Digitizing Payroll Process: A Case Study on Scottish Fire and Rescue Service

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Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS), the world’s fourth largest fire and rescue service, was facing a significant challenge in managing employee and payroll data for its full-time, part-time, and volunteer staff. The process was manual and cumbersome, with hours logged on paper and then inputted into a spreadsheet. This data was used to determine pay calculations, call out fees, bank holiday payments, etc. This process was replicated across each of the 274 stations in Scotland, generating a monthly spreadsheet per station. All tracking, updating, and verification of crew data was manual, resulting in a time-consuming and frustrating process. Each year, station managers, watch managers, and payroll teams spent an estimated total of over 10,000 hours handling more than 3,000 spreadsheets. Additional time was also spent correcting human errors and responding to crew members’ requests about their pay. SFRS needed a solution to improve this process and make their staff more efficient.

Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) is the world’s fourth largest fire and rescue service, committed to ensuring the safety and wellbeing of the people of Scotland. SFRS delivers frontline services across Scotland responding to fires and other emergency incidents. The organization has a total staff of 8000, including full-time firefighters and staff as well as 3,400 Retained Duty Service (RDS) crew members and volunteer staff to serve the remote and rural communities of Scotland. Most of the SFRS retained and volunteer staff have primary employment in another field, but deliver the same range of emergency service as their full-time colleagues.

SFRS partnered with Nintex Partner Synergi to build a digitized payroll solution using Nintex Workflow and Nintex forms. The solution is a mobile app enabling Watch Managers and Officers in Charge to quickly record hours for their crews in attendance and add any remote crew if needed. Advanced workflows on the Nintex Platform then support the entire RDS timesheet process. The system validates all of the data captured against the internal systems, routes the details to the RDS crew for approval/amendment, keeps RDS crew updated and informed on expected monthly pay, enables watch managers and officers in charge to submit incidents to station and area managers for final review, provides central administrative and payroll teams with full visibility into the calculations and final outputs for approval, uses the profile and role data with HR info to accurately calculate pay, and provides output for integration with the finance systems.

• The implementation of the Nintex Platform has significantly improved the operational efficiency of the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service. The digitized payroll solution has not only saved thousands of hours of manual work but also limited payroll errors, improving the accuracy and visibility of payroll data. The mobile app has made it easier for Watch Managers and Officers in Charge to record hours for their crews, and the advanced workflows have streamlined the entire timesheet process. The solution has also improved the employee experience, providing 24/7 access and keeping staff updated and informed on their expected monthly pay. The new system has also provided central administrative and payroll teams with full visibility into the calculations and final outputs for approval, making the process more transparent and efficient.

• Saved 10,000 hours of manual work per year
• Limited Payroll errors
• Improved accuracy and visibility on payroll data