The story so far and the journey ahead
DECEMBER 2024
Our HR and finance systems are approaching their end of life. Attention turns to how we can best set ourselves up for the future, and take the opportunity to work more effectively and efficiently across the University. The HR and Finance Transformation Programme is born.
JANUARY 2025
Cost-benefit analysis is underway, the business cases are being written, and there is engagement across the organisation to look at existing processes to understand where there is most scope for improvement.
MARCH 2025
We begin a lengthy and detailed procurement process, inviting colleagues across the organisation to review the tender submissions. They include weeks of platform demos, where providers are given examples of our processes to demonstrate on their system.
MAY 2025
Admin and research managers, and Heads and Directors of Faculty Operations, join monthly discussions on the need to replace outdated HR and finance technology. They form the Change Network that grows throughout the transformation journey.
I'm incredibly impressed by the conversations I've been part of, with so many York staff asking tough questions from the outset – through the procurement, the discovery, the design – to make sure our complexities and edge cases are being thoroughly hashed out. It feels much healthier than what's come before, where we've perhaps struggled to give these decisions the consideration they deserve.
Nat Armstrong, Director of Faculty Operations (Sciences)
AUGUST 2025
Following a robust evaluation, we choose Workday as our platform, and KPMG as our implementation partner. Both are world leaders in their areas, helping us achieve the benefits we're aiming for.
SEPTEMBER 2025
Working with KPMG and our business leads, we define the big vision for new ways of working across HR and finance, and how technology can enable it. We bring together four teams of functional leads and subject-matter experts to take on this almighty challenge.
OCTOBER 2025
We start tackling workshop after workshop – over 138 hours of them – to fully understand the shared challenges and frustrations around our current processes.
OCTOBER 2025
We agree our ambitious transformation design principles – for our staff, our technology, and the interaction between the two – to show where we’re headed. They're there to guide every decision as we approach an intense discovery phase.
OCTOBER 2025
We begin the gigantic job of auditing, organising and cleaning data across our current systems. It's the early preparation needed for wave after wave of testing to make sure it’s accurate in Workday when we go live.
NOVEMBER 2025
Led by Nigel Alcock and process experts, our new Business Design Authority starts to grapple with over 40 major design decisions, the first step in determining how we can streamline our HR and finance services across the University.
Thank you to the whole BDA team for your invaluable and insightful leadership, helping us commit to our guiding principles throughout the design phase. Because of your insights, pragmatism, compassion, and willingness to challenge the status quo, we’ve been able to navigate enormous complexities, reaching a working model that truly supports York’s strategic mission.
Nigel Alcock, Chief Financial and Operating Officer
NOVEMBER 2025
More representatives across the University, including academic and research teams, join the conversation around how to adopt the global best practice that comes with Workday processes. The central question: "Why wouldn't this work at York?"
JANUARY 2026
As we get a clearer picture of how Workday addresses existing pain points and brings new possibilities, we begin raising awareness of the transformation across the wider University to shape how best to engage with various staff groups.
FEBRUARY 2026
We're deep into factfinding, and designing and configuring the first Workday prototype to bring to life the work so far. Our HR, finance and data leads have their first 'playbacks' – a look at how our streamlined processes feel in the system itself.
MARCH 2026
We roll out our first readiness survey through Hive to check awareness among wider staff. The feedback shapes our first 'Change Roadshow' – a webinar series about the behind-the-scenes work on the programme. Over 360 staff from across the University sign up for a session to learn what the team have been up to.
MARCH 2026
Our process experts get stuck into the first round of testing, taking a microscope to 636 functional processes in this first Workday prototype to check how they work in practice – and to start weeding out bugs.
APRIL 2026
Over 160 University and subsidiary staff nominate themselves as Change Advocates to help their teams and departments to understand, test and prepare for the changes ahead. They represent an incredible range of grades, roles and departments.
The Change Network is a brilliant example of York's community spirit. It'll offer Change Advocates and their departments that much-needed peer support around the trickier aspects of the transformation – and the skills to navigate the ever-changing landscape of higher education.
Charlie Jeffery, Vice-Chancellor and President
APRIL 2026
Through a massive collaborative effort, the data engineering team begin extracting over 80 spreadsheets' worth of clean data, and continue building over 20 critical integrations with Workday before the second round of testing can begin.
MAY 2026
We work through over 300 Change Impact Assessments identified across the design and discovery phase – each indicating a difference to processes and policies everyone can expect – and draw up plans for the types of training and support for staff as we begin that cultural shift.
JUNE 2026
Through our Change Advocates, and then with broader teams, we begin sharing more on the University's upcoming cultural shift, the skills needed for new ways of working, and the support people might need to process a change of this scale.
JUNE 2026
We configure our second Workday prototype, incorporating more adjustments and final design decisions. We then dive into testing end-to-end HR and finance processes in even more detail, as well as dozens of integrations with our other University systems.
AUGUST 2026
We turn our focus to training, starting by 'training the trainers' on the functional know-how around Workday processes. In turn, these local experts can help teams get used to the practicalities of their specialist areas throughout end-user training before launch.
AUGUST 2026
We get a more definitive understanding of various operational areas now that we've seen them in action. They give a clearer sense of roles and responsibilities, ready for more staff to get hands-on experience with Workday.
SEPTEMBER 2026
We widen testing even further, letting more staff explore Workday for themselves. This 'user acceptance' period checks that the system and our processes function correctly. We also begin running payroll and other data through Workday and our current systems in parallel, checking everything matches perfectly as we get closer to launch day.
NOVEMBER 2026
We begin the first of three 'end-user training' phases that run up to launch day and beyond. This training combines both the functional training on how to do things in Workday, and the new ways of working once Workday is live.
DECEMBER 2026
We build any further amends into the final ‘gold’ Workday prototype, and line up the minute-by-minute plan for the first phase of going live. The rest of the transformation team tries to enjoy a long-overdue, end-of-year breather.
FEBRUARY 2027
Liftoff. Phase one of the Workday implementation launches in early February for all the processes we’ve been exploring. As everyone adjusts to using it as their one-stop shop for HR and finance services, post-launch support is in place to help people navigate the new ways of working.
MARCH 2027
Attention turns to the next phase, bringing even more of our processes into Workday now it has been embedded at York, as well as any refinements needed after February's phase-one launch. ResourceLink and other old University systems go offline.
SEPTEMBER 2027
Workday gets its first major platform update, which happens twice a year, letting us benefit from global developments long into the future. Our dedicated platforms team keeps the good work going to implement new innovations.
OCTOBER 2027
Phase two of the implementation rolls out, incorporating even more processes into the Workday platform. Work continues around future phases of Workday delivery as we further explore its capabilities, and make the most of the opportunities it brings.