5 Tips for a Successful Workday HR Implementation in Healthcare
Workday HR transformation can be a game-changer for healthcare systems, streamlining operations, and enhancing workforce management. However, successful implementation requires careful alignment of objectives, addressing talent gaps, overcoming challenges, and dealing with legacy systems. In the latest episode of Healthcare IT Unplugged, I dive into five tips for a successful Workday HR implementation. To learn more, check out the full episode above or scroll down to continue reading my blog.
1. Align Objectives for Workday HR Transformation
Before diving into the Workday HR implementation journey, it's crucial to ensure all stakeholders are on the same page. This alignment is vital because the healthcare landscape is dynamic, and business needs to evolve. To achieve this alignment, consider these key points:
- Define your talent strategy: Determine whether you prioritize speed of hire or enhanced position control, and tailor your configuration accordingly.
- Re-evaluate HR Business processes that have been outsourced: With improved technology and processes, you may now be able to handle key functions in-house that were previously outsourced due to capacity constraints. Strategically evaluate which elements can be integrated and insourced leveraging your Workday platform.
- Conduct a deployment readiness assessment: Gain insights into your current state, short-term, and long-term goals. Use this data to create a strategy that aligns your solutions with future needs.
2. Address the Talent Gap During Workday Implementation
Implementing Workday could require a major HR transformation that demands time, energy, and focus. To bridge the talent gap, focus on three key areas:
- Increase capacity: Eliminate unnecessary tasks and augment your team's capacity, leveraging external resources if necessary.
- Training and motivation: Critical team members are essential for success. Ensure they are trained, motivated, and well-supported throughout the transformation to prevent burnout.
- Retention: Prevent burnout and maintain commitment among key team members involved in the implementation. Recognize their efforts and provide work-life balance and growth opportunities.
3. Overcoming Implementation Challenges
Workday HR is often difficult for healthcare organizations because they must concurrently manage both the demands of the Workday deployment project and their ongoing daily operations. To address these challenges:
- Educate your team: Ensure everyone understands the difference between project work and daily operations.
- Engage external stakeholders: Collaborate with upstream and downstream systems to ensure their support for a successful implementation.
- Strong leadership: Maintain strong leadership to drive change with courage, close issues promptly, and maintain enthusiasm.
4. Transition Customized Functionalities to Workday HR
Many healthcare systems have heavily customized their legacy HR systems. Consider this when migrating to Workday HR:
- Evaluate the necessity: Determine if customizations are still required in Workday or if its base configurations can meet your needs.
- Explore Workday's capabilities: Look for creative ways to configure Workday to achieve your desired results.
- Consider Workday Extend: If necessary, build customizations in Workday Extend, Workday's platform for extending functionality.
5. Post-implementation Strategies
Once Workday HR is implemented, the journey doesn't end there. Focus on these steps:
- Stabilization: Identify areas that may need manual interventions and work towards automating them for a smoother operation.
- Optimization: Assess existing integrations and data models for potential improvements.
- Roadmap creation: Plan for future module implementations, considering Workday's upcoming releases.
- Team capabilities: Strategically build in-house skills based on workload and expertise required, supplemented by third-party support for less frequent needs.
Workday HR transformation in healthcare is a journey that requires careful planning, alignment, and adaptation. By addressing these critical aspects, healthcare systems can maximize the benefits of Workday HR, streamline operations, and provide better services to their employees and patients.
Please contact us below to discuss your Workday project and goals.
Sudipto Banerjee is an Elite Advisor at Healthcare IT Leaders and an HR and enterprise-wide transformation expert. He was most recently the System VP for HR Operations for a large Healthcare organization. He helps healthcare organizations achieve systemwide synergy of people and purpose to build consensus and ensure higher return for the invested time, resources, and funds.