Returning students, faculty and staff were greeted with a new enterprise resource planning platform encompassing finance, human resources and technology support; Workday has officially gone live at the University System of New Hampshire (USNH).
The launch of Workday has been about two years in the making, with the initiative to transition to the system beginning in spring of 2022, according to previous reporting by The Equinox. The system officially went live during winter break on December 21.
USNH Vice Chancellor for Technology Bill Poirier said the main challenge of implementing Workday will be supporting users as they navigate a new interface with some features in different locations than previously integrated products. He said a learning process is typical for any sort of new technology.
“When you get a new smartphone, it takes you some time to work through all the features and capabilities,” Poirier said. “It just takes time for people to feel comfortable with it.”
Poirier said the move to a new system is a much-needed move toward modernization, considering the age of the previous method of operation. The way finance and human resources have been handled up to this point was through another system called Banner.
“The Banner system was being implemented in the very late ‘90s,” Poirier said. “That system is older than most of our students that are attending our institutions now.”
Poirier added Colleague, the service Keene State uses for the student information system, is even older than Banner. The next stage of the Workday launch looks toward implementing the platform in the field of student services for the university system.
“[Workday] will help us with admissions, financial aid, student accounts … all of those pieces that affect the student,” said Vice President for Finance and Administration Nathalie Houder of the coming student services module.
Houder expressed appreciation for everyone who contributed to the Workday launch, saying many people across finance and HR have had to split focus between Workday implementation and more typical daily operations.
“We just don’t have the resources on campus to say, ‘I want 10 people here that just sit side by side with people and help them through their jobs with how to use Workday,’” Houder said. “I don’t think any company has the ability to do that, but I think that’s the biggest challenge for people.”
In an email, Houder stated the overall budget USNH allocated for Workday implementation and explained the approval process.
“The budget for the entire Workday planning, development, implementation, etc. is $40MM, which includes the entire system (all campuses and system offices) for all components [HR, finance, student services],” Houder stated. “This information was presented and the budget approved at a USNH [Board of Trustees] meeting.”
Houder highlighted automation and efficiency as strengths of the Workday implementation.
“The shift is in transition as well because we’re still working through it, but from what I’ve heard, the technology is providing us with support and providing us with more ability to do things in an automated fashion rather than paper and phone calls and emails confirming things,” Houder said. “Instead of having emails go through saying, ‘Do we have funding for that grant?’ It’s all in the system so that it automatically routes to the next.”
One example of automation Director of Human Resources Karen Crawford highlighted was the ability to directly order supplies through Workday due to its integration with UShop.
“If I needed to order supplies for my staff – pens, for example – I can do it right through Workday,” Crawford said. “This system allows [us] to do a lot all in one place.”
Crawford said Workday is a huge step up for human resources since it is optimized for the work the office does.
“The last time the human resources system was updated for us was back on July 1, 2003,” Crawford said. “Banner is not really an HR system. It’s more of a finance system, and we customized it to meet our needs on the HR side.”
Crawford said Banner has had many software packages added to it in the 22 years since, but now with Workday, those packages can be eliminated.
“Moving to Workday is a huge, huge advantage to us, because not only is it a best-in-class HR and finance system, but it meets all our needs in one system,” Crawford said.
Crawford also spoke on what she described as “significant changes” to the hiring process for on-campus student employment. She said the process previously required a hiring manager to find a candidate for a position and fill out a human resources form for student employment.
“That step has been taken out and it is handled all directly into Workday,” Crawford said. “The difference is the job has to be posted this time around. You may already have somebody in mind – which is fine, you just have the person apply – but there are chances that you don’t have anyone in mind and you may be looking for two or three hires, so anybody looking from a student point of view for a job on campus should be looking in Workday.”
Charlotte King can be contacted at
cking@kscequinox.com
