Internal Use only SIL HR Advisory Notice
Date: 25 March 2019
Subject: Rationale for SIL’s move from Insite to Workday
Distribution: SIL Area HR leaders please forward to all Area and Unit Directors and Unit HR leaders.
I am copying the AO HR leaders
Background: For healthy change management it is wise to provide as much information as possible regarding the ‘why’ of the change. As SIL prepares to move from Insite to Workday, we are aware that people will be stressed at another instance of change in their lives.
We can say up front that Workday is not Insite. It doesn’t look or feel like Insite, because it is using technology that is 15 years newer and being created by a company that has a lot more resources than SIL and Wycliffe ever did. Insite was custom built to reflect SIL and Wycliffe HR processes and needs in the early 2000s. In that sense it ‘fit us’ because it worked the same as our current practices. Workday is a commercial product built to meet the needs of a large number and type of organizations and therefore can seem a bit ‘foreign’ in how they go about processes and in some of the terminology. However, through the help of the Wycliffe USA Workday team, we have been able to configure Workday to meet our needs in the moment and that configuration will continue into the future. Differently than in Insite, but effectively nonetheless. So if Workday is so different, why didn’t we just keep using Insite?
After thorough research into options, it was determined by the SIL Executive Leadership Team that Workday and the support SIL will receive through both the Workday company and Wycliffe USA make the best sense for the Information Management System that will best meet and even exceed SIL’s needs now and into the future.
Advice: SIL made the decision to move away from Insite as its HR management system for several reasons:
- Insite has served the organizations well for 14 years, but it is dated and in need of a major upgrade to continue functioning well for our needs.
- SIL’s staff and financial resources for the ongoing maintenance and updating of Insite have diminished over time.
- Insite is expensive and difficult to upgrade or customize with our current staff and financial resources.
- Our current and future HR strategy includes a broader scope of HR activities than can be accomplished through Insite, such as Monitoring and Evaluating, Professional Development, Strategic Workforce Planning, Recruitment pipeline etc. Currently multiple systems are needed to accomplish these things.
- Since Insite was built some of the basic premises are no longer true.
- Previous buy-in for a comprehensive, joint (between the Alliance and SIL) HR management system has changed over time.
- We are no longer an ‘Enterprise’ where everyone worked together on ‘doing’ HR in the same way. Partners have their own needs for a system and Insite is not meeting those needs.
- Ongoing costs to maintain Insite were no longer shared.
- There is now no clear ownership of all the various elements of Insite – so management is stalled.
- With Workday SIL will eventually incorporate our desired strategic activities such as Monitoring & Evaluating; Professional Development and possibly finance and project management functionality to flex and grow as SIL develops.
- Maintenance and upgrades to the system are made by Workday, not each tenant of Workday.
- Workday meets the highest security protocol ensuring as much as anyone can that data is secure.
- Workday has been tested and implemented by a major partner (Wycliffe USA) and found to more than meet their HR needs.
- Ongoing support is available to our own Workday team from the Workday people themselves.
Actions requested of SIL Area/Unit HR or SILArea/Unit leaders: Please use this information to inform any discussions with Area or Unit leaders as well as Unit HR leaders and staff so they understand more clearly why SIL chose to leave Insite and move to Workday.
Please direct any questions about this information to: Lynn Onken lynn_onken@sil.org I will see that the questions are forwarded to the best people to provide answers.
Lynn Onken
Director for HR Process
SIL Global HR Director Team