When Werner Enterprises says it “keeps America moving,” it is more than a catchy slogan. It is the heart of what one of North America’s largest truckload carriers stands for and delivers. As Daragh Mahon, executive vice president and chief information officer, explains, “If you bought it, we probably brought it.” This responsibility is on display 365 days a year, as its truck drivers face adverse conditions to keep supplies flowing to meet consumers wherever they are.
And it’s not just the drivers that are one step ahead. Werner has a rich history and reputation for being at the forefront of technology in an industry that often trends behind. Werner has led the charge for decades. In the 1970s, it was the first company to use a System 32 to print checks. In the 1990s, it was the first to embrace electronic logging for drivers—20 years ahead of the federal mandate to do so.
Now more than ever, the company is in the driver’s seat for empowering change through technology.
Trucking on with new tech.
When Mahon joined Werner, modernizing the tech stack was the first item on his agenda. While Werner’s fleet represented modern logistics, its back-office systems were grounded in the past. The company was operating on dated, homegrown legacy systems that demanded manual workarounds and caused employees to waste valuable time on repetitive, nonstrategic tasks. This fragmentation was hindering progress and speed.
Werner needed a unified system to support its complex operational and employee needs. “The very first contract I signed was with Workday,” Mahon says. “It’s the first and only cloud-native platform for both HR and back-end financials and accounting. That immediately appealed to us. It's well-architected and very secure, which is really important.”
Platform approach delivers immediate value.
Werner selected Workday for Human Capital Management, Financial Management, and Payroll, realizing value immediately. By eliminating systems, processes, and workarounds, Werner saved $3 million in hard costs by streamlining payroll and bringing benefits management in-house.
The transformation was equally impactful in finance, with the monthly close time reduced from 20 days to 10 days. The payroll processing time dropped from 4 days to 4 or 5 hours, turning a 15-hour day for staff into an 8-hour day. The transition from cutting paper checks to making 64% of payments via ACH saves the company an estimated $12 per check, an amount Mahon expects to grow significantly as Werner moves closer to 100% ACH payments.
This success also created a mindset shift. “We have leaders who can now see their cost centers and every penny that they’re spending. It changed the mindset on data analysis. Now I can look at the data and I can make decisions to run the business,” says Mahon.
Empowering efficiency and driver engagement.
This transformation was so much more than a technology shift. For Mahon, it was also about improving the working lives of the “lifeblood” of the organization—the drivers. Having spent time behind the wheel himself, Mahon understands drivers’ needs and focused the technology decisions on achieving that. “We can do things much more quickly. We can get value to customers, but we can also keep our drivers who are on the road safe and have more high-touch engagement with them,” he says.
It’s also saving a ton of time for drivers. Prior to Workday, drivers often had to be routed into a terminal to ink-sign paperwork, resulting in up to 12 hours of lost time on the road. Now, Workday Learning and the Workday mobile app allow drivers to electronically sign documents without ever having to leave their trucks. The app also gives drivers immediate access to payment information, reducing the number of calls they need to make to HR. This maximizes efficiency for the individual driver.
From the mundane to the modern.
Werner’s drive for modernization is not just about replacing old systems; it’s also about reengineering the employee experience and dedicating human talent to higher-value work. This ambition is supported by AI and Workday Illuminate™.
Freeing up staff from low-value, “mundane” work is creating opportunities for more employee engagement, including high-touch interactions with drivers to check on their well-being.
Looking ahead, Mahon believes a security-first approach to AI will reap rewards. “Given the nature of financial and HR data, we’re taking the time to make sure that we have the models trained and that security and the usage is appropriate," he says. “We’ve been innovating and pushing the envelope in terms of technology for decades, and we’re going to continue to do that. When we add in partners such as Workday, we become that much more powerful and that much more innovative.”
When we add in partners such as Workday, we become that much more powerful and that much more innovative.
EVP and CIO