Implementation of Allegro's Absences and Overtime Management module at Lombard Odier Bank

"How comforting it is to know that with Allegro's different access rights each user has access to everything they need and are entitled to."

Founded in 1796, Lombard Odier is one of Switzerland's oldest banks. It serves private and institutional clients with a wide range of wealth management services. Lombard Odier is active in 14 countries with a staff of around 1'700 persons.

As the headcount more than doubled since the late 1990s, HR had to adapt its tools and procedures to manage and serve such a large number of people.

Absence management was the first Allegro module to be introduced by Lombard Odier. Previously, absences were managed by the HR department using an obsolete software unconnected to the payroll software. Staff were required to request absences on paper for approval by their supervisor. Once approved, each department absence manager would monthly input the absences into an Excel spreadsheet and send the data to HR were it was re-entered into the software. Finally, monthly lists were sent to the department absence managers to be checked once again.

Each month, a considerable amount of work was required. Five HR assistants were mobilized 2 days per month and the 40 department absence managers were busy half a day per month. Since there was no consolidated planning, each department had their own system. Moreover, HR had no control over these events.

An alternative solution was required. One that would provide reliable data gathering and would give staff accurate statements of individual and group absences.

The selected package was Allegro Absence management from Adequasys.

Today, staff consult the group absence schedule and enter their requests for absences directly in their workstations. Supervisors are alerted by an e-mail when requests for absences are made and they are approved/rejected direcly in Allegro. Busy supervisors can delegate this task to an assistant. Approved absences are automatically updated in the group schedules, as well as in other systems. The transparency of the system ensures that absences are well planned and do not conflict. Vacation balances and carry-overs are also automatically kept up to date. In addition, HR have access to all data all of the time.

Immediate advantages have been noted and measured:

• considerable savings by eliminating the department absence managers (savings of 20 days/month) and reducing the HR load (savings of 7,5 days/month or 1.5 days for each of the 5 assistants)
• standardization of procedures, with up to date and consistent schedules for all
• satisfaction of staff members who now have real-time access to their absences and statistics
• streamlining of receptionists' work since they know who is absent when and for what reason
• improved HR efficiency since they have real time data on absenteeism.
• better risk management since HR can ensure that staff are taking sufficient vacations.

Absence management in Allegro has been in operational at Lombard Odier since 2003. It has been very well received by staff who find it user-friendly and simple.

Lombard Odier subsequently introduced the Overtime Management since it wanted to limit the amount of overtime being paid. It enables staff to enter overtime for approval by the manager. Staff state whether they want to have overtime compensated in cash or in days off. In the first case, the data is transfered to the payroll system while in the second the vacation balance is adjusted.

WIth this module, HR was able to efficiently monitor overtime in each department, plan for adjustments in the headcount and limit overtime abuses.