Our Spotlight series provides an opportunity to meet the remarkable individuals at HRchitect. Each month, we highlight a member of our team, so you can learn more about their unique contributions and get to know them on a personal level. This month, we are excited to feature Anthony Carr, Senior Implementation Consultant in HRchitect’s UKG Ready practice, whose career may center on technology today, but whose story actually begins with a blank canvas. 

Long before Anthony was helping organizations untangle time and labor challenges, he was drawing, painting, airbrushing, and finding ways to turn an idea into something people could see. 

He has been creating for as long as he can remember. 

As a teenager growing up in the small town of Clinton, North Carolina, Anthony was once asked to contribute cartoons to the local newspaper’s funny pages. His mom still has the evidence safely tucked away somewhere, along with seemingly every other piece of Anthony memorabilia she has collected over the years.

His creativity led him to Fayetteville State University, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in graphic design with a minor in visual arts. And it is still very much apart of his life today.

Anthony continues to paint, including a multi-canvas piece currently hanging in his living room. To create it, he temporarily joined the individual canvases together, painted the image as one composition, and then separated the pieces again for the finished display.

It is a small detail, but a fitting one.

Anthony has spent much of his professional career doing something surprisingly similar: understanding how individual pieces connect, figuring out what needs to happen before information moves to the next stage, and making sure the finished product works as one complete system.

Anthony has spent much of his professional career doing something surprisingly similar: understanding how individual pieces connect, figuring out what needs to happen before information moves to the next stage, and making sure the finished product works as one complete system. 

From Visual Arts to UKG Ready 

The two enrolled together in online graduate programs through Ashford University, with Anthony pursuing a master’s degree in information systems while his wife studied marketing and business. They ultimately traveled to Chicago and celebrated earning their graduate degrees together. 

“She actually asked me for help with her homework,” Anthony joked. 

That degree helped open the door to Sage Software, where Anthony initially supported payroll clients. When an opportunity emerged to work with time and attendance technology built on UKG Ready, he made another career pivot.

This one stuck. 

Anthony has been working in the UKG Ready ecosystem since roughly 2015, building experience across support, consulting, implementation, payroll, and particularly time and labor management. 

“I always say within the UKG Ready space, everybody doesn’t know everything,

You’re always continuously learning.”

Anthony carr
senior implementation consultant

That willingness to keep learning has taken his work far beyond Georgia. Over the years, Anthony has supported large school-system projects, including work with approximately 20,000 employees in the Baltimore area, and has even assisted with time and attendance solutions as far away as Guam. 

Eventually, his path brought him to HRchitect. 

After recently celebrating his first anniversary with the company, Anthony has already taken another step forward with a promotion and an expanded role supporting others across the UKG Ready team. 

Finding His Niche in Time and Labor 

Ask Anthony where his deepest expertise sits, and he quickly points to Time and Labor Management, or TLM. 

He describes time and labor as the other side of payroll. 

Before payroll can accurately pay someone, the information coming from timekeeping has to be right. Clock-ins, clock-outs, calculations, accruals, rules, and other details all have to work correctly before that information ever reaches payroll. 

Anthony has been working on that side of the equation since his early days at Sage, and it has become the area teammates now regularly seek him out for. 

When questions arise, Anthony often helps determine whether something can be accomplished within the system, whether there is a better way to configure it, or whether the team needs to find a workaround. 

He does not see expertise as knowing every answer immediately. 

For Anthony, expertise also means knowing how to keep learning. 

That mindset is especially important in UKG Ready, where each client brings a different combination of requirements, policies, processes, and challenges. 

Sometimes, solving the puzzle requires deep system knowledge. 

Other times, it requires understanding the person sitting on the other side of the screen.

The Technical Problem Is Only Part of the Problem 

When Anthony talks about working with clients, he does not begin with configuration. 

He begins with empathy. 

Time and payroll issues are rarely abstract problems for the people experiencing them. A client may be staring at incorrect calculations while knowing employees are expecting to be paid accurately and on time. What sounds like a technical ticket can carry tremendous pressure. 

Anthony has learned not to take that pressure personally.

“A lot of times when clients get frustrated, you always have to understand that they’re not frustrated with you,” he explained. “They’re frustrated with the system.” 

For him, that distinction changes the entire conversation. 

Instead of reacting to the frustration, Anthony tries to understand what the client is carrying. 

“You have to have empathy. The more empathy you have with solving their issue, the better things will work out in the end.”

This approach showed up clearly in one of Anthony’s favorite HRchitect projects. 

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Going the Extra Step in Greenville 

One project Anthony particularly enjoyed was supporting the City of Greenville. 

The organization was already live on its system and needed HRchitect for additional help. Certain configurations were not calculating properly, and the client needed support across time, labor, and payroll. 

It became a true team effort. 

Anthony focused heavily on the TLM side and made a point of staying available beyond the immediate project calls. If he made a change, he wanted to know that it actually worked. That sometimes meant following up after hours and taking an additional step to verify that the client was in a better position than before. 

