In one of its most ambitious projects in decades, Guilford College this week launched a new operational software platform that is expected to have an immediate impact on efficiency and save the College as much as $325,000 in recurring annual costs.

Guilford’s shift to Workday will initially transition the College’s finance, human resources and payroll processes to a new, cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform. Workday is replacing Banner, which has been in place for decades. Workday is being rolled out in phases across the campus. By the time it is fully rolled out, the platform will be available for students to streamline registration, assist with student onboarding, monitor academic progress and help with academic advising and collaboration.

Many colleges across the country are replacing their legacy platforms with software like Workday, which allows them to manage and integrate the essential parts of their operations under a single, cloud-based system.

Erickia Elbert, Guilford’s Director of Human Resources, says the search for a new ERP platform began in early 2022 and multiple options were examined by a campuswide committee. The committee decided on Workday later in the year and, after the Board of Trustees approved the investment, the implementation process began last summer. Dozens of staff and administrators have been involved with the project.

The new program will bring about immediate savings in human resources, says Erickia. Before Workday, the College’s HR department managed its health, medical and vision programs under separate systems, a process that grew unwieldy and time consuming for HR employees. The programs will now be managed under Workday.

“We’re minimizing the system and moving everything under one umbrella,” says Erickia.  “That’s going to cut down on the work hours by not going into so many different tools every month, and that’s going to save us money, not to mention free us up for other tasks.”

Erickia says the best part of Workday is its flexibility. “We now have a tool in place that’s going to grow and change with the College.”

Similar problems plagued the College’s Finance Department under Banner. With Workday, Vice President and CFO John Wilkinson and his department will have a real-time picture of the College’s finances which will allow them to make better and faster decisions for the campus. John says the investment in Workday will pay for itself within five to seven years.

The College expects to replace Banner for students with Workday by 2026, putting the entire campus under the Workday platform.

Campus-wide training for faculty and staff began earlier this month. Erickia says that many employees who were reluctant at first are seeing immediate benefits of the new system.

“From a human resources viewpoint, they see how the system is going to benefit them and how they’ll have all their personal information available to them,” she says. “They don’t have to call or email to change something. It’s all at their fingertips.”

Above photo: A number of Guilford staff and students helped launch the new platform including (back row, left to right) John Wilkinson, Garrett Collins, Antoinette Harris, Janet Gould, Meredeth Summers, Erica Tate. Back row (left to right): Debbie Craven, Erickia Elbert, Tracy Hall, Sejal Sheth, Jennifer Langlais.  Not pictured: Jennifer Laurenceau, Tori Smith, Julius Burch '23, Roman Raies '22, Jim Kane, Scott Crabbs, Danielle Pfaff, Colina Barnett, Brian Evans, Isaac Magana, Elvis Erazo-Ambrocio, Ron Hinton, Ian Hulsey and Teresa Shorter.