The University of Hull (UoH) has selected Workday to replace its legacy finance and HR systems. The finance team will implement Workday Financial Management to replace Unit4 Dream. The HR function will implement Workday Human Capital Management (HCM) to replace iTrent from Midland HR. Workday solutions will replace other legacy solutions in place at the University as the organisation moves to a single platform to meet its digital transformation goals.
The Workday platform will give UoH a single source of truth. Thus enabling it to source real time insights, streamline decision making and reduce costs. For employees the sophisticated HRM solution will enhance their interaction with the administration through its sophisticated self-service portal. The University will work with its implementation partner, KPMG, on this project.
KPMG has already helped the University complete one phase of its Digital Spine project, which will help the organisation transform. It has gone live with its HRSD (Human Resources Service Delivery), which includes student and employee portals leveraging the deployment of ServiceNow and Workday.
Neil Robinson, Chief Pperations Officer University of Hull, commented, “We have always championed forward-thinking and innovation at the University of Hull, and this digital transformation is a reflection of these ambitions. To provide our students with the best possible experience, we must be able to see the full picture of our organisation, such as our strengths, potential gaps, and core business needs. Workday will not only help ensure a more connected and efficient platform but provide us with the data driven insights and employee experience necessary to drive University of Hull into the future.”
Building a Digital Spine
UoH was founded in 1927 and is highly thought of as an engineering and technology university. It offers an MSC in Digital Transformation, so should have a strong idea of what it expects. Its Digital Spine project seeks to transform the University by streamlining core processes across all aspects of the organisation. This is to improve reporting, analytics, and decision-making. The University team will work closely with KPMG and Workday to connect Finance and HR data. And will leverage the powerful AI components within the solution.
In addition to Workday Financial Management, UoH will also deploy Workday Prism Analytics. Whose analytics and reporting tools will enable the University to draw in data from other sources. The solution surfaces insights from HR and finance in the context of the wider data sets. It will allow the University to speed up analysis, provide deeper insights and improve decision-making.
Workday HCM will enable the University to attract, retain and engage with employees. The Workday Skills Cloud, coupled with AI, can help define and enable career paths for employees. To improve retention and maximise the value of employment for both the University and its staff. UoH will gain a central hub for teams to find and nurture the top applicants using automated campaigns, tailored landing pages and real-time analytics. The integration with finance will enable HR teams to make decisions informed by budgetary constraints in real time rather than after the fact.
Will Workday launch Student Management in the UK?
This is a significant win for Workday in the higher education market in the UK. It is not however, it’s first. Regent’s University in London has deployed Workday Adaptive planning, and the University of Exeter is also a client. The big question is whether, as Workday adds more customers for its Finance and HRM solutions, it will bring its student information system platform to the UK as well. Enterprise Times asked Workday about this and is awaiting a response.
Response
Workday replied, “Workday Student is currently available in North America and more than 140 higher education institutions have selected Workday Student.”
The inference is that Workday has no plans to roll out SIS in the UK at this time.
Daniel Pell, Vice President and Country Manager UKI, Workday, commented, “University of Hull shares our focus and commitment to empowering the next generation of innovators. Our solutions, embedded with AI capabilities and designed with innovation at the core, will provide UoH with a clear picture of its organisation through data driven insights and recommendations. Streamlining these processes into a single system will increase efficiency, freeing up time for strategy and changemaking across the organisation.”
Justine Andrew, Head of Education, Skills and Productivity at KPMG UK, added, “This is a hugely exciting opportunity to build on our successful global alliance with Workday and implement a solution that drives genuine value for the University. We look forward to bringing together the very best of our three organisations, in terms of knowledge, innovation and technology, to deliver a step-change in service quality and end-user experience, underpinned by our Powered Enterprise methodology and toolkit.”
Enterprise Times: What does this mean
A significant win for Workday, and KPMG continues to help Hull University on its transformation journey. One item that is unclear from the press release is whether Workday will also replace the iTrent Payroll solution as part of the project. It would seem sensible that it will do so at some point, even if not in the first phase. However, Workday recently announced Global Payroll Connect, a solution that can integrate into many of the world’s leading payroll solutions. It will be interesting to see whether iTrent also joins the list of vendors it is working with.
