Case Study: British Heart Foundation achieves HR consolidation, cost savings, and productivity gains with Workday Adaptive Planning

British Heart Foundation pumps new life into its HR system

British Heart Foundation (BHF) is a London-based charity founded in 1961 that funds cardiovascular research and care, with about 4,500 staff and nearly £100m distributed annually. BHF was struggling with four-plus separate HR and payroll systems, manual processes, limited employee self-service, and many retail staff without convenient HR access — creating fragmented data, slow reporting, and poor user experience.

BHF adopted Workday as a single cloud HCM to consolidate systems, automate payroll (eliminating an external bureau), and introduce configurable workflows plus mobile self-service and e-learning for retail teams. The change improved data security and real-time insights, reduced transactional HR work, and delivered measurable benefits: roughly £90K annual headcount savings, about £126K per year in payroll and process efficiencies, and around £118K in retail productivity gains, along with faster reporting and a better employee experience.

British Heart Foundation