Workday Reviews

Workday provides a number of offerings. I've seen it primarily being used for human capital management, which includes onboarding, the entire employee lifecycles from recruiting to offboarding, payroll, benefits, absence, and time tracking.

Unlike some of its competitors such as PeopleSoft, Oracle, or SAP, Workday is cloud-based. Workday is built natively in the cloud, and you're always on the most recent version. 

In terms of the cloud provider, they do have their own data centers. They've got one in Portland. They've got one in North Carolina, one in Dublin, Ireland, and maybe one or two at other places. I have heard that ultimately the underlying technology is AWS, but I'm not certain of that. 

Technically, it's a hybrid model. Their enterprise bus model is such that technically you share server resources with other customers. A lot of customers don't actually know that, but if we're all running a lot of integrations or doing a lot of data processing at once, it's possible that the server could be impacted, and whoever is providing the maintenance would have to then throttle and pull resources from somewhere else. However, most customers don't experience any type of real performance issues, and then from a security standpoint, even though they're shared server resources, everything is of course constrained to just that particular customer. No other customer could view a separate customer's data or things of that nature.

Based on the corporations I've worked for and I've consulted with, it surprised me how immature at times they are with their people processes. There is such a focus on scaling the revenue-generating arm of the business that oftentimes, the operations are somewhat neglected. Workday creates a framework where you can scale the operations of the business to support what's going to drive revenue. It creates operational efficiencies.

There is a lot to like about it. I really enjoy the business process framework. It's something that's really seamless. It allows you to have people within the flow. They get assigned a task to complete something to approve, etc. That's a really good piece of functionality that Workday offers. Their out-of-the-box reporting framework is also really powerful in terms of what it provides. These would be two things that I would highlight.

Workday does have a community site where people can go on and off for suggestions. They call them Brainstorms, and you can vote them up. That is something that they do well, but oftentimes, they seem to be racing to deliver something based on what a competitor is delivering. For example, if they hear SAP has this new functionality and learning that's going to be coming out, they prioritize there, which makes sense, but unfortunately, some of these Brainstorms may get neglected where the product might not be improved as quickly or as needed for the customers. You might be waiting for a year or two to get a feature that you'd like released. They should pay more attention to customer feedback and ensure that customer feedback is an essential part of their product roadmap.

I've been using Workday for about eight years.

Its stability is really strong. It is reliable.

With respect to scalability, Workday does quite well. It has a lot of packaged integrations. It has a lot of in-house offerings. It allows an organization to scale.

We have over 10,000 employees. We've got a variety of direct hires. We've got contractors, and we've got interns. We've got people in the States, Canada, various countries in Europe, India, China, and Australia. With respect to roles, most people in the organization aren't going to interact with Workday outside of their unique profile. It's going to be for things like requesting time off, checking pay stubs, or reviewing benefit documentation. By and large, they're rarely in the application. People who are using it day in and day out are going to be recruiters and potentially managers approving time offs and maybe issuing compensation changes if they're on a hiring team, and they're approving some type of award or things of that nature. Then, there are super users, which includes people like me who are on the technical side doing integrations, supporting, or configuring the native Workday functionality.

It is being used extensively in our organization. Workday is part of our long-term operational technology stack and plans. I definitely see that we'll continue to adopt it, and we'll continue to look at the ways we can extract value from it.

Overall, they do well. I'd rate them an eight out of ten.

I've used some competitor tools. Another tool in the space that tends to be more for small and medium enterprises is Kronos. That's the one where I cut my teeth initially. I switched to Workday because it was a job opportunity. I had taken a position and learned the technology, and that has been more or less my focus or bread and butter for the last eight years. My current company had already rolled out the technology to some extent, and when I was hired, we rolled out additional functionalities.

It is highly complex, and the level of complexity depends on what functionality you're rolling out. If you're rolling out payroll and converting from a legacy system, that's going to be complex. All in all, Workday does a good job to help you be successful, but nevertheless, it's still complex. 

