Tara Crisp, the Technology Services Manager for Cobb County Georgia, works to support her team as well as many other departments within the county. Cobb County is a major metro county of Atlanta that is home to roughly 800,000 residents, allowing her to have diverse experiences within her role. She tells us she loves her job for this reason, because no day is the same and she gets to support other teams outside of her own on various solutions. She has been part of the Information Services department for about 14 years, where she does a variety of procurement tasks, like creating RFPs and utilizing cooperative purchasing as a best practice.
Georgia County Sees Savings from Workforce Management Cooperative Contract
Success Story: Cobb County | Atlanta, GA
Cobb County, GA, awarded UKG with a national cooperative contract #18220 and 18221 for Workforce Management Systems and Related Products, Services and Solutions.
Challenge & Solution
Around 15-20 years ago, the county implemented Kronos (now UKG) as their workforce management solution. “This is the only timekeeping system we have used since the transition from paper,” says Crisp. In 2018, Cobb County was the lead public agency for the workforce management system solicitation through U.S. Communities, now OMNIA Partners, in order to help all agencies streamline the procurement process of this solution. After a competitive solicitation and award to Kronos (now UKG), Cobb County realizes the importance and value of a cooperative contract for agencies to save time and resources.
Fast forward to the present day, and it was time for them to either upgrade their current software or choose a totally new solution. She and her team utilized the UKG cooperative contract through OMNIA Partners so that they could streamline the procurement process and continue to use their timekeeping system for the entire county. Had Crisp had to do this on her own, it would have taken years to find a solution that meets the counties complex workforce needs like UKG and implement it.
“Comparatively speaking to going through a cooperative contract, if we had to go through our own sealed bid, that process would have taken anywhere from a year to two years having to start an RFP process from scratch and get together all the requirements.”
“It has been so much easier to be able to leverage OMNIA Partners,” she says. Crisp then went into detail on the power of a cooperative contract for her.
“It is powerful to be able to say the supplier was evaluated during the competitive solicitation process and was awarded based on their value for public agencies. Knowing that this agreement was competitively bid and that they are the best in class for timekeeping systems brings credibility so it’s not just my team saying we want to stick with UKG. This helps our procurement team when we work with key stakeholders knowing that this solution has been evaluated by another public agency and this one came out on top.”
With cooperative contracts being competitively solicited and publicly awarded, Crisp and her team can rest easy knowing they are using taxpayer dollars more effectively and efficiently.
I wish I could use these agreements for all of my purchases, quite frankly, because it would make my life so much easier.
Tara Crisp
Technology Services Manager, Cobb County Georgia
Cooperative Purchasing Strategy
Crisp continually told us about the time savings that cooperative purchasing has brought her county, but beyond that she stresses the importance of the solution. With cooperative purchasing you know it is an industry-leading solution because the contract has been competitively solicited and publicly awarded through the lead agency process.
“Contracts are the bane of my existence in this position. So, to be able to skip all of that and get right down to providing a solution to my customers that really is fantastic.”
Utilizing a cooperative also allows you to spend more time on the actual solution than the RFP process beforehand, plus you can be sure that the agreement meets the proper compliance guidelines. The partnership allows you to move faster and meet the needs of your stakeholders more efficiently.
Tara explained to us how sometimes the RFP process takes so long that the solution they were procuring becomes “old” before they even get their hands on it and they have to start over, especially with a contract that includes a technology solution. With cooperative contracts, you don’t have to worry about that because there is a team that is constantly managing the agreements offered to ensure they remain relevant.
“Technology moves fast, and this (cooperative purchasing) allows us to keep up with it,” says Crisp.
UKG & OMNIA Partners
OMNIA Partners is the largest and most trusted cooperative purchasing organization for public sector procurement. OMNIA Partners, Public Sector offers competitively solicited and publicly awarded cooperative contracts to help public sector agencies save time, money, and resources. Through OMNIA Partners, UKG provides HR, payroll, human capital management and workforce management technology and services that inspire employees and elevate the work experience.
UKG helps you take the guesswork out of aligning the right employees, in the right place, at the right time.
