We ended up utilizing one transform with logic similar to the way recommended in this post Lookup Transform - Default Value - #10 by nsorlien
Taking the Substing functionality of taking the implicit input we were able to reference those values in our final output value.
{
"name": "employmentCheck",
"type": "static",
"attributes": {
"lifecycle": {
"type": "reference",
"attributes": {
"id": "Workday Lifecycle"
}
},
"empValue": {
"type": "firstValid",
"attributes": {
"values": [
{
"attributes": {
"begin": 0
},
"type": "substring"
},
"none"
]
}
},
"value": "#if($lifecycle == 'activestudent')#{else}$empValue#end"
},
"internal": false
}