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IBM Kenexa vs Workday comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Kenexa
Ranking in Benefits Administration
16th
Ranking in Talent Management
17th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.3
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
Applicant Tracking and Recruiting Software (10th)
Workday
Ranking in Benefits Administration
1st
Ranking in Talent Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
58
Ranking in other categories
Cloud HCM (2nd), Talent Acquisition (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Benefits Administration category, the mindshare of IBM Kenexa is 1.8%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Workday is 9.0%, down from 19.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Benefits Administration Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Workday9.0%
IBM Kenexa1.8%
Other89.2%
Benefits Administration
 

Featured Reviews

Karan Grover - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Suitable for larger-scale companies aiming to streamline and automate their processes digitally
The deployment of the solution took between six to eight months. When we introduced BrassRing at my company, we encountered several challenges. First, moving data from our old system to BrassRing was tough because it needed reformatting. Second, connecting BrassRing with our HR data was tricky due to manual processes for roles and departments. Third, setting up the workflow in BrassRing was complex. Fourth, configuring user access and approval levels was a detailed task. We also had to manage the change process, including running both old and new systems in parallel, communicating changes, and training users. Lastly, monitoring and reporting were needed to ensure data accuracy and proper system usage once everything was in place. We had a team of six to eight people managing the project from our side during the BrassRing deployment. I'm not sure about the size of the BrassRing team, and we also had our own technical team, which had three to four members. The solution required maintenance, particularly from my side as the administrator. Maintenance responsibilities were divided into two parts: some tasks we, as end-users, could control, while others were the responsibility of the BrassRing team. Payment-related tasks were a regular part of our responsibilities. I wasn't the only person maintaining the solution. There were three power users from Infosys, each responsible for a specific geography. My counterpart managed it in the US, and I, along with my colleague in India, managed it for other geographies.
Eslam Abo Elnaga - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior people and systems analyst at B_labs & Mylo
Has improved HR process efficiency through intuitive workflows and responsive support
There is something that could be improved in Workday, specifically in the time tracking module. While I am not working on Workday now, I was a regional HRIS working for Egypt, Malta, India, and China. I mention these countries to relate to high population countries and companies. In our company, we use assigned work schedules for our teams. Because we work with the time tracking module, we need to assign shifts. In the manufacturing industry, we might need to change shifts every day or week. Manufacturing teams are huge, approximately 50 to 200 people in one team. If this team has one leader, the leader needs to assign a work schedule for each person individually. While there is mass upload functionality where we can load shifts for all people or specific groups, we need to select multiple people and assign them to a schedule from the interface itself. I have requested this functionality many times. When extracting business processes awaiting actions report, I can select different processes in one box, hit okay, and the report comes up. However, the same functionality does not work for work schedule assigning. If implemented, it would help many people in companies with high populations and big teams.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Without this solution, we would have more administrative functions and would need to hire more HR employees."
"Overall, from a recruiter's perspective, it is an excellent product and is probably one of the best recruitment products out there in terms of usability, ease of understanding, and management of large applicant pools."
"BrassRing, the applicant tracking system, has brought a high level of automation, specifically for our mass-volume hourly processes."
"I think the advantage of Kenexa is the degree to which we can configure to meet our specific needs."
"The ease of scaling is one of BrassRing's biggest strengths, making it a trusted choice for large companies."
"We acquired a pharmacy retailer three years ago, and Kenexa enabled us to actually standardize our employee engagement across both of those organizations, helping us understand at an enterprise level what was going on and, most importantly, how people were starting to feel about being acquired and joining the broader company space."
"Great value and flexibility in an ATS, mainly through the automation and the configuration through Workbench you can do to manipulate the candidate experience to really be something that candidates like and allows them to apply to your site easily and put them in a pipeline for recruiters to access and move through a process and get somebody hired."
"As I said, IBM are doing a great job with us at the moment, but we're always looking and speaking and open to having conversations with other people because the market's changing and IBM are aware of that."
"I would say that we have definitely seen a return on investment."
"Overall, this solution provides a good user experience and is very easy to use."
"It is easy to use and straightforward."
"Since adopting Workday, we have reduced HR administrative processing time by 45%."
"First time users, understanding accessibility and consolidated data is fairly easy. The solution improves productivity for users and reduces the need to switch between different tools."
"The scalability is amazing."
"I would recommend the solution to others, owing to its stability."
"It's actually a cloud-native solution and based on the community for development, with a very good open architecture that is able to interconnect with other systems, and it is very stable and very fast in terms of response."
 

