Goodwill of Central and Northern Arizona
Goodwill of Central and Northern Arizona Optimizes Visibility and Efficiency in Workday
The Challenge
Resource bandwidth and limited Workday experience
Goodwill of Central and Northern Arizona went live with Workday Financial Management, Workday Human Capital Management (HCM), and Workday Payroll in 2020 to automate and streamline processes. While the go-live is a significant milestone, the organization recognized the need to continue success and help its users use and learn Workday in the real-world environment. Like many organizations new on Workday, internal resources were just learning the system, unfamiliar with specific modules of the Workday system and had yet to develop their own expertise. Post-production support is a key component of transitioning to Workday, enabling Goodwill to leverage best practice advice, deep Workday knowledge, and insight into how other organizations are using Workday.
“The transition period following go-live has a lot of uncertainty because no matter how prepared you are, it’s a completely different experience when you really use the system,” said Jessica Sample, senior manager, HRMS and Workforce Analytics at Goodwill of Central and Northern Arizona. “Avaap was our implementation partner and transitioning to the Avaap AMS team was seamless. Just like we want to provide all the support and tools for our end users, whether they are the cashier at a store, or a manager at our warehouse, Avaap demonstrated that same sentiment of being there for us, getting answers as quick as possible and keeping our projects on track.”
4000+
employees
111+
retail locations
$270+ MM
in annual revenue
Key Highlights
AVAAP’S WORKDAY APPLICATION MANAGEMENT SERVICES (AMS)
Goodwill of Northern and Central Arizona engaged the Avaap Workday Application Management Services (AMS) team for post-go-live support. Avaap AMS helps customers transition to Workday, enhance and maintain the solution, and augment internal teams through life-line support. “It never occurred to us to use anyone else,” added Sample. “We knew Avaap as a company and its people and they knew us. Our company cultures are similar, and as we’ve gone through our support years, there is consistency in the way things are done.”
Avaap AMS is rich with a variety and depth of Workday experience, helping the Goodwill team to identify solutions to issues, fill knowledge gaps and respond quickly to user needs. For example, after the first week it was apparent users needed different training than anticipated. The Goodwill team stood up daily support sessions and Avaap made itself available to offer expert support. Sample said, “We rely on Avaap’s consultants’ expertise. When we submit a ticket, we know we are getting the expert in that specific module, whether it is Time Tracking, Applicant Tracking, or Payroll. While our team has a general understanding of all the modules, we rely on Avaap for capacity to support us and the in-depth knowledge of Workday.”
GREATER VISIBILITY AND IMPROVED STAFF EFFICIENCY
Goodwill continues to enhance its Workday investment to ensure its users benefit from leading practices. When feedback that the recruiting process using Workday didn’t align with expectations, Goodwill of Northern and Central Arizona started a new process improvement project to get to the source of the matter. After a deep dive, they learned that the issue was stemming from a lack of end user training. Working with Avaap AMS and gleaning insight from how other customers have configured recruiting has streamlined the process, and made it easier and less complicated for end users to move applicants through the funnel.
Creating new Prism reports is another way Avaap AMS helps to support Goodwill of Central and Northern Arizona. While the Goodwill team has created a few reports, knowing which ones come standard and what can be developed has provided leaders with visibility into what matters such as how many candidates in the pipeline, if retention goals are being met, and what hiring demand looks like inside each department.
More than providing support, one of the biggest benefits is the knowledge transfer that happens through access to Workday expertise. The Goodwill team appreciates Avaap’s responsiveness to tickets and willingness to hop on a call to quickly resolve issues, but what they value most is helping their team make better use of Workday.
“We like that Avaap will partner with us and teach us new things about Workday,” said Sample. “Avaap is good about sharing their knowledge and showing test results so we can see what changed. Our relationship goes beyond just closing tickets. Avaap makes us grow and make us better. That’s why our team and our leadership values our partnership.”
Just like we want to provide all the support and tools for our end users, whether they are the cashier at a store, or a manager at our warehouse, Avaap demonstrated that same sentiment of being there for us, getting answers as quick as possible, and keeping our projects on track.”
-Senior Manager, HRMS and Workforce Analytics at Goodwill of Central and Northern Arizona
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