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The University of Washington is among the oldest research institutions on the West Coast and includes a world-class academic health center providing outstanding care in highly specialized fields. In 2016, the university engaged Huron to implement an industry-leading human capital management solution from Workday.

Challenge

The University of Washington (UW) was using a 35-year-old legacy payroll system. To manage individual business needs, departments relied on homegrown systems that didn’t communicate with each other. Enforcing compliance requirements was also a challenge. With approximately 38,000 employees across three campuses, the UW desired to transform its HR/payroll delivery model for greater efficiency and functionality.

Workday was the largest administrative transformation effort in the University's history. From my perspective, Huron's expertise was integral to our successful launch.” — Aaron Powell, Vice President for UW Information Technology and Chief Information Officer

Approach

The UW made the decision to implement the Workday® human capital management (HCM) solution for its ability to improve compliance, provide seamless interaction and enable real-time data sharing.

On this Workday-primed project, the UW worked with Huron, which provided program leadership support and extensive Workday expertise. Huron also offered strategic direction for the business process transformation related to the new system, as well as support for organizational change management and overall test leadership and coordination.

In addition, Huron was a critical collaborator in the design and implementation of an HR/payroll shared service center to support the institution’s human resource and payroll business processes.

Huron was brought into the project in early 2016, following a leadership transition at the university. With Huron’s expertise, the project successfully launched in June 2017.

Today, the UW is the largest public sector university using Workday. With this implementation, the university was able to reduce manual and paper processes, standardize business processes, and improve alignment with university policies and regulatory compliance. The new HCM system provides secure, 24/7 access to information, as well as enhanced user self-service capabilities.