heroes.
Ready to learn how TCP Software takes the pain out of employee scheduling and time tracking? Speak with an expert today.
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