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The Issue:
Completing the paperwork to hire a student for a Federal Work Study (FWS)
position was a pain point for schools and units. Imaging and reviewing the paperwork was a
pain point for Student Financial Services (SFS). The process involved duplication of effort,
manual entry of data, lack of consistency between two systems of record (HR and
Financial Aid), manual imaging of thousands of individual submissions, and such
“quaint” elements as wet signatures and faxed or emailed forms. It was a lot of effort for everyone involved,
but necessary to make sure both the student and the job were eligible for
Federal Work Study. Often, SFS would
receive FWS vouchers that were incomplete or that had incorrect information,
which meant team members would have to double back and check with the
submitter. When faxed or emailed, forms could
also get lost or sent in unusable file formats. And because the hiring and voucher-creation
processes were entirely independent of one another, and because SFS had no
access to the hiring information, there were challenges from a reconciliation
standpoint as well.
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| Click image for a larger view |
The Improvement:
The SFS Federal Work-Study team noticed that much of the voucher information
was already being entered in Workday as part of the hiring process, yet it had
to be re-entered on the FWS voucher in order for SFS to have a copy for federal
audit purposes. What if the information
could be pulled directly from Workday to populate the required voucher and job
description?
The Solution: Shuler
(then of SFS, now part of the FST team), Hopkins, and others from within SFS (including
Ashley Rogers, Beth Steppe, Mary Fields, and Sabrina Whitcomb) worked with the
UVAHR Team to make the improvement. The
cross-functional team was able to develop an integration between Workday HCM
and ImageNow that transformed the process. Now for almost all FWS-hire-related functions (Phase
I) the submitter provides a few additional data points on an integrated
questionnaire; the remaining information is pulled directly from Workday; and the
FWS voucher and job description are automatically generated, approved
electronically by departmental representatives, and sent to the SFS ImageNow
system through a nightly process with no extra labor involved!
The Benefits: The data submitted with the form is now more
reliable, as it is fed directly from Workday hiring information. Also, since the form is electronic,
incomplete forms are a thing of the past due to required fields (fields that
also have clearer explanation of the information being sought). No emailing or faxing is required, and the SFS
review process has been streamlined dramatically as a result of standardized formatting,
typed vs. hand-written entries, and many fewer opportunities for user error.
The Bottom Line: Last year 855 Federal Work Study students were
hired, resulting in 3,194 imaged pages (submissions are more than one page each,
and students often hold more than one position). Shuler, Hopkins, and their colleagues
finished the new process in August (in the midst of a pandemic and distributing
CARES Act funding!), just in time for it to be useful for schools and units
that were hiring student workers for the fall. Because continuous improvement is continuous,
the next step is creating a similar approach for FWS compensation changes as
well as hires – that’s a Phase II enhancement, on the docket for early 2021!
__________________________________________________________________________
A big shout out goes to Janet Turner-Giles and the Talent
Flex Team, who provided insights as to end-user and downstream impacts on the
HR and departmental side, and especially to senior analyst Maggie Breeden, also
of UVAHR, whose Workday programming prowess was instrumental in making the new
process operational. Thanks to the SFS Federal Work-Study team and our ImageNow
colleagues. Thank you, all! 😊
Got a bright spot to share? Email the Continuous Improvement team at uvafinance_ci@virginia.edu
UVAFinance's Continuous Improvement Committee recently hosted a webinar on Challenging the Status Quo, featuring UVAFinance leadership. This webinar was the first of a series and was full of such inspiration that we couldn't help but share it with you here on Finance Matters.
Tune in to hear Melody Bianchetto, Bill Ashby, and Augie Maurelli discuss continuous improvement.
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| Nickole Hannah-Jones |
Addie Coe, Aarati Sonkusare, and Erika Priddy discuss what they do on the FST team, for our stakeholders, and to build a better way of doing finance at UVA.
You can also watch this and other great videos on the UVAFinance YouTube Channel.
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Key Open Enrollment Facts and Changes |
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Action Items |
In order to receive important UVA correspondence by mail, all UVA employees are encouraged to review your home address listed in Workday.
