Retail Client Partners with HRchitect to Drive Payroll Compliance at Scale with UKG Pro

Client Background

Our Client is a globally recognized international retail company with a vast workforce and operational footprint. In North America alone, our Client employs over 17,000 people across nearly all 50 U.S. states, including jurisdictions with complex and unique labor laws such as California, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. With a large and distributed workforce, managing HR, timekeeping, and payroll across varying state regulations became increasingly challenging.

The Challenge

Our Client faced growing pressure to enhance its compliance efforts and streamline operations across its U.S. footprint. A major driver of change was the need to meet strict regulatory requirements, particularly in states like California, where Immediate Pay laws require employees to be paid on the spot upon termination. At the time, our client’s HR and payroll infrastructure relied on disconnected systems for timekeeping, payroll, and HRIS, creating compliance risks, inefficiencies, and data management challenges.

In addition to compliance concerns, the company’s existing processes lacked the scalability and reliability needed for a workforce of this size. There was a clear need to standardize workflows, improve record-keeping, and consolidate systems.

Client Profile

• Global fashion, design and retail company
• Headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden
• 4,000 stores in 79+ markets and online sales in 60 markets
• 140,000+ employees worldwide
• Partnered with HRchitect to implement the UKG Suite

The Project

Our Client partnered with HRchitect to implement the UKG suite with an original plan to roll out both UKG Pro and UKG Pro WFM simultaneously. However, UKG Pro WFM was later deferred to a future phase (Fall 2025), and the HRchitect team focused on a big bang implementation of UKG Pro for payroll. HRchitect provided full lifecycle support, including solution consulting, requirements gathering, system design, configuration, testing, and post-go-live support. Project management was handled collaboratively by HRchitect and our Client’s teams.

Key milestones included:

• Requirements Phase: Discovery sessions focused on compliance needs, system gaps, and business process re-engineering.
• Build Phase: Configuration of UKG Pro to align with our Client’s multi-state operations and complex payroll requirements.
• Testing Phase: Several rounds of testing revealed challenges with data consistency due to multiple legacy systems. HRchitect guided the client through rigorous data cleanup efforts before and after go-live.
• Post-Go-Live Support: After over a year of work, our Client successfully ran its first payroll on UKG Pro. HRchitect remained closely involved through the initial bi-weekly and weekly payroll cycles until our Client’s team could operate independently, achieving self-sufficiency by their third payroll cycle.

Key Benefits

• Increased Compliance Confidence: The implementation addressed key compliance challenges, including California’s Immediate Pay laws, enabling our Client to execute compliant terminations.
• Streamlined Payroll Processing: By aligning payroll review processes with the earlier submission deadlines in UKG Pro, the HR team ultimately reduced their overall payroll processing timeline.
• Consolidated Recordkeeping: The transition to UKG Pro began to eliminate system silos, paving the way for more reliable reporting and fewer manual processes.
• Stronger Data Hygiene Practices: The project emphasized the importance of clean data and helped the client adopt more disciplined data governance practices.
• Future-Ready Systems: With UKG Pro successfully implemented, our Client is now positioned for a seamless rollout of UKG Pro WFM in Fall 2025.

The Results

After a 14-month collaboration, our Client launched its first payroll on UKG Pro in January 2025. While the go-live date shifted slightly, the project remained on budget thanks to a flexible time-and-materials approach.

The size and complexity of our Client’s workforce made the project a significant undertaking. Data quality and dual maintenance loads proved to be a challenge, but HRchitect supported the client through both pre-go-live testing and post-go-live cleanup to ensure a stable transition.

Today, our Client’s payroll team is largely self-sufficient, reaching independent operation by their third payroll cycle. While the team still reaches out occasionally for one-off questions, they now run their payroll confidently within UKG Pro.

Our Client expressed their appreciation for HRchitect’s consistency, responsiveness, and deep expertise. They acknowledged that the project was a massive initiative but praised the partnership and continued support from HRchitect. The successful launch of UKG Pro not only delivered critical compliance and operational improvements but also set the stage for continued transformation with the upcoming UKG Pro WFM implementation.