LA Times Employees Must Now “Punch In”

The paper has installed time clocks in the building, and Ed Padgett has the memo:

Date: August 17, 2010
From: Chris Avetisian, CFO
Gwen Murakami, SVP Administration
Subject: KRONOS – new time and attendance system
To: All LATMG employees

Here’s the first of several communication steps we will be taking to explain those black boxes that have been installed in our buildings. Tribune has initiated several technology projects to improve the efficiencies of many business processes and the new web-based KRONOS time and attendance system is one of them. KRONOS will replace our current time entry system that provides data for our paychecks every two weeks. The black boxes are time clocks which will be one way that employees will be able to report their time; online reporting is another way.

Because accurate paychecks are important to everyone, we want to be sure that we transition to KRONOS in the best way possible. Next month, we’ll provide training to managers/supervisors as well as to employees in each department, so you’ll be very familiar with the new process when we “go live”. We know that you have a lot of questions and we’ll be sure to address all of them in the upcoming training sessions.

Stay tuned for more updates in the coming weeks.

We’re not clear if newsroom employees will be among those expected to punch in like factory workers. Kevin Roderick notes on LA Observed, “In any newsroom, if editors and reporters actually stuck to their officially proscribed hours, the whole enterprise would creak to a halt.”

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