Message from Jack J. Blanchard, Associate Provost for Enterprise Resource Planning:
It’s officially 2023 - the year our team has been anticipating for years. This July, the first phase of our Workday implementation will Go Live: Human Capital Management (HCM) and Finance.
Our training team has also been heads-down to ensure that end-user training, including on-demand computer based training and instructor-led training, is ready for users to begin in April 2023. Registration for training will open in March. More information will come from the Elevate Program and from your local leadership about how to register for and complete training.
In case you missed it, our Executive Sponsors made an announcement last week about a key benefit in Workday. Starting when Workday goes live, exempt staff and faculty will no longer have to complete a bi-weekly timesheet unless they are documenting leave. Hourly employees, student workers, contingent 1 employees, as well as nonexempt staff (regular and contingent 2) employees will continue to report time worked, either through manual time entry in Workday, the Workday webclock, or time clocks as they do today. All leave eligible employees will request time off via the Absence Calendar. You can learn more about time and absence in Workday by watching last week’s Functional Overview, Time & Absence Management in Workday.
This month, our team is conducting an evaluation of key technical metrics, readiness of business units, and plans for cutover from our legacy systems (PHR, KFS) to Workday. The Elevate Program has planned three of these “Go/No Go” assessments, which will ensure that the Elevate Program remains on track to Go Live in July of 2023. Checklists like these are a normal part of large system implementations as a way to formally assess progress toward the final goal. If we meet the criteria for “Go,” the project will continue as planned, with another checkpoint in April. In the event of a “No Go” decision, Elevate team and leadership would re-evaluate and determine a new go-live date.
Our team is planning a robust calendar of readiness events and activities to keep all future Workday users informed. You can always visit our News & Events page to see what’s coming next.
Workday Feature of the Month: Time & Absence Management
Workday will provide workers with new and improved time tracking and absence management functionality.
Absence Management will allow you to view leave and entitlement balances, forecast your accruals, and request time away from work.
Time Tracking will allow non-exempt workers to record time worked for each of their positions. Exempt or salaried employees will no longer have to record their working time.
Benefits of Time Tracking and Absence Management in Workday:
- One Timesheet: Workers with multiple positions will have one timesheet with all of their time worked and approved absences consolidated in one place.
- Streamlining Communication: Absence requests are automatically routed for processing and approved absences are applied to the Absence Calendar and timesheet. Notifications are generated during the absence request process.
- Improving Efficiency: Only hourly employees, student workers, contingent 1 employees, as well as nonexempt staff (regular and contingent 2) employees will record their time worked and this information will be more available to them ensuring better accuracy.
- Empowering Managers: The Time and Absence dashboard will allow managers to review and approve timesheets, view their team’s work schedules and time clock history, identify employees with upcoming time off events, those currently on leave, and those who are expected to return from leave during the current week.
Words of Workday
- Absence: Known today as “Leave.” An absence is any time away from work.
- Absence Calendar: Self service page where workers are able to initiate a request time away from work. From here they can also correct time off.
- Time Off: A short-term time away from work with a clear start date, end date, and quantity of hours.
- Leave of Absence: An extended time away from work with a clear start date and an expected end date.
Featured FAQs
Will telework continue to be recorded via timesheet in Workday?
Telework will not be recorded via the timesheet. Instead, post Go Live, people will work with their managers to complete a flexible work arrangement. This will be completed one time, unless there are changes or if an institution wants this completed annually.
As a manager, will Workday send a reminder if I have outstanding time off requests that need to be processed?Workday will not automatically generate a reminder; however, you will be able to filter the Workday tasks awaiting action to identify submitted time off requests that are overdue. You also will be able to view your team absence calendar to identify your time off requests that were submitted but not processed, and requests that have been approved.
ElevateR Spotlight
The Elevate Program is thrilled to have a team of full-time employees with a wide breadth of experience and institutional knowledge. In each issue of the ElevateR, we shine the spotlight on a staff member who is working hard to make the program a success.
Christine Hottel,
Time and Absence Lead
Like many of our Human Capital Management team members, Christine came to the Elevate Program Team from the University Human Resources (UHR) where she managed the Leave Management Team. “There was no system when I joined UHR in 2015, so Leave Management became my baby,” says Christine. Prior to this, she handled Leave as an individual contributor at Facilities Management. “What excites me about working for Elevate is we have an opportunity to make a positive impact for the University population,” says Christine. “Workday will provide a huge improvement in so many areas, including mobile access and the ability to establish consistency with our business processes.
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Your Questions Answered
From big picture planning to the impact of daily routines, the Elevate team is available to answer your questions and address your concerns.
Browse our list of FAQs or click the button below to ask our team a question.