Preferred Solutions is a 22-year-old information technology consulting, staffing and training company with a primary focus on project-based solutions for the healthcare industry. The company relies on an internal team of 13 employees that supports an external team of 30 to 300 consultants. The number of people involved in a project varies, as does the duration of a particular project, ranging anywhere from two weeks to six months.
Since becoming president and CEO of Preferred Solutions in 2002, Marie Seipenko has set the company apart from its competitors. And like any hard-working leader, she’ll tell you that she didn’t do it alone – that it takes the right people and the right resources to be successful.
One of those right resources for this rapidly growing business is TrackSmart. Upon adopting this intuitive, easy-to-use web-based software, Preferred Solutions is experiencing all the advantages of electronic time tracking.
An Accommodating Approach
Like other forward-thinking companies, Preferred Solutions prides itself in being flexible with its staff and promoting a healthy work-life balance. They needed a resource that wasn’t too formal or rigid – one that mirrored their accommodating attitude toward time off.
Next, there’s the format of TrackSmart itself, which replaced the company’s previous, ineffective efforts and brought much-needed structure and consistency to time tracking. Before TrackSmart, employees would call an administrator when they wanted time off, who would then put it in a Word document on a shared drive. “What happened, what always happens, is that no one looked at it,” shares Marie.
Then, like a breath of fresh air, one of Marie’s employees suggested TrackSmart – a web app that she said would be 1) affordable and 2) simple. Needless to say, this piqued Marie’s interest.
It All Adds Up
For these reasons, TrackSmart was an appealing option for Preferred Solutions. But that wasn’t all. Beyond the cultural fit were a handful of practical features that sealed the deal.
For starters, the company wanted something that was web-based, so employees could use it on the go and any time they wanted. This is an important distinction with TrackSmart. Employees can submit time-off requests from any desktop computer or their Apple or Android devices via the complementary TrackSmart mobile app.
The company also liked that TrackSmart required supervisor sign-off, which ensures that employees request time off and get approval. Because the company has a small internal team – eight employees in sales and delivery and the rest in administrative support – this level of communication and confirmation is especially helpful. For example, if the lead finance person is off on a particular day, the rest of the management team knows to go to that person’s backup.
Thanks to its ease and flexibility, TrackSmart quickly became the company’s preferred employee time-tracking tool. “It’s important to take care of your people, and it’s important to do things that make sense,” Marie says. “TrackSmart isn’t complicated. It gives us everything we need.”
