Reducing Costs and Unifying Organizational Data with Workday GO
June 1, 2026
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Workday Case Study
Altais, a 500-employee healthcare organization, needed to consolidate fragmented systems after transitioning off a PEO. Facing a hard benefits go-live deadline, they partnered with Three Link Solutions to activate Workday GO in just three months. The result: a unified platform for HR and payroll — and a merit increase process that went from taking months to just two weeks.
Why Switch to Workday GO
Disconnected Systems and Limited Options Drove Higher Costs
Altais is a small payer-provider organization with a network of independent physician associations and its own clinics. The 500-person company supports physicians with the services, technology, and clinical programs they need to focus on patients rather than administrative complexity.
Internally, however, Altais was dealing with exactly that kind of administrative complexity. The organization had grown through several mergers and acquisitions, which meant multiple human capital management (HCM) platforms. To consolidate, Altais joined a Professional Employer Organization (PEO).
The arrangement worked — until renewal time. When healthcare rates came in too high to justify staying, Altais made the decision to move to its own insurance plan. That transition made it impossible to stay with their PEO and triggered an analysis of their options.
“We evaluated Workday as an opportunity to bring HR and Finance together on a single platform, replacing a fragmented process that relied on spreadsheets and manual handoffs across departments,” stated Michele Williams, Associate Vice President of People & Engagement.
“After running the cost analysis of the lower-cost benefits, the money and time saved with having one platform for both HR and Finance, as well as the cost of the system, we were actually able to save money overall.”
Objectives for Workday Activation
Eliminate Manual Efforts With No Gap in Employee Coverage
Altais had a firm, non-negotiable deadline: new benefit plans had to go live July 1st. Any gap in employee coverage was unacceptable.
That constraint shaped everything. The organization needed a partner who could move fast without cutting corners, and a platform built for rapid deployment. Workday GO — with its pre-configured packages and proven implementation methodology — fit both requirements.
Beyond meeting the deadline, Altais set out to eliminate the manual, inefficient data hand-offs between HR and finance. The vision was a single system where HCM data fed directly into finance and budget planning.
Fast Go-Live Process
Live in Three Months With Guidance and Knowledge Transfer
Workday recommended Three Link Solutions as the activation partner due to their expertise with compressed-timeline implementations for small businesses. Early conversations quickly built confidence.
“The partners we had at Three Link were very helpful and very knowledgeable. They gave me insight into what we were really buying and implementing,” Williams shared.
That transparency was the foundation of the partnership. Three Link’s consultants guided the Altais team through what was scoped and realistic for the timeframe, focusing on implementing HCM modules first.
After each phase, the Three Link team conducted knowledge transfer sessions — recording meetings and preserving materials so the Altais team had reference points after go-live.
Three Link’s project manager proved to be an invaluable resource to go live with HCM in three months. Williams leaned on the project manager when things got complicated and to keep momentum going while the Altais team was simultaneously managing their day jobs.
Workday Deployment ROI
Merit Increases in Two Weeks Instead of Months
Since going live on Workday GO, Altais has begun realizing the connected-platform benefits they envisioned from the start.
The biggest win to date has been the merit increase process. Previously, Altais relied on third-party systems to administer annual merit cycles. This meant uploading data, testing, building custom experiences, and then carefully auditing the output before anything reached payroll. The process consumed months of time across HR and finance.
With Workday, that process now takes approximately two weeks from start to finish.
“The merit increase process was the most seamless we’ve had in years. We were able to create the experience for managers with preloaded suggested merit information. It quickly balances what the budget is and tells the leader how much they have to spend,” Williams explained.
“When we submitted it, the information flowed directly into payroll, which significantly reduced the manual review and reconciliation work we had to do. Because the data was already structured correctly in the system, it created substantial time savings for us.”
Michele Williams AVP of People & Engagement, Altais
What’s Next
Cross-Functional Operations in Workday
Now Altais is preparing to go live on Workday Financials and Adaptive Planning to gain the full benefits of a unified platform for HR, payroll and finance — with real-time visibility for the most efficient cross-functional operations.
The organization has also established a security council across HR, IT, finance, and procurement to ensure changes in one area of the unified system don’t create unintended downstream effects in another area.
