A human resources (HR) system administers an institution's HR-related needs such as benefits, payroll, time tracking, and recruiting; manages faculty, staff, and student personal information; and supports institutional policies and government regulations. By their very nature, HR systems touch the entire institutional community. Key features include user-friendly interfaces and access to enable administrators and staff to perform routine HR-related functions easily; agile system design to comply nimbly with increasingly frequent and complex government regulations; and strong data controls to flag information inconsistencies and to restrict unauthorized data access. A well-designed HR system reduces institutional risk and minimizes time spent on routine tasks.

The Market

To keep up with increasing government regulation and user expectations, institutions are hard-pressed to replace these aging systems. HR systems have moved up nine spots in our system area rate-of-change ranking this year, meaning that institutions have either recently replaced or are planning to replace these systems more than other systems in our list (figure 8). Market trends between 2011 and 2016 reflect a consistent preference for Ellucian Banner Human Resources (29% of the market) and a shift in solutions used in the Oracle share of the market (5% in 2011 versus 18% in 2016 for Oracle E-Business Suite Human Capital Management; 25% in 2011 versus 10% in 2016 for Oracle PeopleSoft HCM/HRMS; figure 9). Nearly four-fifths (78%) of the market is using a solution from one of the top 5 vendors (figure 10).

The 2014 Enterprise Application Market Human Resources (HR) Systems Report highlighted Cornell University's Workday cloud-based Capital Management (HCM)/Payroll Solutions implementation. Rather than using their past "build it and they will come" strategy, Seth P. Brahler, senior director of HR Information Systems (HRIS) and his team opted for a partnership strategy with the Cornell community. For its Workday implementation to create a system for everyone, a college HR director served as a project sponsor alongside HRIS. Cornell Information Technology (CIT) and HRIS inventoried HR-related systems to configure Cornell's Workday solution optimally to university needs, and HR system users and HRIS designed customized HR reports together in real time directly on the Workday system. The system went live in March 2013, and today it is indeed a system for everyone. Cornell's colleges and units own their HR data, access it on demand, and enter it into the HR system of record. Constant HRIS/user communication allows users to receive adequate support and provide functional need feedback.

But what happened after implementation? Cornell's multiyear experience with its cloud-based HR system provides an opportunity to explore longer-term impacts after the system went live.

One major development is the shift from implementation to stabilization, when the new HR system successfully completed its first cycle of major processes. Cornell's HR system cycle ties with major events throughout the academic year—students' return to fall semester, open enrollment, and pay cycles. Designating the system as stabilized is an important step as it shifts the project mentality. "Stabilization doesn't mean there aren't other things that we need to do," explained Brahler. "There is always a backlog from implementation, plus new requirements that arise when people begin to work in the real system environment. But it is important to move the mindset from implementation to optimization in a production environment." Continuation of high-touch communication and support facilitates the HR system's optimization. Workday's solutions are dynamic, pushing through new functionality frequently—as often as weekly—and HRIS continues to draw on users' articulated needs and feedback to apply system changes.

Data integrity became especially important, given that local areas enter their HR data into a single system of record. Periodic data integrity reports ensure that data are complete and accurate and that users' actions have no unanticipated impacts on downstream processes with other colleges, units, or university initiatives. Reports are generated when needed—for example, end-of-year reports ensure that the data align with annual government reporting requirements. A side benefit is how the report's broader illustration of university data usage patterns and interrelationships further supports HR system optimization.

But perhaps the biggest impact involves the HR system team. Prior to Workday, HR's functional users submitted their business needs and specifications to a central IT team, who then translated them in Cornell's legacy HR system. After moving to a cloud-based system, Brahler believes the team is much more connected with the university processes. He described the evolution of a "hybrid" HR system staff that combines a technical mind-set to maintain the system and a functional mind-set to understand users' business requirements. "Having the same in-house team tasked with optimizing the product and implementing those IT solutions is very powerful," stated Brahler. "It reduces a lot of overhead and time to implement those solutions." In addition, the team has authority to make their own decisions, and governance processes help them vet those decisions. Training plays an important role in staff development to keep up with Workday's pace of innovation. The university expects staff members to take advantage of such training and budgets for it.

After a couple of years of HR system stabilization, the question arose, "What next? How can we build on Workday's capabilities and our HR system implementation practices?" Two immediate candidates were Cornell's recruiting and time tracking systems, both of which were reaching their end-of-life cycles. "We saw a lot of benefits of leveraging one vendor's capabilities versus a best-of-breed approach, especially from reporting and support aspects," stated Brahler. After determining that Workday's solutions meet Cornell needs, HRIS implemented the vendor's Recruiting and Time Tracking solutions. HRIS replicated its HR system partnership strategy for these system implementations: engaging leadership and stakeholders and involving recruiters and administrators across campus in the respective system and report design. The Recruiting solution went live in April 2016, and the Time Tracking's implementation is wrapping up.

Brahler offered this advice based on his multiyear experience with Cornell's cloud-based HR system:

• Reexamine HR processes and university policies before project launch: This can be a time-consuming process, but it helps the implementation team build the system optimally to university specifications. "It's better to finalize them beforehand as opposed to in the middle of the project because it can really gum up the works," explained Brahler.
• Think about support strategy early: The implementation project team and production system support team members may differ. "You don't want the team members to worry about working themselves out of a job or what their day-to-day jobs will be once the system goes live," stated Brahler. "The earlier you can communicate with team members about their roles, the better it is for project morale, and also helps shape the [project's] future state."
• Plan on post-implementation support changes: The HRIS team reevaluated the HR system about six months after it went live, which led to an eventual support team reorganization. "We learned new things [about the system], and people got more efficient at their jobs, so we deployed more resources to one area and pulled back from another," Brahler explained.

But the most crucial message is the project's ongoing nature. "It is really a journey," stated Brahler. "What you go live with isn't hopefully where you are going to be in three to five years. You are going to build upon your successes."