When an organization the size of The Home Depot transforms its workforce management platform, the stakes couldn’t be higher. With roughly 500,000 associates across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico and over 2,000 stores, even small configuration mistakes can scale into massive operational and payroll issues.
As part of a broader strategic vision to enhance the associate experience, The Home Depot embarked on a large-scale UKG migration—and chose TestAssure as its automated testing partner to help de-risk and accelerate the journey.
The Home Depot’s strategy centers on empowering associates with better tools, visibility, and control over their work lives.
“We have a vision of enhancing the overall associate experience… having the power behind the UKG platform to provide data so that we can make intelligent decisions around where people were working, how they were working, and then… build applications that we would be able to put in associates’ hands to make decisions about their lives.”
— Victor Howard, Director of IT, The Home Depot
The UKG migration was the logical next step to support:
At the center of all that innovation is something very human: getting pay right.
“Paying people is everything. One of our core values is being able to take care of people… paying people accurately and scheduling people, and providing them with visibility around their scheduling, it's a make or break.”
— Victor Howard, Director of IT, The Home Depot
For a company of this size, “complex” is an understatement.
“With a company of this size and scale, everything is complicated. The small issues that you may face just turn and are magnified 100,000 times when you have a company of this size.”
— Victor Howard, Director of IT, The Home Depot
Key concerns going into the migration included:
On top of that, constant regulatory and organizational change meant frequent configuration updates—and a huge volume of regression testing.
“With all the things that are changing, that requires constant change within the platform itself, which ultimately requires us to do a fair amount of regression anytime those changes are being made.”
— Victor Howard, Director of IT, The Home Depot
Manual testing at this scale simply wasn’t viable.
“100% manual testing was just truly not an option in order for us to be able to complete the program with any sort of time and urgency… it just wasn't possible.”
— Victor Howard, Director of IT, The Home Depot
The Home Depot evaluated building its own automated test suite. They even have internal teams who specialize in automation. But for a program of this scope, the calculus shifted.
What tipped the scales toward TestAssure:
“When you start looking at the partnership between TestAssure and UKG, the expertise that TestAssure has specifically related to UKG, and the [TestAssure] platform, it was just a no-brainer… It just really made the most sense for us to partner with them.”
— Victor Howard, Director of IT, The Home Depot
Together, The Home Depot and TestAssure built a highly scalable automated testing program across:
The numbers are staggering:
TestAssure’s team partnered closely with The Home Depot’s internal test teams to integrate custom scenarios and ensure end-to-end coverage, including areas too specific or unique to be tested out-of-the-box.
The impact showed up where it matters most: go-live and beyond.
“When I think about our recent go-live with our time-keeping and our attendance platform, the rollout or the implementation went extremely smoothly. And again, a lot is attributed to the level of testing we were able to accomplish with TestAssure.”
— Victor Howard, Director of IT, The Home Depot
Automation also reshaped the overall project timeline:
“What TestAssure brings to the table is it allows you to decrease the overall testing cycle. It allows you to gain a very thorough level of testing at the same time and be able to run a lot more frequently, which ultimately decreases your defect resolution.”
— Victor Howard, Director of IT, The Home Depot
For The Home Depot, go-live isn’t the finish line—it’s the start of continuous transformation.
As a SaaS platform, UKG introduces ongoing releases and updates. Add constant changes in compliance, regulation, and business models, and there’s a steady stream of configuration changes that must be tested.
“Being able to be prepared and be able to pivot, in a timely manner without having interruption to the business… those things are definitely at the top of my list.”
— Victor Howard, Director of IT, The Home Depot
That’s where automated testing shifts from project asset to long-term strategy:
“This is not just a one and done type of initiative for Home Depot. It truly is a program to make long-term changes throughout our organization.”
— Victor Howard, Director of IT, The Home Depot
The Home Depot’s UKG migration shows what’s possible when powerful workforce management platform, a sophisticated enterprise IT organization, and a specialized automated testing partner all work in concert.
By leveraging TestAssure’s automation platform and expertise, The Home Depot reduced risk, accelerated timelines, and protected its core value of taking care of its people by paying them accurately and on time—even at massive scale.
Ready to de-risk your UKG migration, accelerate your path to go-live, and maintain compliance through ongoing regression testing? Talk to us about how TestAssure can help you build a scalable, automated testing program tailored to your workforce management journey. Fill out the form below.