Transforming HR at The Ohio State University One Milestone at a Time

This week, HR staff at Ohio State mark a significant milestone in the transformation journey to enhance the employee experience for all faculty, staff, and student employees. 

HR Connection, our shared service center, was introduced on Monday as a key part of the HR Service Delivery model that is currently being implemented to better serve the needs of our workforce. 

There are also goals still to be achieved as we work towards the implementation of Workday in 2021. However, the entire HR team and the work delivered in three short years is remarkable. Outlined below is a quick overview of the journey which began in 2017 leading to this week.

From my perspective, what makes the journey incredible in so many ways is that the HR team took on delivery of a new service delivery model in parallel with the implementation of Workday and Service Now.

As a result of the integrated focus on these initiatives, the team collectively embraced the opportunity to streamline processes, update policies and strengthen partnerships with other administrative operations, like payroll services, to deliver an improved, consistent and excellent customer experience.

To deliver HR services to an organization the size and breadth of Ohio State, inclusive of academic and Wexner Medical Center operations, the journey began with setting key strategic goals to deliver:

·        a leading faculty, staff, and student experience

·        consistent and streamlined processes

·        data and transaction integrity

·        clear pathways to HR career progression; and

·        reduced risk

The HR Service Delivery model is based on shared services and is designed to re-allocate resources as needed to meet the changing demands of the business.

The model creates:

·        A consistent organizational structure across campus and the medical center

·        Redesigned processes enabled by Workday and ServiceNow technology, and a

·        A renewed focus on customer service and employee experience

The HR model is comprised of the following teams that work together to provide consistent support to customers:

·        Centers of Expertise deliver strategic services and capabilities across the organization within specific functional areas (i.e., Benefits, Compensation, Employee and Labor Relations, and Talent Excellence).

·        HR Connection, Ohio State’s shared services operation, provides transactional and execution-based activities to customers across the organization and for the Centers of Expertise. HR Connection will move from pilot phase which began in July 2019, to full customer go-live on September 21, 2020.

·        HR Business Partners and Consultants align to a college/unit to deliver strategic HR initiatives and standard HR processes and procedures that help advance the mission and vision of their college/unit.

·        HR Executive Leadership Team sets the strategy and leads HR operations for the university.

The new HR service delivery model also enables continuous improvement and project management capabilities with the upgrade to Workday, which will continue to evolve and deliver innovation across HR operations along with data, analytics, and reporting support through the Service Enablement team.

Initially, the timeline was to transition to the new HR service delivery model in Spring 2020 ahead of Workday implementation in July of 2020. The onset of COVID-19 necessitated that the transition timeline be modified with a timeline extension for the new service model to be in place ahead of new go-live launch timing for Workday in January 2021.

On August 3, the team officially began the transition of more than 400 HR positions across 45 colleges/units, which includes colleges, VP units (including Wexner Medical Center), regional campuses and 11 major support units. All transitions (work and people) will conclude prior to Workday go-live for the model to be fully operational.

For HR and payroll customers, the launch of HR Connection means:

·        Faculty, staff, and student employees will now receive HR and payroll support through our new shared services operation, HR Connection.

·        HR Connection will be accessible through the Compass application internal to Ohio State, the HR Connection Portal, email. and phone. The HR Connection Portal will be available 24/7 and the HR Connection hours of operation will be 8 am –5 pm Monday through Friday.

It has been a truly exceptional journey thus far. That said, it would be remiss to not recognize the challenges that a global pandemic brought on all of us during this time. Our incredibly talented and committed people (and their families!) made all these accomplishments possible. 

We are actively transforming HR at Ohio State one milestone at a time with a clear focus on the difference these transformative efforts are already having on the Ohio State employee experience now and into the future.

Next up, we begin the final push towards readiness for Workday implementation with go-live anticipated in early January. To learn more about these initiatives, additional information can be found at: hr.osu.edu/transformation/