One year of Workday: A journey of transformation and efficiency
BY KERRY GOFF
With the one-year anniversary of the Workday launch this month, employees have experienced the need to adapt, and the team who works behind the scenes have been diligently ensuring the adaptation is successful.
Workday launched July 1, 2023, and replaced more than two dozen tools that were a mix of commercial, off-the-shelf applications and custom resources that were developed and enhanced over many years.
“Replacing all of this functionality resulted in a significant amount of change to how our employees do their work,” said Mickey Weeks, senior director of Business Services, Information Services. “Although a significant training effort took place leading up to the launch, a major focus for the first several months after was to help employees with the transition so they could complete their tasks successfully.”
Weeks, who is the technical domain lead responsible for the overall implementation of integrations, reporting, security and governance, said that Workday unites Finance, Human Resources and Supply Chain on a single platform, which did not exist in legacy applications.
“Workday has allowed us to streamline many processes and many HR business activities have been very successful, enhancing efficiency, transparency and accuracy in the first year,” said Beth Prilliman, Human Resources Information Services director.
Prilliman said that sometimes Human Resources had to modify Workday and other times they partnered with the institution and the Change Management team to help everyone understand and follow the defined workflows.
With these partnerships, Workday has allowed HR to deliver information and processes in this first year. This collaboration with Workday provides robust analytic capabilities, which empowers teams across the institution to make informed decisions swiftly and strategically. Other peers on the Workday support team include Greg McIlvain, Financial Systems director, Financial Services; Brandon Zurowski, Supply Chain Management Enterprise director; and George Richardson, Financial Planning and Analysis manager.
Hilary Hamblin, manager of Organizational Change Management, Strategic Communication, Education and Outreach, added that the Workday team has been hard at work to follow up on areas where improvements and enhancements have been needed. The institution continues to provide valuable feedback on how Workday is performing and meeting the needs of St. Jude.
The Workday team has been listening and responding. “More work is certainly planned, but our periodic pulse surveys have shown an improvement with how Workday is being received and adopted,” Weeks said. “We have seen significant improvements in how key business tasks are able to be performed quicker and easier in Workday as well as having a central platform where all major business functions take place,” Weeks said.
Hamblin said that the post go-live Workday Feedback Survey also provided helpful feedback to improve the platform. The team made real-time changes to the feedback.
“We have seen significant improvements in how key business tasks are able to be performed quicker and easier in Workday, as well as having a central platform where all major business functions take place,” Weeks said. “Workday is also constantly improving their platform, with updates occurring twice a year. We’re just in the beginning stages of this journey, but we’ve already seen an improvement in our capabilities.”
Now that there has been significant progress with stabilization, the focus turns to optimizing Workday and taking advantage of new features and functionality that has not yet been adopted. You can “Share Your Why,” to share experiences and stories about how Workday has positively impacted your daily work life.
Journey to the Jude: Marie Busse, Oncology
BY SASHA STEINBERG
Marie Busse’s homeland of Luxembourg is nestled in the heart of Europe. In 2022, St. Jude found its way into Marie’s heart.
“I was born and raised in Luxembourg, also known as the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg. Luxembourg is nestled in the heart of Europe and surrounded by Germany, France and Belgium. We are a small country with a population of about 658,000—slightly bigger than Rhode Island—but we pack a big punch. Luxembourg is one of the co-founders of the communauté européenne - (Benelux), and we have over 122 banks from different countries. Hence, we have a thriving financial service sector and lots of diversity!
I used to go in our backyard, and a few meters away, I was in a field in Belgium and one or two villages away I was in France. Being so close to our neighbor countries, we learn Luxembourgish first (this is our mother tongue, and it’s not spoken by many anymore), then we learn to write/read in German, French and then English. Exams are also trilingual.
My co-workers will also tell you that Luxembourgers have an immense repertoire in idioms. I still come up with new ones they haven’t heard, and they are the cause of a lot of giggles in our pod.
My country’s flag is displayed in the Danny Thomas Research Center, and it humbles me in that I am allowed to walk these halls with so many other nations and we all support the same goal—beating cancer and celebrating life—children’s lives, moms’ and dads’ lives—but also each other, as one of the common languages of us all is LOVE and HOPE. Those are international languages understood amongst all peoples, and to be able to be a tiny part of this big mission is the cherry on the top.
My husband, who is originally from Orlando, Florida, was a United States Marine Corps guard at the Embassy in Luxembourg, where we met. We married and lived for over four years in Honolulu, Hawaii, where I worked in marketing and went to the University of Hawaii. Our last deployment was Millington, Tennessee, and we decided to make Memphis our home. We raised two daughters here. One daughter is now an Embassy Officer in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and our other daughter served in Kuwait, USO, and decided to make her home here.
I remember driving over the bridge into Memphis 33 years ago and saw a pink hospital building called St. Jude. I had never heard of St. Jude. Living in Memphis
Marie Busse is a senior administrative specialist in Oncology.
and getting to know the wonderful people here, I feel like St. Jude became a synonym of Memphis and what it stands for. It’s easy to believe in the mission of St. Jude.
I started working at St. Jude in 2022—best job ever! I support the principal investigators in Molecular Oncology with all kinds of administrative work, but I get to work with fantastic people and get to use my languages, something I was missing. It is so rewarding to be able to help by communicating in different languages and being creative. I love organizing events and creating our newsletter and internal brochures, pamphlets and other materials.
St. Jude is not just a job; it has become a tangible venue to help, support, educate and soldier against the war called cancer. That is not only rewarding, but it leaves a lasting impression and is truly a blessing and the height of my career.”
