Does your company have an incident response plan in case your personnel related digital and cloud based platforms are shut down? Federal and state laws require companies to maintain compliance with personnel related regulations, regardless of such failures. A recent incident highlights the need for your company to be prepared now.
On Saturday, December 11, 2021, the Ultimate Kronos Group (UKG or Kronos) sent a notice to its customers— that it was “made aware of issues impacting the availability of UKG solutions using the Kronos Private Cloud (KPC).” These impacted systems—including UKG Workforce Central, UKG TeleStaff, and Banking Scheduling Solutions—are software that many employers rely on for managing critical personnel operations including timekeeping and payroll.
Kronos has informed its customers: “At this time, we still do not have an estimated restoration time and it is likely that the issue may require at least several days to resolve. We continue to recommend that our impacted customers evaluate alternative plans to process time and attendance data for payroll processing, to manage schedules, and to manage other related operations important to their organization. For additional assistance, please open a case in the UKG Kronos Community. UKG Support Representatives are available to assist walking you through alternatives.”
While this incident is limited to Kronos customers, leaving many employers scrambling to figure out how to make payroll, keep track of employees’ schedules and time worked, and maintain compliance with state and federal wage and hour laws, it is a sober reminder of the importance of having a backup plan in place to account for an interruption in digital and cloud–based platforms, which we’ve become so accustomed to relying. Indeed, employers must endeavor to satisfy their legal obligations notwithstanding the disruption caused by a third-party vendor. The following bullet points contain general advice on best practices during the outage, but employers are encouraged to consult with counsel given the variation in how an outage can impact their operations and the various state laws involved:
Foley’s Labor & Employment attorneys are continuously monitoring developments relating to Kronos and are available to answer client inquiries as they relate to this fluid situation.