When MiPro Enterprises first approached Workday, it was as a potential implementation partner. Yet, as MiPro learned more about Workday and its flexible on-demand solution for HCM and Financials, they realized that Workday could have a significant impact on their own business. Based in Milford, Michigan and honored as one of “Metropolitan Detroit’s 101 Best and Brightest Companies to Work For”, MiPro Enterprises runs four distinct businesses:

• MiPro Consulting is an IT business applications service provider
• Staff Connections is a medical staffing company
• Bleu Cheese Properties is a property management company
• Whitemore, Prokes, Micallef & Associates is a business brokerage firm

With four separate companies, MiPro has a variety of employees and contingent workers that call for a wide range of reporting, compensation plans, benefits, hiring and onboarding processes.

MiPro previously managed its workforce with Excel, email and “a lot of manual processes,” according to Jeff Micallef, Managing Partner for MiPro Enterprises. “We had very little automation. Each company basically did its own thing. We used several spreadsheets to track different types of workers, their status, payment plans and so forth. Whenever we needed to collect aggregate workforce information it was painful. We were struggling with not having an HCM system yet we didn’t think there was a cost-effective solution out there that could manage our diverse set of companies and workers.” In addition, MiPro was experiencing rapid growth with two of its companies doubling in just 12 months.

Why Workday?

Then MiPro met Workday. “At first, we were intrigued by Workday’s technology platform. It was so easy to configure to meet the unique business needs of a company like ours,” says Micallef. MiPro did its due diligence, though, looking at a variety of HCM vendors. They quickly found that none could meet their unique business needs except Workday. “Workday was a perfect fit for us,” concludes Micallef.

Along with sheer flexibility and configurability, there were other reasons behind MiPro’s Workday selection. “In addition to world-class HCM, Workday also had an excellent Financials solution. We saw the value of having just one system of record for all employees, contingent workers and suppliers – and not having to worry about costly integrations between systems,” says Micallef. Bernadette Sprawka, Executive Vice President for MiPro, says, “The value of a common platform for HCM and Financials cannot be overstated. Whether you’re dealing with an employee, contingent worker, supplier or customer, you only need to set them up once in Workday. There is no data re-entry and you get a 360 degree view. For our contingent workers we can access all of their information, see when their contract started, and how we’ve invoiced them. This kind of visibility is critical to our business.”

As a savvy technology services company, MiPro also believed in Workday’s forward-thinking software-as-a-service delivery model. “We didn’t want to invest in IT support or hardware. We believed Workday’s on-demand model would allow us to focus on running our company rather than managing and pouring money into IT systems,” says Micallef.

The implementation

MiPro went live with Workday HCM in just 21 days, including core HR, performance management and employee and manager self-service. Workday is now the one system of record for MiPro. “We love that when we sign in to Workday we see a real-time, accurate headcount figure on our dashboard,” says Sprawka. “We’re delivering consolidated HR reporting for all four companies, but we can also provide unique reports for each of our companies.” MiPro’s HR department uses Workday to hire, promote, transfer employees and manage paid time off requests. “Workday is so easy to use. If you know how to use Amazon.com, you can use Workday. It’s that simple,” concludes Sprawka.

“Managers, employees and executives are all using Workday regularly,” adds Sprawka. With quick access to information, reports and self-service transactions, executives and managers can easily track employee anniversaries or birthdays, find out who has planned vacations, or gain visibility into worker transfers or promotions. Employees are also using Workday Financials to submit expense reports. MiPro Consulting employees who travel frequently and are spread out across the U.S., can now quickly submit expenses with automated workflow and approval processes, allowing them to spend less time on administration, get reimbursed faster, and spend more time serving their clients and running the business.

Business benefits

The impact on the business has been remarkable. “It used to take us days just to figure out our headcount. We now have an accurate headcount, and can slice it by company or even by specific disciplines such as nurses, occupational therapists and so forth. This alone saves us so much time,” says Sprawka. Micallef estimates that Workday has saved MiPro $300,000 related to hardware purchases the company was able to avoid, along with time savings and productivity gains. Workday has enabled the company to reduce expense report cycle times from 10 days to just 2 days. “The time savings around expense reporting and performance reviews have been very significant,” says Sprawka.

Workday Financials has simplified and streamlined other business processes as well. “We’ve reduced our time to issue financial statements from 20 to 13 days,” says Sprawka, a 35 percent improvement. Using work tags in Workday, MiPro has also reduced their chart of accounts by 60 percent. “This is important because when you have to provide statements and reports to financial institutions or regulators, you save a lot of time if you can reduce the number of accounts,” says Sprawka.

When asked if she would recommend Workday to her peers in other organizations, Sprawka says, “Absolutely. It’s a great system built by people who are leaders in the field. It’s so easy to use, there’s little or no training required and, from a management perspective, the reporting capabilities are phenomenal.”