Cons

"I would not recommend IBM Kenexa to others."
"I think there is some administrative things that could be easier in terms of Workbench and streamlining that process; configuration of different things."
"The team didn't find the reporting tool that easy to use, in terms of pulling their own data, slicing and dicing it, combining groups."
"My rating is not higher because of the support, honestly; the global service center model."
"Once-a-year engagement kind of seems to be a little bit lagging in terms of how we can actually shape and improve organizations, so I was looking forward to understanding a bit more where IBM Kenexa's thinking is going in terms of pulsing with the employee voice and how that kind of integrates and works with tell-it-as-it-is, and the other two applications we have; it's just too early to know."
"The user interface could do with an overhaul."
"There were functions we couldn't customize and needed to."
"The downside of Kenexa is that they're constantly reinventing, so they have constant releases with new features and upgrades. The downside of that is that they do experience fairly regular issues with stability that they're not always as quick to respond to as we'd like them to."
"If you want to add more features to your subscription, Workday becomes expensive."
"The UI, UX (user experience) is very bad. It is not very interactive."
"It has missing functionalities. Specific countries, like Germany, didn't have the option to do payroll. Now we need to look for another product for HR."
"Errors are not very clear in some cases. I've been experiencing some issues within the application that the error messages or what I needed to do were not very easily clear to me."
"They don't offer any backend database access. This is one limitation that I found in this product. Workday hasn't opened up about what kind of database they are into, which can make it easy for the technical team to emulate issues. It would be good if they can offer backend access to the technical team. It would be helpful if they can also provide a Troubleshooting Guide that we can use to troubleshoot issues. When we have an issue, there are very limited resources to refer to."
"Reporting system should be improved. It is quite static based on historical data."
"Workday could improve by adding other features, such as messaging to candidates and other recruiting capabilities that other new-age solutions have."
"Setting up reports can be a bit tricky."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Kenexa was fairly priced. However, in 2019, before I left my previous organization, they significantly increased their pricing. It can be affordable, but their pricing is going up. It is not just licensing; it is how many applicants you have in your system on the database side."
"I rate the product’s pricing a ten out of ten."
"You have the license fee per module, and then you have a kind of annual training fee, which is a kind of add-on. I wouldn't say it is exhaustive; it is minor. Licensing is pretty transparent for most of the part."
"I would rate the solution’s pricing a six out of ten."
"It is on a yearly basis."
"The pricing for this solution is fairly high. It is not affordable for small and mid-sized companies."
"The pricing is good from an HR perspective, although management gets upset after spending $500,000 a year, every year."
"With a bigger budget, I would recommend SAP."
"I need to pay for a license. It is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
University
6%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise28
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise43
 

Questions from the Community

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What are the biggest differences between Workday, Oracle Cloud and SAP SuccessFactors?
Differences between Workday, Oracle Cloud,w and SAP SuccessFactors:w Oracle: "simple interface and deep customization to suit the purpose." SAP: Multiple functionalities that increase process effi...
How easy is to maintain Workday, Oracle Cloud, and SuccessFactors?
I implemented Workday in 2024 and without having previous Workday experience, it was very challenging. I spent most of 2025 putting out fires and cleaning up the business processes that came with l...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Workday?
If you go with the launch implementation approach, the solution is generally not very expensive. If you want to add more features to your subscription, Workday becomes expensive. The solution is fl...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

IBM Smarter Workforce, Outstart
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Sweet Spot International (SSI), Leo Burnett Worldwide (LBW), Sika AG, Legacy Health, Apollo Group Inc., Regeneron, Transurban Group, National Health Service, New Zealand Police, Overland Footwear, Yealands, Johnson Controls, Allscripts, Kerry Foods, Masterpet, AMD, Balfour Beatty
AAA, Allied Global, Avago Technologies Limited, Aviva, Cardinal Health, CareFusion, Chiquita Brands International, Equifax, Flextronics, HP, Life Time Fitness, McKee Foods, MGM Resorts International, Sanofi, ServiceSource International, Symantec, TripAdvisor, Yahoo!
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Kenexa vs. Workday and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.