As we enter the second half of 2020, many organizations have adapted to a remote workforce and change in business levels as a result of COVID-19. For enterprise software companies and their consulting partners, that also means that the majority of customer interactions and software implementation will now take place digitally.

OneSource Virtual (OSV), an exclusive Workday partner which offers end-to-end services for customers, has weathered the challenges of COVID-19 and found new ways of operating with positive impact. OSV has developed new communication channels to work more efficiently with customers and team members, along with continuing to provide unwavering customer support.

OSV’s commitment to customer success can be seen through their customer reviews, which position OSV as a leader in the Workday Partner Ecosystem. Boasting strong performance and customer satisfaction rates, OSV has quickly pivoted to digital communication platforms to keep customers involved, engaged and moving forward in their implementation.

When the pandemic struck, many of the OneSource Virtual team members were domiciled out of their headquarters in Dallas, Texas. The company was quickly deemed an essential business because of their three main services, including providing payroll services to over 2 million employees in the U.S.

OSV made quick changes to equip their team with the computers and hardware needed to work at home and prevent lapse or delay in customer implementation plans. A select 1% also remained working in the office to support OSV’s print business while maintaining proper social distancing measures and through distributed workforce plans.

“We always felt like we could do a massive, rapid move and shift to distributed workforce, but we had never tested that theory until the pandemic,” says Jeff Miller, Director of Communications at OSV. “We were able to do so very successfully within five business days of making the decision and had transitioned everyone to remote workforce status or distributed workforce status.”

When describing the change, OSV’s Vice President of Professional Services Eric Olson stated that there were two major considerations due to the pandemic: “You’ve got the business part of things and the personal side of things. We’re all living through this pandemic together.”

Taking care of their team was a number one priority. OSV quickly adopted a weekly town hall-style meeting led by their CEO, Trey Campbell, to facilitate open communication channels and allow team members to hear news directly from leadership.

For the benefit of all Workday customers, OSV created a micro-site of free resources called their Workday Resource Center. Here they offer ungated resource documents and videos for COVID-related topics, government information and other support items for their customers. They also began sending weekly communications to their 800+ customers, detailing company updates, thought-leadership pieces and links to their Workday Resource Center.

Transitioning to a Digital Reality

“We are extremely proud to say that we’ve been able to maintain complete business continuity throughout this move to a distributed workforce throughout the pandemic,” says Miller.

Some teams were already accustomed to remote work, making the transition quicker than others. Eric Olson’s Professional Services Team already had a 40% remote team due to traveling for customer implementation. However, this also means that there was a significant amount of in-person interaction lost that had to be made up through digital interaction and communication channels.

To retain unified teams and promote open communication, OSV utilized tools that they already had in place, such as Microsoft Teams, WebEx and Zoom. Olson also stated that they began heavily encouraging the use of video for both customer meetings and internal calls.

“I think communication is the tool,” continues Olson. ”It’s cool to talk about technology, but I think communication was really the key thing that enabled us to transition smoothly and keep everybody on the same page. We didn’t really skip a beat on servicing our customers.”

The OneSource Virtual team continues to work remote and does not have plans to return to the office anytime soon.

Customer Expectations & Communication

Pre-COVID, OneSource Virtual would send consultants onsite for a customer’s implementation to add an extra layer of comfort and to ensure launches run smoothly. Now, COVID-19 prevents consultants from being on-site and customers are looking for continued levels of communication to keep projects moving forward.

Customers are eager for a sense of community and have looked to OSV for insight on the changing landscape of compliance, government assistance programs and how that impacts payroll for their organizations. With OneSource Virtual’s involvement in payroll processing, government-assistance programs such as the CARES act have impacted payroll tax for their customers.

“We have approximately 2 million employees that we process payroll taxes for. And so, we immediately turned around a fully automated solution within 4 days, and a content webinar that we hosted on two different days,” says Jeff Miller. “The first day, we had over 400 attend our webinar and on the second day, over 200 people. There’s a greater appetite for direction, instruction and clarity with regard to the rapidly changing landscape of compliance than before the pandemic.”

In addition to the webinars and Workday Resource Center that OSV has created, they have also developed digital customer user groups that offer a sense of community for the hundreds who regularly attend.

“We’re seeing customers now being much more comfortable in the remote environment because they’ve seen it work. So, whereas before we would always send consultants onsite for payroll, we’ve now done a number of those implementations one hundred percent remotely,” says Olson. “Most customers have been like, wow, that was much smoother than I thought it would have gone.”

Olson also stated that the success of their remote project launches will be important in their efforts to build trust with new customers. The ecosystem of Workday project implementation will be completely different moving past the pandemic, and customer reviews stating their levels of trust and comfort in OSV’s ability to communicate, engage and perform will be crucial.

“OSV was extremely flexible with our changing resources close to go live. They partnered with us and ensured we were a success at go live. And didn’t disappear afterwards!”

— Global Finance, Banking & Insurance Customer implementing Workday Talent Management

Another significant change that OSV has encountered is working through their customers’ adaption to a remote workforce. Consultants are not the only ones that need to adapt to working from home – customers have their own personal lives and distractions, too.

“As consultants, we were experienced and used to doing that traveling and being in different places and working remotely,” says Eric Olson. “Now, you have a customer team that was all sent home and have to engage in this project. So, we probably saw our biggest slow down or transition time in getting customers up to speed and ready to work remotely.”

Through insight collected by Raven Intel, OneSource Virtual is 23% more likely to deliver on budget and 18% more likely to deliver on time, as compared to their peer Workday partner ecosystem. The company’s commitment to customer satisfaction, proactive communication efforts and technology stack positively positioned them to handle the changes imposed from COVID-19.

 Workday’s Response to Implementations

Workday was one of the first to respond to the implications from COVID-19, such as cancelling their Sales Kickoff Meeting in Orlando and moving their Workday Rising conference to a virtual event.

“Workday has done a fantastic job of really being in the leadership role and taking care of their employees and customers,” Jeff Miller said. “They’re leading the ecosystem by voicing that the people are the most important thing.”

To further support the remote ecosystem that so many companies have adjusted to, Workday has extended their Workday Launch approach to qualified large enterprise organizations in the U.S. This approach allows customers to move through the sales, contract and deployment process at a faster scale, allowing them to implement Workday within four months. Additionally, Workday offers an even faster version of this program called Launch Express that is exclusively delivered by Workday.

OneSource Virtual supports all different sizes of implementation and caters to each company’s needs, offering implementation programs through both Workday Launch and Workday Your Way. OSV also offers their own version of Launch Express, called Launch 20, that is suited for customers looking to implement Workday in a reduced scope, quicker timeframe and smaller budget.

“The Launch methodology is a condensed, streamlined implementation. It’s a lot less, ‘Let’s get whiteboards out and spend our time thinking’ and more of ‘Hey, let’s move forward and implement what we know,” Olson explained. “I think the important thing here is that the customer knows and understands what they’re getting into and that it is a more streamlined approach to meet budget and timeline needs.”

OneSource Virtual (OSV) has helped more than 1,300 Workday customers with services from deployment to maintenance to payroll and more—all to make the day more doable. Founded in 2008, OSV pioneered Business Process as a Service (BPaaS) and has become the leading provider of automated solutions for organizations of all sizes using Workday, delivering services with unparalleled choices, unwavering commitment, and uncompromising care. OneSource Virtual’s global headquarters is located in Dallas, Texas, with additional locations across North America and Europe. OneSource Virtual: let’s make the day more doable.