University of Washington Human Resources

Advancing our talent systems: Workday Recruiting and Learning

Shared by Heather Horn, vice president for UW Human Resources, with University leaders and the HR Community of Practice on Oct. 30, 2025.

Since joining the University of Washington on October 1, I’ve had the opportunity to meet many of you and to learn more about the critical work underway to strengthen how we attract, develop, and retain our people. As part of UW’s broader digital transformation, two efforts—Workday Recruiting and Workday Learning—are modernizing how we manage talent across the University, and I’m honored to step into the executive sponsor role for both projects. 

Workday Recruiting: adapting and refining
Workday Recruiting is now in the Adapt Phase, which began September 26 and will continue through May 31, 2026. During this phase, the project team continues to evolve the module based on user feedback and early learnings since go-live. The project team is focused on refining processes and system functionality—starting with direct hire, the offer process, and the “Unit Recruiter” security role—to make recruiting more intuitive and efficient. The team is also creating a customized UW Medicine job site designed to make it easier for healthcare applicants to discover opportunities across the health system. Your continued feedback through the HR Community of Practice is essential as we strengthen how this system supports UW’s staff hiring goals. 

Workday Learning: piloting UW’s future learning platform
Workday Learning is in end-to-end testing and accessibility testing with a mid-December deployment planned within UW’s Workday ecosystem. The pilot will focus on a single new required employee course, Understanding Civil Rights. The course will be delivered, tracked, and reported through Workday Learning starting in January 2026. 

This pilot marks an important first step toward a unified learning management system for the University. Lessons from this rollout will shape how we adapt and expand future enterprise learning capabilities. UWHR is leading this work as the business owner in partnership with UW-IT as the technical owner, with the pilot course content developed by the Civil Rights Compliance Office and Compliance & Risk Services serving as course owners. 

Thank you for your partnership as we continue to adapt and learn together. I’m grateful for the thoughtful collaboration across teams that makes this work possible and look forward to sharing continued progress in the months ahead.