As the saying goes, nothing in life is certain except death and taxes. While they can’t promise the fountain of youth, corporate tax services provider Ryan is doing something about taxes. With a pledge to liberate their clients from the burden of being overtaxed, Ryan delivers tax recovery and performance solutions to 81% of the Fortune 500 and 97% of the companies that make up the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
While marking their 30th anniversary in business and preparing for future growth, Ryan was eager to modernize business processes and nurture their internal talent base. Recently named one of the Best Workplaces for Millennials by Fortune magazine, the company is committed to providing their workforce with the kind of engaging, easy-to-use tools that allow them to deliver world-class services and results to clients. “Ryan does a lot of things very well,” says Greg Higgins, senior HRIS analyst at Ryan. “We have great benefits, good pay, an excellent work environment, and inclusive leadership. Ryan has always been focused on growing our workforce and retaining them as well.”
As a full-suite Workday customer, Ryan had significant experience deploying Workday Financial Management and Workday Human Capital Management (HCM). To maximize their ability to launch new features and functionalities that would support their business goals, Ryan turned to Workday Success Plans.
With Success Plans, we’ve been able to pinpoint areas where Workday can help us be more efficient.
Senior HRIS Analyst
Better people processes.
Like many established companies, Ryan’s processes change over the years as they continue to evolve. In preparation for continued growth, Ryan needed additional expertise, particularly when it came to their workforce. Higgins says, “With Success Plans, we’ve been able to pinpoint areas where Workday can help us be more efficient. We’ve even been able to unlock features and functions we didn’t know we were capable of administering.”
Following a Feature Adoption Workshop to better understand Ryan’s tenant and set priorities, the Ryan team turned their attention to workforce planning. “We have over 3,000 employees and somehow we have just as many job profiles. It’s just not sustainable or scalable,” Higgins explains, “In a Success Plans webinar, we learned how to optimize our job catalog. With this as our foundation, we’re able to perform educated headcount planning, consolidate job profiles, and streamline the offer letter and recruitment processes.”
Ask an Expert is like an extra security blanket … It isn’t just an expert. It’s an expert for us.
Senior HRIS Analyst
A security blanket.
Success Plans has also helped Ryan break down the silos between departments and answer business questions. “When we have strategy meetings with functional groups in HR to improve processes, Ask an Expert is like an extra security blanket,” says Higgins. “The Workday expert workshops ideas and solutions directly in our tenant, so when we share answers with other Ryan teams, we come across as more authoritative than if we had simply found the answer in Community. It isn’t just an expert. It’s an expert for us.”
As part of their people architecture program, Ryan is pivoting from hiring for competencies to hiring for skills. “One of our talent leaders had a question about competencies,” says Higgins. “I was able to access a video through Learn On-Demand that showed how everything is moving toward skills. Success Plans makes our team an instrumental partner for the company as they look at ways to help employees apply their skill sets on a daily basis. It makes us all better at our jobs.”
I’m always looking for that lightbulb moment ... Success Plans helps me help other people be successful.
Senior HRIS Analyst
Community, collaboration, connection.
Connecting with other Workday customers through Collaboration Crews has also paid dividends for Ryan. “Another customer was doing something similar to us that I thought was wrong, but they showed me how they made it work,” says Higgins. “It was a reminder that Workday is a great system because it allows for so many different ways of doing things.”
The lightbulb moment.
Success Plans is helping Ryan build the self-sufficient internal team they need to utilize all Workday capabilities and launch Workday and launch new features and functionalities faster. Ryan is in a great position to grow their talent because they have an integrated finance, HCM, and planning solution.
“I’m always looking for that lightbulb moment,” concludes Higgins. “And to me, success is when others at Ryan realize how Workday can make their jobs better, easier. Success Plans helps me help other people be successful.”