The City of Leduc's HR and Finance Transformation
Blazing a Trail for Public Sector Modernization
To support growth and increased service delivery to its citizens, the City of Leduc needed to transform its HR and finance operations, replacing its dated legacy tools with an integrated ERP and finance platform that will scale in pace with their growth.
About City of Leduc
Leduc Alberta is a growing, dynamic city in the heart of Canada’s economic engine, situated at the crossroads of air, highway, and rail transportation. With 34,000 citizens and counting, it’s among the fastest-growing communities in Alberta.
Despite the fast growth of this modern and dynamic city, Leduc relied on disparate financial applications and homegrown, heavily manual HR operations, leading to challenges with data accuracy, limited reporting capabilities, and time-consuming manual processes.
The Case for Modernization
“We needed a single source of truth across Finance and HR. We had too many disparate systems that didn’t integrate and our employees had to manually manipulate data in Excel, which was time-consuming and error-prone," shared Irene Sasyniuk, GM of Corporate Services and co-Executive Sponsor for the City.
The City needed real-time data to drive informed decisions, support growth and increased service delivery, and support open government and open data aspirations. “We wanted to get better information to our Council, management team and our citizens,” shared Gene Peskens, Chief Financial Officer and co-Executive Sponsor. “We wanted to provide more transparency.”
The Right Tool for the Job
Upon evaluating several Tier 1 platforms, Workday emerged as the best fit. Most importantly, Workday offered the best user experience for Leduc employees. Gene shared: “Our staff vocalized that Workday would offer them a better experience. This project affected literally every employee, so a user-friendly platform was paramount.”
Transformation at this scale is a long-term investment, and the City needed a platform that would grow and scale alongside them. Workday’s commitment to continuous improvement and bi-annual updates, alongside their dependable customer support model, made Leduc confident that Workday will serve them for decades to come.
A Partner for True Transformation
Cindy Post, the City’s Chief Information Officer, shared: “We needed a partner who would help us challenge the status quo and achieve true HR and Finance transformation. We’d had the same systems and processes for more than a decade, so we looked at this project as an opportunity to review our processes and ask ourselves: is the way we do things today the right way to do them in Workday? This was a challenge, certainly, but also a significant benefit because it offered us an opportunity to radically transform the way we work for the better.”
The City also wanted a team who would remain engaged as a long-term partner to help Leduc continue its transformation journey, helping the City expand its Workday footprint, optimize its platform, and drive ROI. Kainos AMS post-production services were a clear match for the City’s future vision and roadmap.
Transforming a City While Running a City
Taking on a complete HR and Finance transformation while also running a busy municipality requires a clear plan, and the City’s project steering committee and leadership team carefully balanced project needs against business-as-usual operations.
“With the scope of this project,” Irene shared, “we recognized that asking our team to work off the side of their desks was not an option.” Leduc backfilled HR and Finance roles and hired an additional dedicated IT resource to support the implementation.
The Dream Team
Leduc and Kainos quickly became a dream team, building trust and gaining momentum right from the start. Strong governance and clear communication ensured the project remained on track.
“Kainos was a well-oiled machine,” noted Irene. “We appreciated the close alignment of the internal and external project teams, clear project documentation, and efficient decision-making and escalations.”
One of the biggest surprises during the deployment? The excitement across the City’s HR and finance teams. Irene recalled: “People weren’t just chosen to support the project; they put their hands up. They understood that this was a game-changer for the City and they were so dedicated – that’s what made us successful.”
Immediate Value Realization
City of Leduc went live in January 2023, on-time and on-budget. For the first time, Leduc is operating on a modern, Tier 1 HR and Finance platform with a single source of truth. From day one, Leduc saw strong employee engagement and adoption.
“I was pleasantly surprised by the overwhelming acceptance and positive mood from the organization,” Irene recalled.“Kainos’ change management advice was unbelievable and I can’t say enough about how important it was and the level of expertise they provided,” shared Irene. “It was a crucial success factor for our team and we would have struggled without it.”
Adopting Workday also helped Leduc to strengthen its internal controls. “We thought that we had checks and balances in place before, but we didn’t,” noted Gene. “Now Workday is helping us to improve those controls.”
Invoice Processing Now 3x Faster
CFO Gene Peskens also saw a notable efficiency gain on invoice processing: “Our staff increased invoice processing speed by 3x, even brand new to using Workday.”
The Finance team are excited to begin their first budgeting cycle using Workday Adaptive Planning and are confident they’ll see significant improvements and have visibility to information they couldn’t see in the past.
What's Next for the City?
What’s next? In the near term, Leduc will continue to stabilize in their new environment and work with Kainos’ Application Managed Services (AMS) support team to fine-tune their Workday configuration and shape their Workday road map.