Scattered HR tools can turn regular tasks into a challenge. How does transformation into a single HCM system improve the everyday experience?Former HR Specialist Anna Szarek tells her story.
I used to work as an HR specialist. In that company, we were using six different tools: recruiting and background check platforms, onboarding platform, Workday Core, and separate tools for time tracking and absence requests. As you can imagine, it was a maintenance nightmare! Not only for the HR Team but most importantly for all employees throughout the company. Our daily routines involved countless switches between different platforms.
After some time, we decided to implement Workday as the one and only HCM tool. I remember that when I saw Workday, I was sceptical. But then I thought that people think this way every time something new and unknown appears in their lives. At first, you feel uncomfortable, but after a while, you start to see the benefits. The story of my love for Workday is the same.
Implementation took almost nine months, but when we went live with our new, shining Workday, the quality of our work experience improved rapidly. The beginning was tough, but every single day showed us the benefits of this change. We used Workday for recruiting, hiring and onboarding, career and development management, time and absence tracking. It made working life easier for everybody! HR received a system which was logically built, and elements were interconnected. It was a big, good change, and finally, we had to remember only one password.
Connectivity between Workday modules made my work easier than ever and gave a possibility to avoid problems, which used to appear when we had to migrate data between different tools. Daily work was done quickly, which was especially valuable during large hiring campaigns.
The next big asset of this transformation was professional support from Workday consultants. It was especially important when we started adopting this new tool. We were not able to predict some system outcomes during the project testing phase and consultants helped to solve our unexpected issues. Their help was valuable even after we got to know Workday well. You might have the same experience from your everyday work. Sometimes you receive a surprising error and you get stuck. For such cases Workday consultant's support was irreplaceable and they gave us answers and fixed bugs whenever needed.
Employees love Workday as a user-friendly tool, where they could submit working hours, request vacation, and much more. They receive a clear view for time balance, and an intuitive solution of how to do all actions which are required from the employee side.
In addition, as customer users we received access to the Workday Community. There you can share your ideas and vote for changes which should be added to the next system update. My daily work with the Community was a good experience. I was soon able to find solutions there without a need for additional support. This platform is a valuable source of knowledge regarding Workday. Nowadays, as a Workday consultant, I also leverage its advantages.
I did not see a lot of issues with Workday, but it is fair to mention that there can be some challenges. In our case, it was a failing integration between Workday and the external platform for new employee’s background check. Using this tool outside of Workday was an exception which we needed to have due to the law restrictions. Workday has powerful integration tools, so inbound and outbound connections with other systems are not unusual. However, these need to be carefully designed and tested to avoid issues after go-live. Implementation projects are intense and as you can tell from this example – sometimes leave pending tasks behind.
From the general perspective, my conclusion is that Workday is a tool which is constantly growing and adapting to the business needs. Since I have started working with Workday, it has evolved, and many new ideas were implemented with only one reason – to make work easier for all Workday customers and their employees.
Nowadays, as a consultant, I am glad I can leverage my experience of being a Workday customer myself, as well as my HR background in general. It helps me to provide relevant services to our customers today. The majority of my current colleagues have a similar experience in HR as I do and now, we can offer on-demand Cloud HCM services whenever you need a helping hand. Click here to learn more.