Newest Version of Kronos(R) Workforce Central(R): Innovative Suite of Human Resources, Payroll, Scheduling, and Time and Labor Solutions Addresses Key Workforce Management Priorities.

CHELMSFORD, Mass. -- Workforce Management Leader Announces Availability of Latest Integrated Suite

With delivery of the newest version of the Workforce Central(R) suite, Kronos(R) Incorporated (Nasdaq: KRON) further extends its position as the leading workforce management solutions provider. Workforce Central 5.1, built on the most advanced industry-standard technology, addresses C-level workforce management priorities through delivery of hundreds of enhancements and new applications across its comprehensive suite of human resources, payroll, scheduling, and time and labor solutions.

"C-level executives are continuously looking for ways to improve business performance. Most have already optimized areas of their organization such as the supply chain and CRM," said Peter George, chief technology officer, Kronos Incorporated. "These executives are now driving a new wave of change by turning to the workforce to gain a competitive advantage. The latest version of Workforce Central enables employers to drive value from their workforce into all areas of their business."

Workforce Central 5.1, with its many enhancements and new solutions in areas such as technology, absence management, performance and compensation management, scheduling, and employee self-service, helps organizations maximize the value of every employee relationship by aligning complex workforces with ever-changing work and business goals. The solution delivers new tools to the desktop of C-level executives as well as those closest to the action, providing them with information to make better workforce decisions and to take effective action. Workforce Central 5.1 is a testament to Kronos' commitment to applying innovative technology to unsolved workforce management business problems.

Meeting the technology needs of today's business enterprises

Workforce Central is built from the ground up to enable CIOs and IT departments to confidently select it as one of their strategic enterprise application platforms. Workforce Central uses a J2EE architecture to set the standard for component-based, multi-tier enterprise applications.

Supporting a wide variety of databases, application/web servers, operating systems, and deployment strategies, Workforce Central is designed to seamlessly fit into virtually any existing IT environment. The solution scales to more than one million employees and is successfully deployed in hundreds of the world's largest organizations.

Workforce Central also is built to deliver low cost of ownership to enterprises. Its easily configurable rules engines, comprehensive library of web services, XML-based interface tools, and innovative promote-to-production and record management capabilities, provide customers with unparalleled agility to adapt to emerging business needs.

Solving the absence management problem

Absenteeism in the workplace impacts an organization's ability to compete and achieve business goals by disrupting production, impacting customer service levels, and inflating overall payroll expenses. In fact, 15 percent of an organization's total payroll costs are attributed to unscheduled absences. The indirect costs of absenteeism can double or even triple that amount, and include overtime, temporary labor expenses, and lost productivity. Until now, organizations lacked tools to holistically manage and control absenteeism.

Workforce Central provides the only total absence management solution available today that enables organizations to address this growing problem. Employees are engaged with self-service access to planning their own work and tracking their own attendance. Managers gain visibility into absence trends and patterns, as well as tools to manage these manual processes and to take effective disciplinary action. Workforce Central also can help with federal and state compliance mandates, such as FMLA. With complete visibility into that data, managers can make better decisions regarding policy enforcement, workforce deployment, and overall performance. Organizations can now balance the needs of their employees and their business, all at the same time, while lowering the costs of employee absenteeism.

Addressing workforce deployment with advancements in scheduling

Organizations in healthcare, manufacturing, and retail are reaping enterprise-wide benefits from Workforce Central's award-winning scheduling solutions. A panel of customers from a variety of industries worked with Kronos to define the problems associated with scheduling in complex environments. The latest release of Workforce Central addresses these issues and delivers new tools focused on not only balancing labor costs with business demand, but also improving employee satisfaction and retention.

The latest version of Workforce Central includes new employee self-scheduling capabilities that meet the needs of both their business and their employees. The solution engages employees by giving them visibility into schedule postings and the ability to sign up or bid on the shifts they desire. This enables organizations to improve employee satisfaction and retention while minimizing the need for overtime and contingent labor. With its unmatched scalability and many other advancements, the new solution solves the most complex scheduling problems.

Creating strategic employee performance and compensation planning processes

Advanced functionality available in Workforce Central enables organizations to improve productivity and organizational efficiencies during the performance appraisal and compensation review cycles. The latest version of Workforce Central includes enhanced functionality in two of the most strategic areas of HR -- performance and compensation management. Often these processes are slow and discouraging to both managers and employees. Workforce Central brings these two processes out from the back office and into the hands of line-of-business professionals, transforming these processes into strategic opportunities for organizations to align their workforce with organizational objectives.

With Workforce Central, managers can clearly communicate goals and performance requirements to their employees and actively engage those employees in improving productivity. They also can conduct timely and secure online reviews that are consistent, yet personalized. Workforce Central also provides managers with powerful self-service tools to propose, approve, and implement a cohesive compensation strategy that motivates and retains the right performers while hitting the budget targets. By having managers and employees engaged in the process, results in a workforce whose performance and compensation are aligned with the organization's goals.

Leading the way in data collection

As privacy concerns become a growing issue for organizations, Kronos is once again leading the industry by integrating SSL data encryption technology into its line of data collection terminals. In addition, the terminals now offer employees access to self-service processes, once reserved only for those with access to a PC. At a Kronos terminal, employees can request time off, review personal information and payroll data, and send and receive messages using Kronos' unique KMail system. Employees also are empowered to manage their own work hours by reviewing and approving time cards, freeing managers to focus on strategic areas of the business.

Availability

Workforce Central 5.1 is generally available. For more information regarding Kronos solutions call [phone].

About Kronos Incorporated

Kronos Incorporated is the most trusted name in workforce management. Kronos helps organizations staff, develop, deploy, track, and reward their workforce, resulting in reduced costs, increased productivity, better decision-making, improved employee satisfaction, and alignment with organizational objectives. More than 20 million people use a Kronos solution every day. Learn more about Kronos' high-impact enterprise solutions at www.kronos.com.

(C) 2005 Kronos Incorporated. Kronos, Workforce Central, and the Kronos logo are registered trademarks of Kronos Incorporated or a related company. All other product and company names mentioned are used for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners.