Your HR Digital Transformation effort has stalled. It all looked so promising on Launch day? What happened?

The project started well; a positive kick-off and a deployment with its challenges finished broadly within budget. Workday is working as you designed it. So, why is your HR Transformation being viewed as a failure?

The promise of less transactional work, more automation and the nirvana of delivering more strategic HR activity now seem like a mirage on the horizon. People are less engaged, more frustrated than they were before you started. Don't despair. It’s not too late. Here are 5 practical steps based on my experiences on how to get things back on track:

1. View Workday 'launch day' as the beginning of your journey, not the end of a Project

On launch day you have delivered a system, but you haven't delivered the change. The reality is you have only built the foundations. View Workday as a catalyst, rather than the answer to your business problems. Accept this new reality and start to get comfortable with it. Although events like 'launch day' are important for the galvanising effect they can have, the reality is lasting change evolves over time.

2. Put your people at the heart of your digital transformation

Did you spend time putting yourself in the shoes of your people? Did you spend time understanding the unique pressures they face? If you didn't, don't be surprised when they don't engage or comply with something they don't understand or didn't ask for.

Ask yourself how does what you have implemented make it easier for your people and support them to do their job? Next time, make sure they become the 'hero' in your Organisations HCM transformation story, not you. Make the change about them rather than the system you are delivering.

3. Get the right mix of partnering, policy, analytics and consulting skills in your HR team

A common assumption is that a reduction in transactional effort and a move towards strategic HR will happen by default. It won't. Make sure you re-address the balance between the technical, behavioural and cultural skills your HR function needs to deliver a more value-added service.

Invest in your HR team, provide the training they need to develop partnering, analytics, and consulting skills. Workday, when delivered successfully will remove the barriers that prevent strategic HR from occurring. It won't help your people have the conversations you need to deliver a value-added HR service!

4. Review and re-baseline how you're performing, it's never too late.

Dust off the business case, review it and see how far away you are from your original aspirations. You may have offset legacy system costs, but have you reduced FTE numbers or transactional effort?

When you review your business case, can you demonstrate that the investment you made has made a tangible impact on how your HR function? Can you prove that HR has been empowered and that management is using its people data to better effect? Are fewer of the key people leaving your business? are you spending less time manipulating spreadsheets and more time having workforce planning discussions? If you can't answer these questions, don't panic, re-baseline, re-set the vision and reboot your transformation.

5. Ensure your post-deployment services model is fit for purpose.

You need to re-evaluate how you support Workday and integrate change management and user adoption practices in all elements of your post-deployment services model.  Our modern digital world has changed the way systems are supported and maintained. Change is now a constant, rather than an event and as a cloud-based solution Workday is continuously improving and enhancing. 

You need an HR driven post-deployment services model that moves as quickly as the solution it supports. A failure to address this will mean you are stuck in a world of reactive fixes and last-minute updates and will never have the headspace to proactively drive the digital transformation you intended.

Finally...

Don't panic; it's not too late. The first step is accepting there is a problem and accurately diagnosing what needs to be done. Once clear, you can go about re-defining what the future will look like and how you will get there. Call it transformation 2.0 or keep it quiet and effectively go about fixing things; it doesn't matter. The important thing is you accept that the evolution of Workday will never stop, so neither will your transformation.

To discuss the points raised in this article and learn how Kainos for Workday help Organisations maximise their investment in Workday  Contact me at [email protected] or alternatively private mail me via LinkedIn.? 2019

·      About

·      User Agreement

·      Privacy Policy

·      Cookie Policy

·      Copyright Policy

·      Brand Policy

·      Guest Controls

·      Community Guidelines