The Chicago Cubs Manage Complex Human Capital Management with UltiPro® |
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Weston, FL, June 17, 2010 — Ultimate Software (Nasdaq: ULTI), the leading provider of unified, end-to-end human capital management (HCM) SaaS solutions in North America, today announced that the Chicago Cubs activated the UltiPro HCM solution to better manage an increasingly diverse workforce, as well as handle complex multi-state taxation and payroll requirements associated with unions, in January 2010.
As part of the Tribune Company, the Chicago Cubs previously used a large enterprise resource planning solution (ERP) to manage the baseball team’s HR and payroll processes. After the team was acquired by Ricketts Acquisition, the Cubs needed to swiftly move to an HCM solution that could address the team’s compensation challenges. For example, many states and cities have complicated tax regulations requiring professional athletes to pay taxes in each state where they play, even if they’re only on the field for a few hours. It was clear to the organization’s selection team that Ultimate was the best solution to address these challenges.
“As a professional sports organization, we have intricate compensation issues involving unique contracts for different players and very complex taxation,” said Jamie Norton, finance manager for the Chicago Cubs. “Previously, we had to manipulate data to get the proper pay calculations, often creating a mismatch in compensation information because some data had been overwritten to ensure players were paid correctly. UltiPro is flexible and powerful enough to automate these processes for us so our data is accurate and manual reconciliation is minimized for a correct payroll.”
“We had no errors in our first live payroll with UltiPro,” said Jenny Surma, senior director of human resources for the Chicago Cubs. “The only change for employees was the simple adjustment to go to a different Web site to view personal HR and payroll information.”
With a 182-day season, the Cubs’ payroll roster can scale from 200 employees in January to 1,200 employees in the summer. Although some employees are players, many members of the workforce work in the Friendly Confines of Wrigley Field or support the team in minor league locations, and they can be paid on an hourly, salaried, or contractual basis. For the Chicago Cubs, UltiPro delivers scalable functionality with an investment advantage that makes business sense.
“We needed large-enterprise functionality that would also make sense for an organization that is sometimes 200 active employees,” said Surma. “UltiPro provides us with comprehensive HR features that adapt to whatever size we are at any time, and the solution doesn’t require the costly hardware or maintenance of an ERP system. UltiPro is definitely an excellent fit for us.”
One unique aspect to the Cubs’ operation is that it handles major and minor league teams that are compensated differently. Several hundred minor leaguers join the team each year, and many employees require payroll changes during the season, such as when they change playing levels within the player development system.
With UltiPro, the Cubs can make simultaneous updates for specific groups of employees in compliance with pay changes dictated by union contracts. Previously, Surma’s team had to manually enter those updates for each employee. “We used to make salary changes by hand for hundreds of stadium operations personnel and minor league players,” Surma noted. “UltiPro has eliminated days of data entry for us by handling wage changes for groups at one time.”
“UltiPro was built with both the strategic and operational HCM needs of diverse organizations in mind, including delivering the tools these companies need to stay compliant and manage their operations efficiently,” said Greg Swick, chief sales officer for Ultimate. “We believe it’s our dedicated focus on human capital management and our proven track record with more than two decades of experience in HR, payroll, and talent management that allows us to better handle the complex needs of professional sports organizations like the Chicago Cubs.”
The leading provider of unified, end-to-end human capital management (HCM) SaaS solutions in North America, Ultimate markets its award-winning UltiPro solution as an on-demand service through Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). Based in Weston, FL, the Company employs approximately 1,000 professionals who are focused on developing the highest quality products and services. In 2009, Ultimate was awarded first place in the People’s Choice Stevie® competition for Favorite New SaaS Product and was ranked the #1 best medium-sized company to work for in America by the Great Place to Work® Institute for the second consecutive year. In 2008, Ultimate was the first HR/payroll SaaS provider to be audited and awarded the ISO/IEC 27001:2005 Certification for security management and was recognized for having the #1 “Best Product Development Team” in the nation by the American Business Awards. Ultimate has more than 1,900 customers representing diverse industries, including such organizations as The Container Store, Culligan International, Elizabeth Arden, Major League Baseball, The New York Yankees Baseball Team, Nikon Inc., and Ruth’s Chris Steak House. More information on Ultimate’s products and services can be found at www.ultimatesoftware.com.
UltiPro is a registered trademark of The Ultimate Software Group, Inc.
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