Leveraging Workday and Power BI to Unlock Advanced Human Resources Analytics

Authored by Nick Scott | Project Lead and Director, Data Solutions
Project Team: Lee Whieldon, Sr. Manager, David Cuomo, Manager, and Nicholas Utzschneider, Staff

In today’s data-driven world, organizations increasingly recognize the immense value of tracking key metrics in their Human Resources (HR) departments.

Advanced analytics can elevate HR from a traditional administrative function to a strategic partner that optimizes internal processes, drives key decisions, and contributes to an organization’s success.

And for organizations using Workday as their human resource information system (HRIS), the HR function just got even better. Our team at SC&H has perfected the integration of Workday with Power BI for comprehensive HR analytics that simplifies visibility for executive leadership and department managers.

Sometimes seeing is believing, so we’re sharing how we transformed HR reporting capabilities for a national government contractor with over 17,000 employees. By leveraging the combined power of Power BI and Workday and our meticulous implementation approach, we were able to provide the client with:

• Centralized analytics using cloud services
• Automated reporting processes
• Dynamic data modeling
• Actionable HR insights to empower informed decision-making

Client Challenges: Limitations with HR Reporting

Prior to engaging SC&H for data automation and analytics solutions, the client lacked a scalable, replicable reporting strategy to quickly and seamlessly track metrics. Users spent hours running one-off reports from Workday to answer routine questions like:

• How many people have we hired this month or year-to-date, and in which business function?
• How do voluntary terminations this month compare to last?
• What is the breakdown of monthly attrition rates by business function?

Without a streamlined process, the client couldn’t answer these standard questions easily or provide key insights to leadership quickly. Users had to export historical Workday reports into Excel and stack them across multiple sheets to report on past periods or identify trends. On top of this manual compilation, the calculation methods of certain KPIs varied based on who was assembling the analysis.

Ultimately, the client was experiencing:

• Lack of visibility into key metrics
• Tedious manual processes required to collect and analyze data
• Inconsistent and unstandardized reporting processes

HR leadership knew a more advanced solution was needed to address inefficiencies. The client engaged SC&H to transform their HR reporting processes, automate error-prone tasks, and enable dynamic reporting capabilities with Power BI.

SC&H Approach: How to Enhance HR Analytics

Centralize Key Metrics in Power BI

We consolidated multiple views from Workday into a single portal in Power BI that housed all the client’s key monthly reporting metrics. Leveraging Power BI’s robust visualization capabilities, we crafted a comprehensive visual dashboard of the metrics, including:

• 13-month rolling headcount trends
• Starting-to-ending headcount walks
• Month-over-month and year-over-year attrition trends
• Employee demographic breakdowns
• Voluntary/involuntary terminations
• Tenure and management level trends

This streamlined dashboard empowered HR teams to effectively monitor performance, identify patterns or potential issues, and create actionable strategies to drive measurable results.

Automate Monthly Business Review Decks

Our team automated the creation of the client’s monthly business review decks by integrating Power BI visuals into a replicable presentation format. This saved significant time, eliminated errors, and standardized enterprise-wide KPI calculations, enabling the client’s HR leaders to focus more on strategic planning and decision-making than tedious data compilation.

Visualize Comprehensive Employee Lineage

We created a unique dashboard that visualized complete employee lineage for the past two years, including tracking manager changes, transfers, and compensation changes. This provided valuable insights into workforce dynamics and helped the client make informed decisions regarding talent management and succession planning.

Tightly Control Access to Sensitive HR Data

Recognizing the importance of data security and confidentiality, we implemented a two-tier security model that ensured restricted dashboard access and row-level security to the underlying data. The HR team could control access to the dashboards utilizing a simple SharePoint list integrated into the Power BI HR data model. This new system ensured data privacy while empowering individuals with the necessary insights to fulfill their roles effectively.

Leverage Workday Reports and Azure Synapse for an Advanced Analytics Model

We built an advanced analytics model that could manage complex data requirements and enable granular employee-level data in the Power BI dashboards. This process included:

• • Creating custom reports in Workday to generate data extracts that meet the end-state dashboard requirements
  • Automatically extracting the data into an Azure Data Lake and Azure Synapse database using Workday’s API endpoint
  • Generating key data points with the trended worker object in Workday

Ready to Transform Your HR Analytics and Unlock Deeper Insights?

Any organization using Workday as their HRIS could leverage this same blueprint to revolutionize their reporting processes, and we can help you plan and implement it seamlessly. Gain confidence in your data and take the first step towards better decision-making by reaching out to our team today. We’ll help you unlock anticipation-worthy analytics and lead the transformation of your HR reporting processes.