UVA_HRLearn How the Workday Team Makes Your Work Easier
Anthony Calloway joined UVA Human Resources in 2017 shortly after graduating from UVA with a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology. He first worked with Talent Support and more recently joined the Workday technical team as a Workday Specialist supporting the operations and configurations teams. We asked Anthony to share that transition and explain what drew him to Human Resources. You’ll also learn how the Workday technical team saves you countless hours of work!
Please tell us about yourself.
My work on the Academic Division side of Talent Support taught me how to manage the employee life cycle, which includes all employment changes, from hiring to termination or retirement. If you’re moving jobs from the Medical Center to the Academic side, Talent Support makes that transition happen correctly. It helps set up appointments for professors and process I-9s for employment. I gained a good knowledge base for how UVA operates, and this was a great fit for me because I enjoy working with people and I’m very interested in business administration. Talent Support aligned with my core values of being as optimistic as possible, being a team player, being aware that knowledge is everything, and seeking balance and enjoyment in all that I do. As Thomas Jefferson believed, you’re never a senior in learning, and I’ve been learning continuously since I graduated!
I’m also very interested in the technical aspects of business administration, and when the Workday team announced an opening, I applied to join the team because of the opportunity to learn new technical skills with back-end management, maintenance, and troubleshooting. I still work with employees directly with their technical needs, helping them do things like setting up supervisory orgs for new managers, correcting these orgs when people change roles or leave the University, and doing bulk upload of information (EIBs) for managers, department administrators, and delegates, which saves them countless hours of manual work.
Is there one project you’ve been working on that you’re most proud of that directly benefits the UVA community?
We’ve been working on streamlining Faculty, Dean, and Chair transitions into two main processes – one for completing each employees’ life cycle action in Workday whether that be a transfer, termination, or retirement, and one for hiring for the replacement. This involves many complex processes, from ending terminating academic appointments, entering exit and vacation dates, and transitioning benefits for the person leaving, to setting up supervisory orgs, transferring Workday security roles, and assigning benefits for the successor. We’re still in the discovery phase of this project and gathering feedback, as there are many variables that go into each transition, and we recognize the uniqueness of each school and department. This will help the new hires have all the resources they need to succeed from Day 1 and will also help build the relationship between HR and each UVA department.
What is the most challenging part of your job?
Workday is still relatively young with the University and is capable of so much that we get a high volume of requests while also being the technical experts of the system. We want to process every request, but are not yet able to process and implement new features as quickly as we'd like to make our colleagues’ lives easier. Workday can do a lot, and if it can’t do something directly, we spend time figuring out how to create a process that will work for the customer. We do both the day-to-day operational work and at the same time work to innovate more efficient ways to do things. And we have so much knowledge to spark ideas for department leaders.
The COVID pandemic really spotlighted this need for additional reporting changes in Workday such as COVID tracking, testing, and vaccination status, while also managing the day-to-day tasks. It has sometimes been quite a challenge of prioritization.
What about the most rewarding part?
When we provide someone with a solution for something they’ve been doing manually, we get excited! We help you streamline your work to make your work easier. For example, we can batch process hiring 400 student workers in one EIB. You can learn about what we can do through talking with your HR Business Partner.
HR is a multigenerational team; how does being a millennial contribute to the team?
I have been able to provide added value to the team with my knowledge about improvements and efficiencies using new apps like One Drive. My generation is quite adept at navigating these systems I think mostly because we’ve grown trying to learn systems that are constantly updating and improving. It's engrained in us to navigate system improvements. I’m also fluent in GIF, which brings emotional positivity to my team!
What are some takeaways you would love your UVA colleagues to know about the work you do with Workday?
I played undergraduate football at UVA, and one big takeaway from that experience was that every player matters. Every coach, trainer, manager, parent, spectator matters. That’s certainly the case at UVA Human Resources. We all work hard to make your work experience as easy as possible.
If you think there’s room for improvement in your work, especially when leveraging Workday, have a conversation with someone on the Workday operations or tech team, even a casual one; that’s how process improvement happens. There are many ways of doing things, but we learn about new ways by having a discussion with others. Our team has a lot of knowledge to offer and we’re very willing to share it with you!
What’s next for you?
I’m plan on obtaining an MBA at some point after I gain more experience here with HR, and because I’m also interested in engineering psychology, I’m thinking about pursuing a Ph.D. in Human Factors– but that’s down the road a bit!