The “Why Workday®?” Elevator Speech:
What got me into the Workday® world?
I had been a Technical – mostly Software – Project/Program Manager for 17 years when I first encountered a Workday project in 2012. Expected to go in as PM only.
It was a complex project, with a small project team; as an experienced PM, it was obvious to me there were not enough people who knew Workday and could configure the system, to complete everything by the deadline.
The customer had pre-purchased too many Workday Training hours for their small staff, all of whom had already been to all the training they needed/wanted. And, the backlog of leftover Training was set to expire almost immediately.
I made the case for the customer to allow two of us to take some Training that would be wasted, and for us to take on more of the configuration work, rather than our limited project roles.
I took 12 Workday courses – all multiple half-day, Instructor-led online courses – in addition to my “usual” 8 hours of daily project work.
I immediately realized a few of things:
Trouble-shooting and Configuring Workday is a series of puzzles.
I’m good at puzzles! (I’m from a New-York-Times-Crossword-In-Ink family.)
The Venn Diagram of Workday and a Puzzle-Lover has a HUGE overlap! (And I’m geeky enough to know what a Venn Diagram is!)
Therefore, I quickly became good at configuring in Workday.
After 16 months on that project, getting good at several areas of Workday, I limited my next search to Workday projects, and have never looked back.
Why do I like Workday?
As a product, when implemented well, it’s quite user-friendly. Instead of memorizing a list of codes, an HR user can find what they’re looking for with the robust search function. Similarly, when tasks are presented – especially in Manager/Employee Self-Service – the action required of the assignee is clear.
In trouble-shooting, most puzzles (see above) can be solved without a lot of difficulty. Tougher nuts can be cracked by collaborating with a colleague.
I love making “code” elegant – building configurations that are easy to maintain. If there’s a Condition or Eligibility Rule that will be used inside other Rules, I create it once then use it in the next layer. That way, any change to a Rule needs to be found and applied once to cascade to each place it is used.
Once Workday is built correctly, with good Comp Plan Profiles, for instance, it only needs tweaks as levels in Plans change.
A company that uses Workday can respond nimbly to regulatory changes. This is especially true of multi-national corporations.
Last, but certainly not least, Workday is a growing company and product line. So everyone in the ecosystem has job security for the foreseeable future! Win-Win!