It definitely takes months. A lot depends on the size of the organization. Workday has started to market towards smaller customers or organizations with under 500 employees, which is unique and something new for their business model. Typically, that wasn't their bread and butter. It has always been the medium enterprises or large enterprises. Their sales pitch is that they can stand those customers in 16 weeks. That generally tends to be more in the neighborhood of 20 weeks. If you're a big customer with over 5,000 employees or in the neighborhood of even 50,000 employees, it's not unreasonable that your deployment could take a year or more. Even with Oracle, SAP, or PeopleSoft, your deployment is going to be the same. There's just no way you're going to roll out all the change management and all that technology in a short amount of time. It just wouldn't be feasible.

You get the option to do it in-house, use a third party, or use Workday to help you out with the implementation. All three are available. In my experience, I've been a consultant and have gone through implementations with customers. I've also been a customer and gone through the implementation and leading that. Workday, of course, is very much involved in trying to ensure the success of the overall deployment.

The maintenance and the deployment of the solution are a part of my role. Maintenance is an area in which Workday is really strong because it is native to the cloud, and they keep all their customers on the same version. Workday goes through two big releases every year, and it also has weekly releases, which include just fixes and small features. The cool thing there is you're taking credit for new features being released, but you may not have been the one who was patching the server and things of that nature. That's a really strong suit of Workday. 

By and large, Workday is expensive. It is based on the headcount. I'd probably rate it a three or four out of five in terms of pricing. It'd be like buying a Mercedes or a high-end car. It's expensive, but there's a specific value that you're getting with additional features and things of that nature. Using that metaphor, Workday probably tends to be more of a luxury. There are others like ADP that can do your payroll, your time off, and other things, but they don't do it as well.

It is based on the headcount, and it is based on the number of modules you license. HCM is a module. Payroll is another module, and Benefits is also a module. Each module you choose is going to be an additional cost. In addition, you're also going to have costs associated with test environments. Workday, by default, is going to give you production and a sandbox environment with your license. They're also going to give you a preview environment of what's being released, but if you want additional test environments, there is a license cost.

You would require a really good partner. You would also require in-house expertise, specifically within the technology itself. You need to be able to go out and attract and bring in the talent to help you be successful. You need to understand that doing it really well is going to require more of an investment than what you're hearing in the sales. If you've got 2,000 employees, Workday may say that you could support this entire application with two or three people, but just in my experience, if you have a lot of modules licensed, it's probably not realistic. You're probably not going to extract the full value. You need to understand whether you are okay with not getting everything out of what you're paying for. If so, that's fine, but if you really want to get the bang for your buck, it's going to require an investment. 

You also need to understand that it's going to take time to implement. So, you need to manage expectations and understand what are other priorities in the organization and what the fiscal year looks like. Is it a standard calendar? If you're going through something that's going to impact financials, you're probably not going to want to roll out something really heavy on January 1st. You would want to have that in place prior to that.

Workday also has a financial piece that they offer in their technology stack that competes against Oracle. We don't currently use that, but it is a good piece of technology. They also have a learning management system that integrates directly with the other pieces of data.

Workday's model and what they really preach is this idea of the Power of One. So, they try to get everything within one environment. The sales pitch is that it is going to then reduce the number of other vendors or applications that you would have to have and integrate with, which holds true in some cases. It might not hold true in other cases depending on the needs of the business, budget, internal expertise, and things of that nature. It's just an overarching model that you see in tech where a lot of IT departments want to license the best in class and scale from there.

I'd rate it a nine out of ten. Overall, it delivers a really seamless solution that allows for operational efficiencies and operational excellence. 

We use Workday for all our employee-related information. It is a central hub where we can access pay slips, tax-related information, tax automation, and tax rules. Additionally, it manages employee hiring processes and other HR functions. It's a one-stop solution where employees can find everything about their profile, work experience, and associated technologies.