To view and edit your home address:
Questions? Reach out to askhr@virginia.edu
Patty and Brandi discuss a book by Patrick Lencioni, “The Truth About Employee Engagement.”
Everyone has a time in their career where they dread going to work. This book addresses the three root causes of
job misery and how they can be remedied.
Resources Mentioned:
The Truth about Employee Engagement: https://www.amazon.com/Truth-About-Employee-Engagement-Addressing/dp/111923798X
Patrick Lencioni Ted Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5EQW026alY
Finance Matters “Start with Why” Podcast: https://everydaygrace.podbean.com/e/start-with-why-finance-matters/
The Stay Inverview: https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/hr-forms/pages/stayinterviewquestions.aspx
Don't forget! We want your quarantine stories for an upcoming episode of Finance Matters. Click here for more details.
Larry has been an outstanding staff member, responsible for handling the accounting of all new equipment asset purchases and played a vital role in achieving the yearly Commonwealth’s Equipment Trust Fund requirements with exceptional results.
Sue Clements, Co-lead of FST’s Spend Workstream, gave an
update for her team at last week’s Fiscal Administrators Meeting.
She started by introducing the four main areas with which
the Spend Workstream is involved: Payee Registration & Management,
Requisitions & Purchase Orders, Invoices & Payments, and Travel &
Expense.
She then went on to discuss the Spend Focus Group, first
sharing the list of the group’s participants who represent a wide range of the
different schools and units across the University. Sue also listed some
important dates related to Spend Focus Group events, such as the kickoff
session that took place on September 1st and the first official
meeting that took place this Monday, September 21st.
The September 21st meeting consisted of an overview
of FDM and an introduction to the T & E Card strategy that is under consideration.
Below is a list of topics and activities the group plans to use in future meetings:
If you have any questions regarding the Spend Workstream or
the Spend Focus Group, you can reach out to the workstream co-leads, Sue
Clements and Jenn Glassman.
_______________________________________________________________________
Want to listen in on this presentation? Check out the September 16 Fiscal Administrator meeting recording; the Spend update starts at 28:25.
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FDM
Milestone |
Description |
Draft Target Date |
|
|
Finalize
Initial FDM Structure |
•
Map top 10 activity scenarios to determine
worktag usage •
Finalize worktag formats (field lengths and
naming conventions) •
Determine driver worktags |
•
Determine required worktags •
Update worktag definitions •
Determine usage of Balancing Unit worktag •
Updated Cost Center review |
8/31/2020 |
|
Finalize FDM Worktag Format
|
Length, naming convention |
8/31/2020 |
|
|
Finalize Cost Center Hierarchy Structure (levels)
|
Grouping of leaf-level Cost Centers and hierarchy for managerial and
institutional reporting |
8/31/2020 |
|
|
Develop COA to FDM Conversion Rules
|
Mapping rules from Oracle GL/GA chart string to Workday FDM worktags |
9/15/2020 |
|
|
Develop process for COA to FDM mapping by Units
|
Process and instructions to be communicated to the units for their
completion or review of the mapping of their Oracle GL/GA charts strings to
Workday FDM worktags |
9/15/2022 |
|
|
Frost COA to FDM Mapping |
Only critical changes will be made in the mapping rules of the Oracle
GL/GA chart string to Workday FDM worktags after this date |
3/15/2022 |
|
|
COA to FDM Mapping by Units (Begins Sept 2020)
|
Completion of mapping of the legacy Oracle GL/GA chart strings to
Workday FDM worktags |
3/16/2022 |
|
|
COA Segment Clean-Up in Oracle
|
Activity to review inactive values and small dollar balances to
reduce conversion activities |
4/1/2022 |
|
|
Freeze COA to FDM Mapping
|
When critical changes in the mapping rules of the Oracle GL/GA chart
string to Workday FDM worktags will no longer be accepted |
5/13/2022 |
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Recognize colleagues for their awesomeness by emailing the UVAFinance Culture Crew at culturecrew@virginia.edu.
