Chatham University has made the transition to Workday, a cloud-based financial and human resources system that has brought change to the way the university budgets and manages payment after spending nearly two decades relying on outdated financial software.

Students can expect the platform to impact on-campus jobs payroll, as it is where timesheets are submitted, approved and processed. For faculty, it has a larger impact on department budgeting, managing payroll and updating human resources information. 

Several benefits are predicted to come from this change, but Vice President of Communications Bill Campbell hopes to have better insight into budgeting, as well as easier access to time off requests and payroll. 

“I hope to see better visibility into the budget administrator’s spending,” Campbell said. “It’s going to have stronger controls on spending with the integration of purchase order invoice. There are a lot of reports that can be filled out through Workday, which will allow us to do deeper analysis and budget work that we couldn’t do with the old system. On the employee side, it replaced Dayforce. Workday is where everyone can do all of their vacation days, sick days and timesheets. It is where all of the open enrollments for benefits are.”

Through the decision, the university was able to merge different platforms into one, ultimately making the process smoother, according to Campbell. 

“Outside of replacing the finance system, it brings together the finance and HR system, which was Dayforce,” Campbell said. “The two systems were different and weren’t talking to each other.”

Workday has taken over the role of several systems that faculty were using before. Even though the software has changed, the way the budget is handled has not. 

“There are budget administrators. There’s a budget process. Those budgets are developed and reviewed,” Campbell said. “The preliminary budget is developed in July and approved in October. Workday will bring together better visibility into the budget. Budget administrators are going to have greater visibility into where the spending is going and if it is above or below budget.”

Though Workday was originally designed for larger schools, it has taken on a prominent role in smaller institutions. 

“Workday has made a real commitment to the mid-market sector, which is schools like Chatham,” Campbell said. “They put together packages that help the schools implement Workday and bring the benefits of Workday to the sector of higher education.”

Before the switch to Workday, Associate Professor of English and Chair of the Humanities and Education Department Carrie Helms utilized two different softwares, which are now combined into one through Workday. 

“There was a system called Concur, which is where credit card charges and record keeping was,” Helms said. “When it came down to keeping track of how much money we had spent, and how much money we had left, we had to keep track of that in an Excel spreadsheet. The business department kept track of this and sent us monthly reports and then we kept our own tracking for quicker access.”

Staff has received training in the system, and more training and tutorials are planned for the future. The university partnered with an implementation team, Cognizant, to help the transition go smoothly. 

Campbell spearheaded the project last year and has since introduced the program to other staff members.

“Chatham’s finance system was very aged,” Campbell said. “It was well over 20 to 25 years old and it wasn’t serving the university in the ways it needed to be. So, a process was started to look at a new system and three or four were considered, Workday was ultimately selected.”

Helms also felt the staff did a promising job on implementing the system. 

“It has not been an easy onboarding process,” Helms said. “I have had a lot of sympathy for our staff who have been given a huge task and have had a lot of challenges navigating it, with minimal time and resources. I would like to go on record in support of our dedicated and sometimes overtaxed staff.”

As the system is being implemented, students and faculty are learning to adapt.

“It has been a learning as we go system,” Helms said. “We had a system before that we understood and it wasn’t perfect, but at least we knew what we needed to do. And now we need to do the same things, but we have to relearn how to do them. That is always a frustrating journey, but it also formalizes things that are generally accepted.”

Vicky Streeton ‘27 is in her third year of working as an student ambassador for Admissions and, the new Workday implementation has led to struggles with her on-campus job.

“I think it was a little bit unfamiliar, confusing and intimidating,” Streeton said. “It seemed a lot more official than the system we used to use, and a little bit less straightforward. I don’t really remember seeing any tutorials. My first day of work was August 25 and I had to reapply to my job through Workday, but the jobs were not listed. Immediately this was confusing.” 

Streeton advises other students to keep up-to-date with their hours through Workday to ensure getting paid on time. 

“Be on top of your timesheets,” Streeton said. “Workday lets you put in your hours at the beginning of your shift and doesn’t require actually clocking in and out. I would say to just remember to submit your hours each week. Unlike the old system, you have to submit your hours once a week, where in the old system you did it monthly.”

This shift is planned to continue into the next school year, eventually allowing students to access things such as financial aid. 

“It is going to be an ongoing process which is going to phase in over 2026-27,” Campbell said. “That is going to replace things students need more visibility with, like the portal. It will become where all of the financial aid and student accounts are. It will also have grades and degree progression. That is going to be over the next two years.”