Workday has several helpful features. It has categorized payroll processes into sections, such as CTC separation and pay slips. It also provides detailed information on promotions and salary hikes, showing changes from the previous year to the current year. This includes a clear view of the new CTC and the monthly paycheck breakdown.

One notable feature in Workday that enhances financial reporting is the blueprint report. This report compiles all relevant historical data and generates a dashboard. Based on the available information, it offers insights into productivity.

Additional visibility features would be beneficial if the tool placed more options prominently on the main page instead of drilling down into specific categories. The first phase displays your profile, team information, current updates, pending tasks, etc. However, it would be good to move these navigation options to the top of the page instead of at the bottom.

For those starting with Workday, understand that while the AI features are useful, they can sometimes be limiting. If you encounter issues, you might need to raise a support ticket and wait for a response, which could take up to 24 hours.

Alerts could be beneficial, especially for upcoming tasks or deadlines. If these alerts are communicated via email, they should remain visible to remind users of impending due dates. 

The tool's stability is good. 

The solution's scalability is good. My company has 15,000 users. 

The tool's deployment is straightforward overall. We usually don't need additional help to navigate it. However, there are instances where we struggle to find specific paths. For example, someone who wants to exit the organization might have difficulty locating the exact process or path.

I rate the overall product a nine out of ten. It is an overall good tool. 

The primary use case for the product in our environment is to manage the entire employee lifecycle, from recruitment to retirement.

The product's most valuable features include its intuitive user interface, seamless integration with other systems like Microsoft Outlook for calendar management, and comprehensive reporting capabilities that provide insights into workforce analytics.

They could improve the product areas such as enhancing the interview scheduling module to support more flexible online assessments within the platform. Additionally, further integration with third-party applications could broaden its functionality.

I have been using Workday for approximately three years. 

The product is stable. 

The product is scalable. 

The technical support services are excellent.

Positive

We previously used Oracle Taleo for candidate tracking but switched to Workday due to Taleo's less intuitive workflow management.

The initial setup was complex due to the need for detailed configuration and integration with existing systems. 

We took help from a vendor team for product implementation. 

We evaluated SAP SuccessFactors and ADP Workforce Now. However, Workday stood out due to its superior user experience, robust feature set, and scalability.

Overall, the product has been instrumental in modernizing our HR operations. Its training resources help us keep up with updates and new features.

I rate it an eight out of ten.

We use the product for HR purposes.

The product is easy to use and user-friendly. It saves a lot of time for onboarding processes.

There could be a web-based application for making payments to the employees.

We have been using Workday for three years. At present, we use the latest version.

The product is highly stable. I rate its stability a ten out of ten.

We have 1000 Workday users. We use it daily. I rate its scalability an eight out of ten.

The initial setup was easy for me. It might be complicated for some. I rate the process a ten out of ten. 

I rate the product’s pricing a ten out of ten.

I rate Workday a ten out of ten.

If you're searching for a comprehensive HR solution that centralizes all of your personnel information, then Workday is definitely worth considering. It offers a wide range of features and integrations that can be incorporated into the system.

In terms of customization, while it may not be fully customizable, you can configure the features based on the foundation that Workday offers. This allows you to take the basic features and tailor them to the specific needs of your company or business. It provides a lot of configuration flexibility.

It's tough to pinpoint specific areas that need improvement because Workday is constantly evolving and listening to customer feedback. They have a system in place called brainstorming, where customers can raise concerns and suggestions for improvement. Through this process, Workday is able to gather feedback from multiple customers and develop solutions to address issues. If there are any areas that we find challenging or would like to see enhanced, we raise a brainstorm and work with other customers to bring it to Workday's attention.

Workday has recently made some enhancements that have helped in various areas. One thing that comes to mind is the ability to customize branding and imagery. Currently, you can brand the platform with your company logo, but when it comes to specific features or solutions, they still retain control over the images used. It would be great if we had the ability to alter those images, as different countries may have different preferences for imagery. We should have more control over the imagery used within the platform.

