Human Resources
By Sally Loy
The University of Wisconsin (UW) will be implementing the new Human Resources System (HRS) this spring. HRS will modernize the UW System’s recordkeeping systems and business practices and will fundamentally change how payroll, benefits and human resource services will be provided. It represents the integration of hundreds of individual systems and a massive effort to redesign the workflow in multiple work units at all UW System institutions. This new integrated system will streamline the hiring process, as well as the paying of employees by integrating them into one system.
HRS’s four main objectives are:
Systems Integration
Greater Customer Service
Risk Mitigation
Process Efficiency
The current UW payroll system was developed and installed in 1975, when VCRs were first being developed, and the Apple 1 computer was just being conceived. This payroll program runs on a mainframe computer, using millions of lines of code written in COBOL- a computer language that almost nobody uses anymore.
The new system, designed to serve institutions and employees for decades to come, will ensure full compliance with regulatory and legal requirements related to personnel information and recordkeeping.
The HRS system is based on Oracle’s PeopleSoft Human Capital Management suite. This modern system will help to standardize business practices, improve service to employees, and ensure higher levels of data integrity in all business practices and external reporting. It will consolidate hundreds of redundant campus systems into a single, reliable system, and provide employees with direct access to their own payroll and benefits information, saving approximately $3 million per year and vastly improve data security by housing information in a single data center. Sensitive data (such as social security numbers) stored in a central repository can be better secured, efficiently monitored, and utilized to make strategic management decisions.
Campuses will move to a paperless workflow, implementing a comprehensive “self-service” process where individual employees can access their own information without relying on HR staff to answer individual calls. Recruitment and retention efforts will be streamlined, and tax-withholding procedures will be greatly simplified. Student payroll – serving some 34,000 student workers at any point in time – will be integrated with faculty and staff payroll records. When new statutory requirements are imposed or other required alterations are needed, changes will be vastly simpler, less labor intensive, and more reliable.