Boost employee data management efficiency, coordination, and security with centralized planning for Human Resources onboarding

Background

When Autodesk acquires an organization, the Human Resources Mergers & Acquisitions team (PPL M&A) gathers employee information from the acquired company and transitions all employee data to the Autodesk ecosystem. The original process to collect data, enter data, and transition these acquired employees was highly manual, which must be orchestrated across multiple departments and Excel versions. Maintaining one source of truth document has proven cumbersome and unstainable long term.

Challenge

The Autodesk team relied on a decentralized process to gather acquired employee inputs across various departments into an Excel template. Maintaining a single source of truth and validating employee metadata against internal master data tables was error prone and time-consuming. Bottlenecks to receive required data from other departments frequently delayed individual acquisition cycle times. Furthermore, due to the manual nature of the original acquisition process, business users were forced into low-value firefighting activities versus high-value analysis reporting for leadership. Lastly, scalability in Excel was severely impacted by the sheer volume of acquired employees across multiple acquisitions.

Approach

Keys to success revolved around two fundamental elements: understanding the data inputs required and the responsibilities of each department involved in the employee onboarding process. To begin, we conducted a thorough analysis of Autodesk’s existing HR processes and data systems to identify which data inputs were necessary for employee onboarding. This involved working closely with the PPL M&A (HR) and IT teams to understand their specific requirements and any compliance or security considerations. In parallel, we worked with representatives from each of the departments that would be using the platform to complete their respective responsibilities during the onboarding process. By understanding each department’s role and how they interacted with the employee data, we were able to design a platform that not only met Autodesk’s requirements for data consolidation, but also supported their unique workflows and needs. Throughout the project, we remained committed to an iterative, collaborative approach, working closely with core stakeholders to refine our design and ensure that the final solution improved scalability, efficiency, and accuracy.

Key results

Improved efficiency and resource productivity by consolidating onboarding activities on a central platform and eliminating spreadsheet maintenance

Enhanced security by restricting user access to department specific data entry pages

Streamlined information sharing by integrating employee data inputs into source systems (Workday), ensuring single-source-of-truth ecosystem and improved data accuracy

Benefits

“We have a small team at Autodesk, and our function has a complex process across multiple teams and technologies to onboard employees from acquired companies. Our process required much back and forth between teams, and could be cumbersome. Our collaboration with Keyrus changed all of that for the better! Countless manual hours were saved by having the most current, up-to-date data at our fingertips, and we are now more easily able to onboard acquired employees. The Keyrus team was amazing to work with - professional, engaging, flexible and they went above and beyond to deliver the best possible outcome, while offering support through all stages of the project and beyond.” -People & Places, Mergers & Acquisition team, Autodesk.