Tirzah noticed when attempting to make award payments to KUMC GRAs that these payments could take up to 6 months to get processed. When trying to find out where the payment troubles were, she couldn't identify what approvals or steps were being missed. This was causing frustration for our GRAs and staff. After working with both KU and KUMC payroll teams it was discovered the award payments were getting caught up in HR workflow approvals in Workday. Departments often believed payments required cost center approval even when funding was already secured, which created unnecessary denials, inconsistent visibility, and frustration for both staff and students. After reviewing the workflow and meeting with stakeholders at KUMC, Payroll, HR, and Finance, KUMC was able to approve a process change that centralizes the entry and approval workflow within Payroll.
When a KU entity is making an additional compensation payment to the KUMC employee in the future the payment will be submitted through KU payroll and once approved the KUMC Payroll team will enter and approve which will bypass the unnecessary approvals with the old process. This change reduces the number of internal touch points, eliminates the cost center bottleneck, and ensures payments hit the next available payroll cycle within a reliable process. This should resolve the visibility problems and shorten the payment timeline.
Fellow Change Agents:
- Tirzah Branwen-Williams
- Neatha Snyder
- Julia Higgerson
- Penny Kellum
Impact of idea:
The change will greatly increase the speed of additional compensation being given to cross-campus employees. These payments now will move directly from KU to KUMC and promptly be added to the next payroll cycle. Students and Staff should see less time monitoring and waiting on internal payment processes to be completed.