“I think one of the things they liked about me was that I was always willing to help,” Anthony said. 

But perhaps the best evidence of the relationship they built did not come from a system configuration at all. 

It came on Halloween. 

One of the client contacts joined a conversation dressed as a bumblebee for an office Halloween event. She proudly showed Anthony and the team her costume and explained that she was part of Beyoncé’s “BeyHive.” 

The moment still makes Anthony laugh. 

It is also telling. 

Clients do not usually stop in the middle of a stressful technology project to share their Halloween costumes with someone they do not trust. 

For Anthony, those human connections are an important part of successful consulting. The technical work matters. So does creating enough comfort that a client feels a real person is on the other side of the project, working alongside them.

Creativity Never Really Left 

Anthony may have made a professional pivot away from graphic design, but he never really left art behind. 

He still paints and has worked across drawing, airbrushing, portraiture, murals, and other styles over the years. One artist who continues to stand out to him is Vincent van Gogh, particularly The Starry Night. 

“I love it because it’s surreal,” Anthony said. 

There is also still evidence of Anthony’s earliest creative work somewhere in Mama Carr’s collection, including those newspaper cartoons and, hopefully, photographs of the school mural he helped create.

His creative side is one his teammates may not know much about because Anthony simply does not talk about it often. 

That might be what makes it such a fitting addition to his Spotlight. 

The consultant coworkers know today has spent most of his life looking closely at something, understanding how its parts fit together, and finding a way to create the outcome he can see in his head. 

The medium simply changed.

Life outside the Office

These days, one of Anthony’s favorite places to reset is the gym. 

Working remotely has taught him the importance of intentionally stepping away from the screen. Early in his remote career, he could easily find himself disappearing down a work rabbit hole, moving from one task to the next without stopping. 

Now, he makes a point of getting up every couple of hours and, when possible, heading outside for about 15 minutes. 

His rule is simple: go see the sun. 

“I try to make myself take a break,” Anthony said. “Just take a walk outside for 15 minutes, come back, and then I’ll be back in the zone.” 

The gym also gives him something he can share with his 16-year-old son, who wrestles, lifts weights with Anthony, and has earned a blue belt in jiu-jitsu. 

Anthony and his wife also have a 24-year-old daughter, and family time remains a major priority. 

Quick Q&A with Anthony

• Hometown/current location: Born in Raleigh, North Carolina, and raised in Clinton, North Carolina. Today, I live in the Acworth, Georgia area, just outside Atlanta. I like being close enough to go into the city when I want to without being in the middle of everything all the time.
• Alma Mater: Fayetteville State University, where I earned my bachelor’s degree in graphic design with a minor in visual arts. I later earned my master’s degree in information systems through Ashford University. 
• Hidden talent: Painting and drawing. I have been doing both since I was a kid. I have also done airbrushing, portraits, murals, and even cartoons for the local newspaper when I was younger.
• Favorite artist/artwork: Vincent van Gogh, especially The Starry Night. I have always liked its surreal quality.
• Favorite music: Old-school music and a lot of ’80s music, especially Michael Jackson. 
• Favorite way to stay active: Going to the gym. My son lifts with me too, so it has become something we can enjoy together.
• Remote work tip: Go see the sun. I try to get up every couple of hours, and when I can, I take about 15 minutes to walk outside, get some sunlight, clear my head, and then come back ready to focus again. 
• HRchitect Consultant Specialty: Time and Labor Management within UKG Ready. I have been working with time and labor since my early days at Sage, and it is the area where I have built the most experience. My teammates will often come to me when they are trying to figure out whether something can be done in the system or if there is another way to approach it. 
• What do you enjoy about working in UKG Ready: You are always learning. Nobody knows everything in the Ready space, and I like that there are always new scenarios, new configurations, and new ways to solve things..
• What HRchitect project stood out to you: The City of Greenville has been one of my favorites. They came to us needing support after they were already live, and it took collaboration across the time, labor, and payroll sides. I enjoyed being able to dig into their challenges, make changes, follow up, and make sure what we changed was actually working for them.. 
• What do you appreciate about working remotely: I enjoy the flexibility and being able to work from home. What you miss is the camaraderie of being physically around people, so I think it is important to find ways to connect with coworkers and clients even when everyone is remote.
• What are you looking forward to next: Professionally, I want to keep growing within HRchitect and continue moving forward here. Personally, I want to travel more with my family. Some of my favorite memories are trips we have taken together, and I would love to make more of those.

Anthony’s route from newspaper cartoons and photography to information systems and UKG Ready may not look like the most obvious career path on paper. 

Look a little closer, though, and the through line is there. 

He is still creating. 

Today, instead of starting with paint, an airbrush, or a blank canvas, Anthony may start with a client problem, an incorrect calculation, or a configuration that needs to work differently. He studies the pieces, keeps learning, finds a way forward, and never forgets about the person who will ultimately experience what he is building. 

That combination of curiosity, creativity, technical expertise, and empathy has already helped Anthony make an impact at HRchitect, and we are excited to see what he creates next.