Workscape EnterpriseTM 4.2 Empowers Compensation Managers to Self-Tailor Plan Guidelines and Budgets for Superior ROI, Alignment with Strategic Business Goals
FRAMINGHAM, Mass. (March 3, 2003) - Workscape, Inc., a proven provider of benefits and workforce management solutions, today announced it will launch a new version of its market-leading suite of HR self-service applications. Available beginning April 2003 in both licensed and hosted deployment options, Workscape Enterprise 4.2 delivers important enhancements to the company's Compensation Planner product, including new configuration tools, support for complex variable pay programs, and additional decision support functionality. This new release allows HR administrators to design and adapt their own compensation plans, ensuring line managers can easily execute plans within their program guidelines for optimal allocation of the company's compensation resources. The result is a tool that is widely adopted by the workforce, and a compensation planning process that is more efficiently executed in support of a company's larger business objectives.
"Today's forward-thinking enterprises are striving to create compensation programs that are more directly aligned with their strategic business and financial goals. This means designing and executing compensation plans that recognize high-performance individuals, including those contributors with the most critical skills, and reward them accordingly," said Workscape CEO Tim Clifford. "Given the shifting dynamics of today's workforce population - including factors of geography, job function, and competency - the challenges of executing a global compensation plan are more complex than ever before. The enhancements available in this new release extend Workscape's compensation planning functionality to address these evolving needs and will help ensure our clients' plans can be administered on strategy, on budget, and on time."
Significant to the 4.2 release are new Plan Administration tools that deliver increased configurability and personalization of a company's compensation plan, allowing administrators to tailor plan guidelines and budgets themselves without costly IT or vendor support. Plan Administration allows the compensation manager to define access to the plan based on user roles; establish guidelines based on performance ratings; set budget targets; define multiple bonus plans as well as stock option guidelines and participation criteria; and establish limits and alerts for all compensation programs. Workscape Enterprise 4.2 also includes enhanced Variable Pay functionality, building on the product's existing stock option features to deliver increased "pay for performance" capability with support for multiple, complex bonus plans with multiple weighted objectives.
Additional new or enhanced Compensation Planner features available with Workscape Enterprise 4.2 include:
Global Compensation, which - unlike other solutions - supports international compensation practices, including international currencies and conversion rates, as well as cross calculation for monthly or annual planning cycles specific to the employee and country;
Enhanced Decision Support tools in the form of "pop-up" calculators, competitive market data displays, and corporate guidelines which dynamically appear at precisely the moment they are needed to assist managers in allocation decisions;
Flexible Screen Presentations, based on specific plan guidelines as well as employee or user attributes to allow for the demands of organizations with complex, multi-layered compensation programs; and Analytics and Reporting, including integration with Crystal Reports, the industry standard reporting solution, to allow managers access to data from Compensation Planner, as well as the ability to produce reports based on their organization's most critical success factors. Pre-formatted reports display charts and graphs, summary statistics, and detailed data.
"Overall," added Clifford, "we anticipate these enhancements will result in a lower total cost of ownership for customers, delivering additional product functionality while empowering customers to support the business and compensation requirements that are unique to their organization. When integrated with our full suite of workforce management applications, including Workforce Events, Executive Reporter, and Total Compensation Statements, clients can take advantage of a complete planning and communication solution not found in competitive offerings."
In addition to Compensation Planner, the new release allows clients to take advantage of Workscape's Organization Builder and Employee Survey products. Organization Builder is a simple to use, web-based tool designed to assist HR in aligning personnel within departments or work groups to ensure accurate reporting relationships across the company. A complementary application to Workscape's Compensation Planner and Workforce Events solutions, Organization Builder provides access to accurate organizational information at any level based on data within a client's back-end HRMS or ERP databases. Employee Survey enables HR administrators to quickly create and deploy web-based employee surveys, providing critical feedback on business topics with data that can be acted upon in real-time. Surveys can be launched from any Workscape standard application to solicit comments on the usability of that application for example, or to determine if employees are satisfied with their compensation package.
Workscape Enterprise 4.2 also contains enhancements to the company's Employee Self-Service applications, including ABA validation of bank routing numbers for direct deposit purposes, as well as real-time viewing of 2003 W-4 updates. Workscape's Employee Self-Service suite features a complete set of tools enabling employees to maintain information related to their address, emergency contacts, and beneficiaries; update pay-related information including Federal W-4 allowances and direct deposit instructions; and view pay stub details for current and previous pay periods.
Workscape recognizes that companies want to extend the value of the technology systems already in place; therefore, Workscape Enterprise 4.2 was designed to work within a client's existing multi-vendor environment, easily integrating with multiple back-end ERP, payroll, and stock administration systems without disruption.
About Workscape
Designed for the workforce, Workscape's solutions transform the delivery and adoption of HR services across the enterprise to enable a higher performing organization. An innovator in HR self-service, Workscape provides a full range of online benefits and workforce management applications including employee self-service, manager self-service, compensation planning, and benefits administration, as well as an employee portal. Workscape's applications and services are configurable to support each client's unique business processes, easily integrated into multi-vendor environments to ensure protection of existing technology investments, and are available in multiple deployment options to enable rapid implementation and ROI. Workscape's award-winning solutions have been embraced by millions of employees worldwide at 180 major corporations. For more information, visit the company at www.workscape.com or call (888) 605-9620.
Workscape is a registered trademark of Workscape, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.