Braehead Shopping Centre
Braehead Shopping Centre
Braehead Shopping Centre uses TMS to efficiently manage its staff over the week.
Braehead is the largest privately funded waterside regeneration project in the UK and cost around £285 million to build. Opened in September 1999, the shopping centre and surroundings are the result of many years' planning, investment and dedication.Today Braehead is home to over 100 of the UK's top high street names including Marks & Spencers, Sainsbury's, Boots, Woolworths and Next. The largest IKEA store in the UK also opened here in October 2001.
The leisure facilities are outstanding with numerous cafés and restaurants and a public ice skating rink. The facilities offer also boasts an eight sheet curling rink, a 4000 seat international arena, riverside boardwalk and Maritime Heritage Centre.
The bright, breezy malls are spacious and clean, with easy access for wheelchairs, pushchairs and prams. Parking is no problem with 6500 FREE spaces, with colour-coded car parks surrounding the centre.
Braehead Glasgow is the company responsible for employing the vital behind-the-scene staff who ensure that the Shopping Centre runs effectively and efficiently. Staff employed include security, technical, customer services, cleaning, playgroup, administration and management personnel. In all, Braehead Glasgow employs 110 staff who ensure that shoppers enjoy the best environment and things run as smoothly as possible, seven days a week.
Keeping the Shopping Centre staffed efficiently is no mean feat. It has, however, been aided by Braehead Glasgow's investment in Mitrefinch's Time and Attendance Management System, TMS 4.
TMS was introduced at Braehead in 1999 and is operated across 2 terminals, networked to three PCs. The system covers all 110 staff and helps the overall management of a rolling roster to cover all shift patterns.
In practice, a daily time sheet is generated for each department and approved by the relevant supervisor. Each week, an overtime sheet is produced for each employee, enabling the monthly payroll to take into account, approved overtime plus any absences during the preceding month.
Prior to installing Mitrefinch time and attendance, Braehead Glasgow was reliant on an entirely manual process - daily timesheets and weekly overtime logs. An instant benefit of the TMS system was the way in which these processes could become more automated, bringing an important time saving to the HR function.
An added benefit of TMS is the system's detailed report function. The most commonly used by the Centre are the daily, weekly and cumulative overtime reports to assist with budgets and forecasting. In addition, the ability to download reports on absences and planned holidays enables the roster planner to become more effective, ensuring the right level of cover at all times.
The TMS system is simple and straightforward to use - an important factor in assisting its universal adoption amongst staff. Training requirements are minimal and as Jackie Morris at Braehead Glasgow adds: ‘Once installation was complete, all that was required was an onsite demonstration from Mitrefinch and we were up and running. Maintenance of the system is minimal - we've simply upgraded to subsequent versions of TMS with disks supplied.
TMS has the inbuilt capacity for growth in the number of staff on the system which is just as well as ambitious plans are afoot for the Shopping Centre. Braehead Shopping Centre and Retail Park now provide over one million square feet of shopping and leisure. There is potential for a further 300,000 sq ft of office space on the Shields Business Park and planning consent for a hotel on the land to the east of the A1 roundabout. A master plan has been developed and an outline plan has been granted permission for the land between the shopping centre and Renfrew. The further development will comprise: Xscape, Scotland's first snowdome plus cinema, health club, specialist sports and leisure shopping and a 175 room hotel, 28,000 square metre business park plus almost 900 homes including flats, townhouses and family homes public riverside parkland for the local community...'
