A new software system is being introduced in the healthcare sector in the province, and it has been causing some headaches for employees throughout Saskatchewan. The AIMS program, or Administrative Information Management System, which was originally introduced in 2022 before being rolled back due to issues, is being re-introduced starting with its use for payroll.
The system launched in June, with the first payroll run under the new system happening on July 5th, and the second on July 19th. However, there have been reports throughout the province of staff not receiving all of their pay, or not getting paid out for various things such as mileage, expenses, and professional fees.
“I know that we’ve had a lot of concerns, especially from lab staff who take callback that they were not paid for their callback, so I mean, that’s a huge concern,” said Adrienne Gardiner. She is the general vice president for Region 4 with CUPE 5430. Region 4 covers much of the southeast. “They’re taking time out of their lives to go back to the hospitals to do that, and then not being paid for the time that they’re doing the call.”
While a request for an interview with 3sHealth or the Saskatchewan Health Authority was declined, they did respond to the request with a written statement from Mike Northcott, the Chief Human Resource Officer with the SHA, and a member of the AIMS Executive Steering Committee. In that statement, he acknowledged there was an issue.
“Payroll runs using the new Administrative Information Management System are performing with an error rate of less than one percent,” Northcott said in the statement. “This rate is in line with what was experienced with the legacy payroll system. With any payroll system, errors can occur within regular processes. Those errors are flagged by our team and immediately investigated. In our second payroll cycle, we saw an error rate of less than one percent from 48,000 payslips. Those cases were escalated, and advances sent to those employees as soon as possible.”
Northcott added that all missing wages from the first and second payroll runs had also been paid out to the employees, something Gardiner said hasn’t happened.
“We had one member who emailed as soon as Mike Northcott made that comment that all staff had been paid what they had been missing on their first paychecks, and that is untrue,” Gardiner affirmed. “I think most of my members here at the lab in Weyburn have not yet been paid.”
“It is really disheartening to know your employer, instead of working to try to solve the problem, but rather engages in public PR, giving misleading information,” added Bashir Jalloh. He is the president of CUPE 5430. “I mean, people are really hurt. The members are hurt when they hear that my pay is not still being corrected, and somebody is telling the press or the media that it’s being corrected. What is important? Is it more important to look after your members, or is it more important for the public PR?”
The issues with AIMS are not the first ones that have been identified. AIMS was initially introduced in October of 2022 and was shut down after one week, according to Jalloh. He explained the systems had significant problems with pay, job postings, time tracking, payroll approval, and inventory. This saw everything go back to the legacy system while work was done with AIMS.
“We, the union, we had several meetings with them to highlight some of the issues that we have faced,” Jalloh said of the fallout from the initial introduction of AIMS. “We have been told that when it’s going to be rolled out, it’s going to be done differently. There were some of the suggestions we provided to them, and one of the main suggestions we provided to them is to do this incrementally, to roll it out in a small chunk. For example, go to this facility, roll it out, or this area, or this department, for rolling it out, and see what is going to happen.”
Despite the issues that have been identified, Northcott has stated the introduction of AIMS for the payroll system has been good.
“The launch has been a success overall,” Northcott said in the written statement provided to Discover Weyburn. “We are thankful for the effort and flexibility of health system employees to learning and adapting during the first phase of AIMS implementation.”
Jalloh said he just wants to see the system get fixed.
“Most of the people that this is affecting are our members who are not, they don’t have much of a cushion for savings, for anything,” Jalloh said. “We just did a survey not long ago with our members, and then we found out about 70 percent of the respondents of that survey of our members described their household finances as poor or very poor. So, that being said, if people are living paycheck to paycheck and they go to work, they did their part, they did their work, and you are not able to pay them, how do you expect them to pay the mortgage.”
AIMS is planned to be completely rolled out in its entirety in 2025 and is expected to replace more than 80 ageing and non-integrated systems into one system.