One potential feature that could be added is the ability to streamline business processes through quick tips and guided tours. This would allow for a smoother and more guided experience for colleagues as they navigate through different processes and steps. It would be similar to a guidance system or a step-by-step tutorial that could be added after the business process to guide users through it.

I have been using Workday for approximately nine years.

Workday is reliable. Based on the recent Service Level Agreements (SLAs) that have been released, the uptime for the platform is currently at an impressive 97 percent.

Workday is one of the best platforms available. It is scalable. 

If you look at Workday against its competitors, and the opportunities on an HCM platform or system that is offered by the competitors, it is worth it to choose Workday.

We have approximately 47,000 full-time and contingent workers using the solution.

I rate the scalability of Workday a nine out of ten.

I have not used another solution that was similar to Workday.

The initial setup of Workday is not difficult. Workday provides a blank canvas for you to work with, but they also give you guidance and tools to help you get started. As you progress and bring a team with skills on board, you can then build upon the initial setup. Overall, the setup process is complex.

The size of my team we have for maintenance is approximately 20 members, not including our reporting team. However, even the reporting team is in-house and part of our organization. In total, we have approximately 25 individuals.

I rate Workday a nine out of ten.

Our primary use case for Workday – as we had it integrated into the organization as an HRIS – is as something for the organization to run off of.

Before Workday, we did everything manually and were working from within a few systems. This solution has helped us centralize the whole organization. Also, considering the pandemic, we needed everyone to work together and be efficient as everyone was working remotely.

I think that the key component here is to have everything centralized and that is most valuable for me. The reason this feature is valuable is that when you're working with people in different geographic regions or with those who may or may not be in the office, this solution helps in getting everything organized.

My opinion is that this solution can improve the overall integrations and add more automation. I think anything that could be on a self-serve basis would work quite well.

I have been using Workday for about one year.

I would rate the stability of this solution a nine, on a scale from one to 10, with one being the worst and 10 being the best.

I would rate the scalability of this solution an eight, on a scale from one to 10, with one being the worst and 10 being the best.

I would rate the technical support of this solution a seven, on a scale from one to 10, with one being the worst and 10 being the best.

Neutral

I would say that we have definitely seen a return on investment.

This solution is deployed on the cloud for our company.

When it comes to other people looking into this solution, I would advise looking at your work order and the types of things you need. There are tons of different applications out there and it's all about finding the one that's best for you and that fits the most to your organization's needs.

I would rate Workday as a solution an eight, on a scale from one to 10, with one being the worst and 10 being the best.

We use the tool for talent management.

The software is easy to learn and use. When compared to SAP HR and SAP HCM, the tool is easy to access and understand. We have a hierarchy and structural connectivity in Workday. There is a certification for the solution and when we do it, we become the certified partners of the company.

The solution has some features missing when you put them in the test studio or Confluence Studio. I would like the tool’s coding to be easier to understand and automated. Most of the coding these days is automated. Any query given can pull the answer directly which can make the solution easier to understand.

I have been working with the solution for four years.

I would rate the solution’s stability a seven out of ten.

I would rate Workday’s scalability an eight out of ten. My company has a thousand users for the solution.

I am satisfied with the tool’s customer service and support.

Positive

We used SAP HCM before Workday. We switched to Workday because of the features.

I would rate the setup of the solution an eight out of ten. The tool is deployed on the cloud. The solution’s implementation took only hours to complete.

I would rate the solution’s pricing a six out of ten.

I would rate the overall solution an eight out of ten. I will recommend this solution to other users.

Workday is easy to use. Timesheet and resource management are also easy.

The solution has to work a lot on financial integrations, material management and CRM modules. 

I have been working with the solution for three to four years. 

Workday is scalable, and we have 40,000 users for it. 

The tool's customer support is good. 

Positive

Workday has saved us time by at least 40 per cent. 

The tool is easy to maintain and requires around two to three people. Workday is flexible, but SAP and Oracle are better regarding integration with other products and stability. I rate it a nine out of ten.