DALTON, Mass. — Since taking on the role of town manager, Eric Anderson has been finding ways to streamline operations to save on labor hours — now he is eyeing improving workforce management. 

 

"By my rough math, we're chewing up some 1,500 hours a year doing payroll, and there's just no reason for that. The way we're doing it now is incredibly inefficient," he told the Select Board last week. 

 

The board approved Anderson's recommendation to undergo contract negotiations with TimeClock Plus, a scheduling software designed to simplify employee time tracking and workforce management.

 

The town has 62 paid employees who currently submit their timesheets on paper, which are then manually reviewed by department heads, who calculate hours, vacation time, and prepare cover sheets before forwarding them to the treasurer or town manager to be approved. 

 

The assistant treasurer then spends several days each week processing the town's payroll, Anderson said. 

 

As part of his efforts to streamline this process, Anderson looked at multiple different services narrowing it down to TimeClock Plus, or TCP, because of its ease of integration with the town's regular financial software and that it's commonly used by municipalities. 

 

"Some of the payroll programs are designed to go directly to payroll companies, but since we do our payroll in house, this cuts all the manual correlation, and it filters directly into our existing [Enterprise Resource Planning] financial software," he said.