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In a smaller echo of the last time the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) tried to roll out its Administrative Information Management System (AIMS) software, hundreds of health-care workers have missed money from their paycheques.
At the end of June, the health authority launched the AIMS program for the second time.
It had tried to launch it in November 2022 but there were so many glitches and problems, including with paycheques, that the rollout was stopped and things were taken back to the drawing board.
Since the second launch there have been two paycheques issued, and president of CUPE local 5430 Bashir Jalloh said hundreds of his members were missing money – some more than $1,000.
“Most of our people live paycheque to paycheque and they have bills to pay, they have mortgages to pay, and if those monies aren’t showing up at the bank it’s a problem,” said Jalloh.
In some areas it’s people’s overtime pay that’s been affected, according to Jalloh, but for others it’s the pay from one or more of the facilities when they work in multiple places, and for some home care nurses mileage isn’t being paid.
Jalloh admits the number of people with issues is fewer than with the first AIMS rollout, but still called it significant.
He said there’s already a lot of apprehension among health-care workers because people are overworked.
“And now they have to worry about is the money going to be in the bank in time to pay their bills. You can’t function that way,” said Jalloh.
Some of these issues are similar to those in the first AIMS roll out, and Jalloh said it’s surprising and frustrating they’re having to deal with it again, two years later.
CUPE is working with the employers to deal with the problems but Jalloh said that, as far as he had been told, the cause of the problems hasn’t yet been identified.
CUPE 5430 this week demanded a plan to fix the problems with AIMS. Pay stubs for the next pay period are expected Wednesday afternoon, and Jalloh said Tuesday that employees were worried.
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Mike Northcott, chief human resource officer with the SHA and member of the AIMS executive steering committee, said in a statement on Tuesday that all missing wages had been paid out, but Jalloh said that’s not the case.
Jalloh said some employees have been given some but not all of the wages they were missing.
“Our members feel that there is a total lack of respect and instead of the employer trying to resolve the issue, they are trying to minimize it,” said Jalloh.
3SHealth, which responded on behalf of Northcott, declined to comment further on this point.
Northcott said in the statement that AIMS will replace more than 80 older systems with one seamless, modern and secure system.
The rollout is being done with a phased-in approach, with payslips first and scheduling and time entry to be added in later. The whole thing was expected to be in place next year, according to Northcott.
“As with any payroll process, errors occur and small number of employees did not receive a bank deposit at the expected time,” Northcott said in the statement.
Of the 48,000 payslips sent out each pay period, the error rate in the first run was less than one per cent, according to Northcott. In the second run it was “well below” one per cent.
“Instances where employees do not receive their pay are being addressed quickly, and all staff are being paid. As issues are identified, advances are processed,” said Northcott, who called the launch a success overall.
Development of AIMS was started in 2018 with the total cost expected to have been $86 million. By the end of March 2023, $157 million had been spend on the system and the forecast cost to implement it was $240 million, according to a December 2023 auditor’s report.
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