Customer story highlights

• Replaced an ageing payroll platform with TechnologyOne Human Resources & Payroll (HRP).
• Cut contract generation from four days to five minutes.
• Delivered annual workforce reporting in just two days.
• Empowered staff with self-service tools and streamlined HR processes.
• Shifted from customisation to adoption, enabling long-term agility and growth.

About GOTAFE

GOTAFE is the largest vocational education provider in regional Victoria, with campuses across Shepparton, Wangaratta, Seymour, Benalla, and Wallan.

With over 400 employees, 7,000 students, more than 161 accredited and non-accredited courses across 10 campus locations, and a strong regional footprint, GOTAFE plays a critical role in delivering skills, training, and support to local communities.

GOTAFE website.

The challenge: risk, fragmentation and lack of visibility

When GOTAFE made the decision to modernise its payroll systems, the priority was simple: avoid payroll failure. The TAFE’s existing payroll platform was end-of-life, and the organisation had no room for error.

“The People and Culture team didn’t want to change products,” said GOTAFE People and Culture Systems Administrator, Lynda Southgate.

“The decision was made at [the] executive level. We just wanted to be able to pay people.”

At the time, payroll was managed through a third-party system, while other parts of the organisation were already using TechnologyOne for Finance and Student Management. According to Ms. Southgate, the ability to manage and plan workforce resources with fragmented platforms and minimal real-time reporting was limited.

“If, for example, our executive team requested the FTE headcount, we’d have to download, clean, and interpret spreadsheets before we could give an answer,” she said.

The solution: a unified SaaS platform for HR and payroll

GOTAFE implemented TechnologyOne’s Human Resources and Payroll (HRP) product, a single platform for payroll, workforce data, and self-service tools.

After a nine-month implementation, the team ran several pay runs in parallel before go-live to ensure accuracy. The priority was stability, with basic employee data and leave accruals configured before cutting over.

“All we could do was pay people,” Ms. Southgate said. “That was our starting point.”

The SaaS-based product gave GOTAFE access to a secure, scalable environment, with real-time data and workflow automation across core HR processes.

Staff were able to manage leave, access pay slips, and complete HR tasks through MyHR self-service, while the People and Culture team gained a clearer view of workforce metrics.

“Staff picked it up quickly,” Southgate said. “There weren’t a thousand calls about how to submit a leave request. From an end-user perspective, it was a smooth transition.”

A cultural shift: from customisation to adoption

While the go-live was a success, the implementation process wasn’t without its challenges. GOTAFE initially tried to replicate legacy processes, customising the system rather than adopting standard functionality.

“We were our own worst enemy,” Southgate said. “We resisted change and didn’t want to alter how we did things. The product is flexible, so it let us make that mistake.”

The turning point came when the team realised that customisation was limiting their ability to evolve.

“My number one piece of advice is: adopt,” she said.

“Adjust your processes to fit the product. When you over-configure, you block yourself from doing things later that you didn’t know you’d need.”

The results: faster processes, smarter reporting, empowered people

With HRP now embedded across the organisation, GOTAFE is seeing measurable benefits.

Contract generation, which once took up to four days, is now completed in five minutes using automated forms and DocuSign. Dashboards, built by the People and Culture team, now provide instant access to data on FTE, headcount, employment types, and more.

“I can be asked how many people left last month, and I can answer on the spot,” Ms. Southgate said.

“That kind of instant access to data is a game changer.”

Annual reporting, which previously took weeks, now takes two days. Staff use self-service to manage their own records, and leaders have visibility over casual expenditure and resource planning.

The recruitment module has also been embraced out-of-the-box, with no customisation required—making it easier to adopt new features with every upgrade.

“The system is no longer static. It’s dynamic. If someone changes roles, we switch the resource pool and move on.”

“Our talent acquisition partner gets excited every time there’s a new release.

“We’ve come from a bad product, so now when something just works, it’s a breath of fresh air.”

Looking ahead: AI, data and smarter decision-making

GOTAFE is now exploring how AI tools can enhance how the team works with TechnologyOne. It is also planning to expand its use of TechnologyOne modules, including Talent and Succession, and deepen its reporting and analytics capabilities to support strategic workforce planning.

“We’re not just paying people,” Ms. Southgate said.

“We’re understanding the workforce. We’re telling the story with data.”