CHESS continues to pioneer ways to leverage Workday to address students’ needs. Going forward, “We will be pursuing innovative ways to make it easier to interact with prospective employers, seamlessly transition students between credit and noncredit programs, and connect students with workforce opportunities in ways that grow local economies,” says CHESS CEO Kathy Ulibarri.
Collaboration Champion Award: Iowa State University
As the home of the world’s first electronic digital computer and high-resolution virtual reality lab, Iowa State University certainly embraces the promise of technology. No wonder that it became one of the first top-tier research universities to select three Workday product suites—Workday Financial Management, Workday Human Capital Management/Payroll, and Workday Student— at once in 2016.
Fast forward eight years, and the results have been remarkable. Working with its implementation partner, Huron Consulting, ISU has not only simplified and standardized business processes across its eight colleges, but has also leveraged Workday’s mobile functionality to enable remote work during the pandemic, developed innovative applications through Workday Extend, and transformed how students onboard, register for classes, apply for financial aid, and access faculty advisors with Workday Student. Today, the university enjoys a year-over-year enrollment increase and a sense of pride in its commitment to forward-looking modernization.
Throughout its Workday journey, ISU has consistently shared ideas about how to transform administrative and student processes with its faculty, staff, and more than 30,000 students—as well as the broader higher ed community. In fact, since launching Workday, the university has fielded more than 60 requests from other universities interested in learning about its transformational work and welcomed their administrators for site visits.
"Thanks to the efforts and support of Workday and Huron, we have dramatically improved our processes and efficiencies and built a culture of change at Iowa State that we benefit from daily,” said Kristi Darr, ISU’s vice president of human resources.
Student Success Award: Tallahassee State College
Student success is a top priority at Tallahassee State College, which offers more than 100programs of study, including associate degrees that provide paths for transferring to a four-year college. To deliver that success, the college needed a new approach to engage and support its students throughout their education journey.
Using Workday Extend and Prism to create a custom set of academic advising tools, TSC developed a proactive advising model, “App2Cap,” that engages students immediately after applications and stays close to them through graduation. With this model, students are assigned an advisor within 20 minutes of submitting an application. Communication between students and staff begins instantly and is complemented by an easy-to-use system that lets students see their advisor’s availability in real time and book an appointment with just a few clicks.
Beyond improving students’ engagement with their advisors, App2Cap also empowers students to become partners in building their own customized academic plan based on their intended major and transfer institution. Moreover, its dashboards allow advisors to monitor registration, academic standing, and academic plans for each of their advisors in real time, helping them to better understand where to focus their attention.
As a result, more than 90% of TSC students have rated their advising experience as “extremely helpful” or “very helpful,” and 88% have an academic plan that provides a clear path and purpose for their studies. At the same time, App2Cap’s focus on early engagement has led students to register for classes much earlier, boosting enrollment and retention, including an 11% increase in credit hours for the fall 2024 semester.
Platform Rockstar Award: Mobile County, Alabama
As the second-largest county in Alabama, Mobile County is home to more than 400,000 people—but until recently, the local government’s operational system didn’t make it easy to serve residents. The Mobile County Commission faced many challenges with its homegrown payroll software and other legacy systems, including relying on a single individual for payroll information and system maintenance.
To simplify and modernize its processes, the Commission deployed Workday Financial Management in 2022; Workday HCM, Payroll, and Grants in July 2023, and Learning and Talent Optimization this year, transforming their operations and positioning them for future success.
The move to Workday’s cloud-based platform created notable improvements that have boosted employees’ ability to deliver effective governance. First, it decentralized and expanded knowledge across the Commission’s team, ensuring that no single individual holds critical information—and therefore boosting the government’s resilience and operational continuity. Next, the implementation streamlined HR and administrative processes such as time tracking, benefits enrollment, and expense reporting, so that employees can spend more time focusing on what matters: delivering services to residents.
Additionally, Workday’s comprehensive reporting and real-time data have significantly improved visibility across the Commission, fostering better communication and decision-making. And finally, the platform enhanced Mobile County’s data security through audit trails, role-based permissions, encryption, access controls, security certifications, and compliance reporting.