February 2018 | Workday Project Newsletter

Business processes in Workday are getting their own workshops

By Twyla Lawson (Business Change Manager, Workday Project & Legacy HR Systems Manager) and Cecil Owens (Organizational Change Management Lead), Workday Project

Workday will not just change the way human resource data management throughout Oregon state government looks - it will change the way we get many things done. Workday refers to "the way we get many things done" as business processes. Business processes are critical to understanding how Workday users will navigate the new system on a daily basis.

As such, the Workday Project team will host several business process workshops in the spring. The first workshop, which takes place on March 22, will take a closer look at the Human Capital Management (HCM) functionality in Workday. We will provide agency readiness contacts (ARCs) specific details on time and location within the next couple of weeks. ARCs, HR directors and HCM subject matter experts are invited to the HCM-specific workshop. We will provide a workshop preview to the project's Change Network, which includes ARCs, on March 13. Additional workshops covering different functional areas of the system are tentatively scheduled during early April.

From resistance to respect: Workday at Willamette

By Himalaya Rao-Potlapally, Change Management Intern, Workday Project I recently had the opportunity to speak with a few members of the project team from Willamette University who were instrumental in the rollout of Workday at the university. During the interview, they shared insights and lessons learned from system pre-planning to post-implementation support. Willamette initially chose the HCM, Recruitment, Benefits, and Payroll modules and recently integrated the Performance Management module. Most relatable to the current stage of our project, the members of Willamette’s project team assessed areas of overlap between the different modules. This assessment allowed team members to understand which modules would be relevant during various business processes. In state government, we have several upcoming business process workshops that similarly address the most critical processes for employees. As is expected with any change, Willamette experienced some resistance throughout its Workday rollout. The university’s project team recalled early pushback for the Employee Self-Service (ESS) function. Although ESS allows for greater empowerment of university employees, most employees were accustomed to picking up the telephone or emailing HR personnel for routine items. To alleviate the discomfort and inexperience many employees had with self-service, the project team implemented drop-in lab hours and targeted training opportunities for different departments. This was especially needed for employees who do not normally use computers in their daily business roles. The project team also showed employees the Workday app through which employees could log hours worked, request time off, and make profile changes right from their phones. In time, the ESS feature has become the most widely used feature of Workday at Willamette. To help with state government training, our team will employ just-in-time training, which will include hosting several in-person classroom trainings to facilitate knowledge transfer and end user understanding. Willamette’s project team also noted that some modules and features get used more frequently than others. Unlike the self-service functionality, employees who do not serve in human resources roles for the university rarely use the recruitment module. When faculty or staff are involved in selecting students for hire, they often need refresher training to ensure that all steps are properly completed within Workday. Willamette has set up training processes in a way that departments can easily access this knowledge. Our project team will establish equivalent on-demand training opportunities that will feature online videos on less frequently used modules and business processes. Although there will always be some resistance to largescale change, the project team at Willamette University has deployed consistent communications throughout the rollout of Workday and continues to support staff, faculty, and students with system resources. From my own perspective as a student at Willamette, I concur that Workday has streamlined many business processes and helped Willamette rise to the next level in human resource data management. We are grateful for Willamette University’s willingness to share insights on its Workday rollout. The screenshot above provides a sneak peek of the university's public-facing Workday resources; visit Willamette's project website for more information.

Sure, Workday is coming - but how do we feel about it?

By Elizabeth Grosse, Talent & Engagement Consultant (IBM) and Himalaya Rao-Potlapally, Change Management Intern (Workday Project)

Effective communication helps people understand, adopt and commit to change. Without it, you can’t lead a successful implementation. How and when you communicate matters. In the past six months, the Workday Project team has messaged organizational leaders, change leaders and supervisory managers to build their awareness of and desire for Workday.  

Awareness and desire are two of five stages an individual goes through when implementing a successful change. Awareness focuses on the reasons you believe the change is necessary and lets everyone know what’s coming. Desires are motivational factors or consequences that create a wish to change. Both of these steps are key to building the foundation for successful implementation.

In addition to building awareness and desire, the timing of messages surrounding change is critical. The project team has focused on informing leaders and managers first. These stakeholders need to lead the change across all three branches of state government, including our 92 state agencies, in order to bring other employees along with them as supporters – not just accepters – of the transition to Workday. Most employees don’t want to learn about change until the change itself becomes tangible. 