How It Works: New LinkedIn guide can help build your online brand
BY MATTHEW GASCHK
Social media isn’t just for sunsets and selfies anymore.
More and more, professionals use social media platforms to network, build their reputations and grow their brands. Using a platform like LinkedIn is crucial to professional growth. With that backdrop, the social media team in Strategic Communication, Education and Outreach (SCEO) constructed the LinkedIn Personal Branding Guide to help colleagues navigate the world of social media.
“As we continue discovery at St. Jude, utilizing platforms like LinkedIn becomes increasingly important,” said Diane Roberts, vice president, SCEO. “It’s not just about building a professional profile; it’s about showcasing our collective achievements and strengthening our networks. By sharing our stories and successes, we can inspire new ideas, driving our mission forward.”
In a fast-paced world, communicating effectively through multiple channels ensures that the message is being delivered and raises the profile of researchers, their labs and departments, and the institution as a whole.
The advantages to using social media effectively are plentiful. Jasmine Plummer, PhD, Developmental Neurobiology, has seen numerous benefits from a wellplanned LinkedIn profile. Prior to her arrival at St. Jude, Plummer noticed that every person who applied for a job with her would visit her profile on LinkedIn before applying.
To use the platform to her advantage, Plummer took a more active role in populating her profile and curating her audience, and soon, she found that the pool of applicants noticeably grew.
“I post at conferences that I attend because those are potential students, postdocs, technicians and computational scientists for our team. That’s what leads most of my posts,” Plummer said. “For every position, the pool is expanded to get better candidates.”
The ability to attract exceptional recruits for her department is just one of the benefits. While building a global network, Plummer can connect people from around the world to other labs at St. Jude and beyond.
Further, Plummer has seen a greater diversity in the talent pool, reaching candidates from much broader backgrounds. In addition to a wider reach among researchers, she also heard from aspiring scientists from lesser-known universities and even high school students.
“As a woman in STEMM, it has been important for me to show other women that they have a place in the room,” she said. “I think very strongly about diversity and inclusion. LinkedIn has provided that.”
The LinkedIn Personal Branding Guide provides a blueprint for users to follow when starting to build their online network and best practices for reaching their desired goals. Within the guide, examples are provided from Plummer and others who have effectively utilized the platform.
Feel Good Friday: Immigration Services program pairs partners to experience new cultures
BY HALLIE ANDERSON
The Feel Good Fridays series is a periodic look at inspirational, positive and uplifting stories from members of the St. Jude community.
How do you get around Memphis? Do you prefer public transit or driving your own car? What is the food like in your hometown?
While these might not be questions to bring up in everyday conversation, Immigration Services encourages participants in the Cultural Exchange and Conversation Partner Program to consider asking them to one another.
The program enrolls about 30 participants in each eightweek session. Lisa Gaddy, Manager of Immigration & Visa Services, Human Resources Operations, pairs participants based on their common interests listed in a preliminary survey. However, these common interests are a secret to the partner pairs themselves. The challenge? Discover your common interest before the program’s end.
Partners meet at the program’s kickoff. They spend the following eight weeks exploring each other’s cultures and perspectives.
“It’s blossomed into this really beautiful exchange of cultures, which is so typical of St. Jude,” Gaddy said.
Some pairs use the provided prompts and guiding questions while others choose their own icebreakers. Regardless of conversation topics, the partners meet weekly for outings as elaborate as a trip to the zoo or as simple as lunch in Kay Kafé.
While some participants never discover what common interest they share, for others, it is immediately obvious.
Zhuo Qu, a biostatistician in Biostatistics, is from centralsouthern China. She enrolled in the program after joining St. Jude in February 2023. Qu shared the fiery cuisine of China’s Hunan province in the form of pork stir-fry with bell peppers. Her partner, Barbara Passaia, lead researcher, Computational Biology, introduced Qu to Feijoada, a black bean stew from her home country of Brazil.
While exploring different foods with Passaia, Qu discovered that the two shared a similar story.
“Both of us speak English as a second language and often experience homesickness, longing for our families and friends back in our respective nations,” Qu said. “While we integrate into daily life at St. Jude and engage with American culture, we also strive to preserve our uniqueness by maintaining our native cuisine, staying connected with our families back home, and promoting our own culture to our colleagues and friends in the USA.”
Employees from across campus gather to learn more about the different cultures of colleagues through the Cultural Exchange and Conversation Partner Program.
Throughout the eight-week program and beyond, Qu and Passaia shared their familiar experiences. Qu enjoyed the program so much that she has participated twice.
Other partners’ common threads are not immediately evident. Amit Kumar, scientist, Center for Leukemia Studies, is from India while his partner Robert Clark, Chief government affairs officer, Office of Legal Services, has always lived in the southeastern U.S. As one of their weekly outings, Clark and Kumar watched the Grizzlies play the Lakers in FedExForum. Though the Grizzlies lost, Kumar was glad to have seen LeBron James play in person. In exchange, Kumar brought Clark to his Hindu temple.
On their adventures, the pair talked about their career paths, travel experiences and their religions.
“I have learned many things from Amit, including an overview of Indian and Hindu customs and details of the scientific work he is engaged in at St. Jude. I look forward to learning more, since we are both interested in pursuing our friendship beyond the scope of the program,” Clark said.
By bringing together employees of different cultures, this program also brings them closer to living St. Jude values. The program requires participants to work collaboratively, respect fellow employees, and most notably, look ahead to a future of opportunities.
“Embrace the challenge to create a new tomorrow,” Gaddy said. “The only way we can do that is by being open minded and embracing things that aren’t within our four walls, but looking outside ourselves to see, how do we make a better tomorrow?”
