For weeks Saskatchewan nurses have been calling out issues related to the AIMS payroll system.
Many health-care workers across the province have reported missing upwards of $1,000 on their paycheques over the last few months.
The problem comes from an ongoing payroll system failure.
The AIMS payroll software was initially launched in 2021 to manage payroll, scheduling, human resources and finances for the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) — but was quickly switched back to the old system due to issues.
Three months ago, it was relaunched. Since then, CUPE 5430 health-care workers say the issues are piling up.
On Friday before a long weekend, the SHA apologized for the challenges workers have faced.
“Even one situation where people aren’t getting the pay that they’ve earned is a problem that needs to be addressed,” SHA CEO Andrew Will said. “In any system improvement like this, there is an adjustment period.”
The company behind AIMS is 3sHealth, and CEO Mark Anderson said the system is designed to create one seamless system into the future.
“We are committed to developing reports in the new system to see where these issues are,” Anderson said.
But some nurses aren’t buying it.
“We hear, ‘Oh, we’re on the right track,’ but they couldn’t be further off the track,” Saskatchewan Union of Nurses president Tracy Zambory said. “They’re so far in the ditch that they are going to have to do a lot of work to get themselves out of it.”
Despite the SHA comparing the payroll system having a similar number of issues to the old system, Zambory said she hasn’t seen anything like this before.
“At no point when we had the different payroll system was I ever contacted by registered nurses telling me that they were going to lose their homes because they couldn’t get their pay straightened out because AIMS was such a disaster,” she said.
Zambory said the system is causing problems not only with paycheques but with procurement as well.
It is just one of many issues Zambory said nurses are facing across the province. And with overcrowding, understaffing and now issues with pay, it is sending some nurses away entirely.
“It broke my heart today when we got emails from two young nurses who are less than two years in the profession who have said they’ve made the biggest mistake they’ve ever made in their whole lives,” she said surrounding nursing.
As for the AIMS system, the SHA said it is seeing improvements every pay period and continues to work on solving issues.
The AIMS system processes approximately 48,000 payslips in each pay period.