People and Change: Jeeva DelRaj

The UBC Department of Information Technology’s vision is to continually engage with the university community, while providing technology which enables an exceptional learning and research environment at UBC. With a community of more than 700 IT professionals at UBC, the Office of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) is committed to ensuring that UBC IT’s efforts add value and are aligned to UBC highest priorities.

Jeeva DelRaj, human resources director with the Office of the CIO, oversees approximately 500 IT professionals, primarily at the UBC Vancouver campus, with some oversight at the UBC Okanagan campus. Having come into the role just over a year ago, DelRaj is heavily involved in UBC IT’s strategic vision for human resources (HR), as well as supporting the delivery of IT enterprise-wide initiatives at the institution. DelRaj’s involvement in the Integrated Renewal Program’s (IRP) Transition Network (TN) will be instrumental in implementing UBC’s new HR and Finance reporting system, Workday.

As part of the TN DelRaj, along with his team of UBC IT change agents and leadership, plays a key role in ensuring overall change needs and change communications are aligned. Further, the TN members will prepare UBC IT staff with the knowledge needed to be successful in the transition. DelRaj is also involved in the Integrated Service Centre (ISC) as part of the Workforce Transition Committee. The ISC is responsible for delivering Workday support to end-users post go-live, and will provide a main source for support services. In this committee role, DelRaj provides input to the organizational structure, including the talent strategy to help support Workday function support in Finance, HR and IT.

DelRaj’s involvement in the Workday implementation has helped drive his enthusiasm for communicating the changes around business processes, as well as helping others understand the system’s functionality. “What excites me is the opportunity potential for more creative, strategic ideas and activities to support our UBC community, and prepare UBC for the next century,” says DelRaj. “I am looking forward to helping enhance the community’s knowledge with the technical and workforce efforts of Workday by translating data reports into strategic programs. I am also excited to have a more efficient method in supporting staff to help increase attraction and retention, because their day-to-day administrative needs are being met in a well-organized manner.”

DelRaj understands that large-scale changes like system implementations come with several challenges, and that alignment on what to expect is necessary for overall adoption. “It is important to recognize that our staff wear two different hats in the process: one being the end user of Workday functional changes, the other being support from a technical change perspective,” says DelRaj. “Having coordinated messaging for all of the related applications from the Application Ecosystem Program (AEP), along with the ISC model, so that there is a common change approach across the board is another challenge,” he adds.

For institutions of UBC’s size, DelRaj believes that having Organizational Change Management (OCM) as part of the IRP, is critical to enhance consistency and alignment along various change impacts. “Overall, an OCM-IRP approach is helpful to manage expectations and reduce the vacuum of unknown, by minimizing assumptions from the community and addressing them head-on,” he says.

Additionally, he believes a cohesive approach across UBC’s campuses is an opportunity for a successful transition into Workday. “I think that ensuring both the type and timing of messaging around Workday changes are synchronized will positively impact program delivery,” says DelRaj. “It is important to clearly communicate which business processes will stay the same and which ones will be different across both campuses to help manage expectations in a consistent, unified manner. There are several opportunities for each campus to learn from one another because of their size and structural difference; knowledge sharing can bring the utmost value to the program. Additionally, sharing community feedback between campuses and within UBC as a whole gives us an opportunity to be proactive in addressing community needs.”

“Ultimately, UBC’s journey in this implementation enhances and reinforces UBC’s reputation as a forward-thinking organization and prepares us for the next century,” he adds.