People & Change: Angela Norkum-Porubanec

UBC Okanagan’s Centre for Teaching and Learning (CTL) promotes, inspires, and supports excellence, leadership, scholarship, and technologies in teaching and learning. With a variety of academic growth opportunities including learning technology support and resources and a range of tools and technologies to support and enhance the face-to-face teaching environment, the CTL has emphasized innovation in their professional development programs.

Angela Norkum-Porubanec, who provides reception and administrative support for the CTL, understands the value that new systems and technologies bring to an organization driven by innovation. Although Angela has recently joined UBC Okanagan (UBCO) as an employee in December 2018, she is very familiar with the campus and the existing systems, having completed her Bachelor of Arts here in 2013. With new opportunities for growth and expansion for the CTL on the horizon, comes the increasing need to simplify administrative processes. UBC’s new HR and Finance system, Workday, will make this possible.

Norkum-Porubanec’s willingness to embrace the changes that accompany the implementation, coupled with the innovative culture of the CTL has helped drive her enthusiasm towards the new system, and support the centre as a Transition Network (TN) Lead/Captain at UBCO. “There is a lot to be excited about,” she says. “I’m looking forward to how streamlined the HR and Finance process will be as well as the integration of absence tracking into Workday.”

Along with other TN Leads and Captains, she is developing an understanding of Workday’s functionality to help define and communicate the changes to current business processes. She sees the positive changes that the new system will bring and its alignment with CLT’s values. “A change I am highly anticipating from Workday is a reduction in overall paper use, increasing the CTL’s efforts with sustainability.”

She believes that consistent communication and collaboration within the TN across both campuses is vital in assisting the TN to operate in unison and helping end users embrace and prepare for the change. “I think the monthly call-in sessions for HR and Finance involving both campuses are assisting in ensuring the program’s success,” says Norkum-Porubanec.

Significant change in an organization comes with apprehension among staff regarding the impacts to their day-to-day roles. Norkum-Porubanec, however, is confident that the training provided by the Integrated Renewal Program (IRP) on processes for employees, which she has seen first-hand through her involvement in ‘Train the Trainer’ (preliminary Workday training for Team Trainers), will help ease staff through the transition. “The CLT team is on board and ready to make the transition,” she says.

For large organizations such as UBC, department-specific support and targeted training are key factors that help employees adopt changes to their business processes. Norkum-Porubanec feels strongly that she is well-equipped with the tools she needs to ensure that she and her colleagues are well-informed and supported through the changes in their workflow.

“From a training standpoint, there is already a lot of support through the Canvas courses, specifically “Workday 101 for Employees” and the “IRP Transition Network Resource Library,” she says. “A great resource here on the Okanagan campus are the Workday Wednesday meetings that feature specific topics in question. They also provide an opportunity to meet the Okanagan IRP team in person, to ensure two-way communication.”