When asked to rate their agency leaders, managers, and employees' change readiness levels during February's Change Network meeting, our agency readiness contacts (ARCs) and change leaders felt that, in general, agency leaders were champions for Workday, managers shared their leads’ sentiments, and employees were somewhat unaware that Workday is coming. This result was what we expected based on the focus of project communications. 

The graphic above depicts how our employees are expected to regard Workday from pre-implementation planning through post-implementation support, and the graphics below depict how agency readiness contacts assessed their agencies’ own readiness levels during an interactive exercise completed at last month’s Change Network meeting. Agency names have been removed from the post-it notes because results of the exercise reflect ARC estimations and not an established, agency-wide consensus.

Guess who graduated? That's right! Another Prosci class!

By Anna King, Communications Coordinator, Workday Project

The Workday Project congratulates its fourth class to earn Prosci Change Management Certification! The three-day training course began on February 14 and concluded on February 16. In order from left to right in the group portrait below, class participants included:

• Darla Salchenberg, Human Resources Assistant, Department of Forestry
• Jenine Gomez, Executive Business Coordinator, Department of Administrative Services (DAS)
  
• April Sparks, Operations & Policy Analyst, Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT)
  
• Nicole Cain, Modernization Change Management Coordinator, Employment Department
  
• Janell Simmons, Chief HR Officer, Lottery
  
• Brian Pew, Deputy of State Forest Division, Department of Forestry
  
• Tasha Petersen, HR Director, Secretary of State
  
• Monica Sim, IT Project Manager, DAS
  
• Brenda Yates, Implementation Project Manager, ODOT
• Nina Junco, Service Transformation Program (STP) Business Lead, Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), ODOT
  
• Jennifer Schoorl, HR Director, ODOT
• Christal Lee, Project Manager, DAS
• Mike Lewis, Senior Recruiter, Oregon State Hospital, Oregon Health Authority
  
• Scott Brewen, Administrator, Department of Environmental Quality
  
• Kate Grover, Facilities Project Manager, Department of Consumer and Business Services (DCBS)
  
• Deb Scott, Enterprise Technology Services Project Manager, DAS
  

For more information about the certification course and the concept of change management, please read the featured article in the October edition of our newsletter.

Workday training step one: 'Train the Trainers'

By Jessi Fitts (Business Transition Trainer), Tammy Maddalena (Business Training Lead, Content Delivery) and Miguel Mendez (Business Transition Trainer), Workday Project

On February 12 and 13, five agencies gathered to enhance their skills and learn new techniques to facilitate their own future “Change Leadership for Managers” workshops. The objective of the workshop is to help managers within state government improve their overall effectiveness and productivity while managing change in their work environments.

Sixteen managers participated in several learning segments on the first day of the workshop. Participants learned how to successfully manage change, lead change and develop an action plan for guiding their organizations through change. During the interactive segment, participants looked at past changes they have experienced and how they handled them, which provided insight and opportunities for each other to learn how leaders have individually handled change. The managers learned that they can use their past knowledge and experiences to help increase the likelihood of successful change in the future.

On the second day, employees became the trainers themselves and facilitated sections of the workshop to the other participants. In teams of two, each pair was assigned multiple sections of the learning material to review and prepare. This day of the workshop was essential to laying the foundation for the successful rollout of this course by managers across state government.

DAS’ Chief Human Resources Office will offer this two-day course again through iLearn on March 27 and 28 to individuals who will then train peers and agency managers in effectively leading change throughout current and future projects.

We're changing for the better... meet our new Change Management Intern!

Himalaya joins the Workday Project team as our Change Management Intern. Himalaya currently attends Willamette University in pursuit of her MBA. She previously obtained a Masters in Social Work and practiced in New York. Himalaya’s current academic focus is in Process Improvement and helping businesses undergo organizational transformations. She has worked in the non-profit and governmental sectors in training and leadership consulting. As a member of the Workday Project team, she will partner with the project's Change Network to identify and advise on process barriers and collaborate with team members to develop alternative solutions. Himalaya will participate in, and provide research analyses on, change readiness and change impact measurement.

For more information about the project, please visit our website. Stay informed by following our Twitter feed and blog!