A major commercial and academic hub, Pima County’s 7,000-employee government oversees everything from road construction to stargazing events. Even horses and cows are under their watchful eye because they’re considered county “assets.” With varied geographic features such as Mount Lemmon’s towering 9,000-foot forests and desert mountain parks, Pima County lies at an ecological crossroads as well.
Recently, Pima County found itself at another crossroads. Leaders wanted to modernize how the county manages public services to meet the needs of a growing population. But they faced several hurdles, including how to revamp complex procurement processes and remove departmental silos.
“One of the most important things we looked for is the ability to retrieve data, see it transparently, and work on it without help from third-party resources,” says Nancy Cole, ERP executive project manager at Pima County. “We wanted to own the change in our system.”
Leaders also sought to standardize their procurement process. “Our county has more than 40 individual departments, plus multiple elected officials’ offices, so procurement spanning those different needs was quite a challenge,” says Javier Baca, director of information technology for Pima County. “We recognized we had to update our technology and culture to address this need.”
Pima County believes it found the right path by migrating its HR and financial operations into a modern, unified, and cloud-based platform with Workday Financial Management, Workday Payroll, and Workday Success Plans. County leaders addressed other challenges with the Workday team, such as overcoming deployment hurdles and ensuring that change-resistant employees felt comfortable with the new platform. “Employees and their managers have the Workday resources in place when they need it,” Baca says. “They know who they can reach out to with questions.”
Improved data transparency and reporting.
Pima County increased reporting and data transparency after adopting Workday Financial Management, which provides organizations with intelligently automated financial processes and deeper insights. Cole says Workday Financial Management makes it easier for employees to access vast amounts of data that has accumulated over the years. They can do this without help from an external consultant, fostering a culture of self-sufficiency that’s one of Pima County’s priorities.
Workday Financial Management has eliminated the static nature of reports because employees can access and interact with them in real time. “We can answer questions and get to the root cause of problems quickly, and it’s less complex than our previous system, which had 10 to 15 years worth of highly customized integrations,” Baca says. “Less complexity results in greater efficiency.”
Workday intrigued us because of the interconnectedness between finance and HR. Our previous system segregated them.
ERP Executive Project Manager
Breaking down silos with Workday Payroll.
Before Workday, Pima County’s financial and HR systems were disconnected, leading to inefficient workflows and a heavy reliance on paper processes. The planned deployment of Workday Payroll promises to address these inefficiencies.
“We are looking forward to having a seamless workflow in one central system,” Cole says. “We do not have to transfer or track information between systems. We’re doing our timekeeping right in Workday.”
Pima County also strengthened security against potential data vulnerabilities associated with manual, paper-based processes.
Workday Payroll helps us create a single, unified, all-in-one system.
Director of Information Technology
Empowering employees with self-sufficiency.
Pima County uses Workday Success Plans (WSP), which provide expertise, support, and education about Workday products. WSP includes on-demand training and resources that let companies build and expand how they use Workday products that includes year-round customer support.
Baca says they’re more self-sufficient because of the Ask-an-Expert WSP feature, which lets employees communicate with Workday consultants about specific products or something more general. “We can reach out to someone who can actually move us forward with access to deep Workday expertise.”
“We rely on Workday Success Plans a lot,” Baca says. “It helps us use Workday more effectively. And, it’s part of our goal of having a best-in-class, unified platform to serve a growing number of citizens.”