Getting the Most Out of Workday: Vision, Empowerment, and Support

There’s nothing more energizing than walking around Workday Rising and hearing about all the amazing ways our customers are using Workday. Thousands of attendees are here this week representing our community, and I hope everyone has the opportunity to absorb as much as they can from one another.

One question I often get from our customers is, “How can we leverage Workday to help us stay ahead of all the changes in the market and in our business?” It’s a great question. In order to stay ahead, you have to be able to quickly manage change.

The good news is, as a Workday customer, you already have the solutions you need to be both agile and adaptive. And the best way to start is to focus on adopting the capabilities you’ve already invested in. So, let’s talk about three key areas to make that adoption a reality.

The first is vision. When you initially decided to buy a Workday solution, you had a vision for change. Something in your existing business environment wasn’t supporting your evolving strategy. So, you started looking around. What were other successful companies doing? Maybe as part of the decision-making process, you anecdotally compared how you would use Workday against market standards and your peer set. 

Yet setting a vision, and ensuring your technology is supporting that vision, should not stop at go-live. It’s an iterative process that keeps you ahead of the curve. And to keep progressing on that vision, you must first know where you stand.

That’s why we offer Workday Data as a Service, to give you the insight on how you are tracking vs. your peers and market data. We now offer more than 75 benchmarks for getting insight into your financial performance, workforce composition, leadership effectiveness, as well as benchmarks for Workday usage metrics. When you opt in, you can use this free service and its anonymized data to analyze your performance, including using country or industry lenses to identify areas to focus on or prioritize.  

Second, empower your people to do more. This means making sure your team knows Workday well enough to execute on your vision. Many of our customers work with our  deployment partners or the Workday Services organization to help turn on additional features, but you’ve also told us that you want to amp up your team’s capabilities.

That’s why we’re delivering even more templates and starter configurations via Customer Central (accessible through Workday Community). Today, we have over 85 published integration accelerators, 100 configuration packages, and 300 reports and dashboards. And in the next few months, we’ll be delivering more than a dozen role-based dashboards, designed for the different roles in your organization, such as Accountant, HR Partner, Cost Center Manager, and Benefits Administrator. These free resources equip your people to make your vision a reality. 

Finally, get the support you need. Workday is committed to making sure you have the right level of support at the right time throughout your adoption journey. As our customer, you always have access to 24/7 customer support and a customer success manager. In addition, many of you get tremendous value from Workday Community, with access to solution catalogs, peer networking forums, product influencers, training, and more.

But we’re not stopping there. You’ve told us you need more prescriptive, personalized, and practical help when it comes to adopting features and realizing your organization’s vision for Workday. So, we worked hard to create something that would help our customers make big strides in driving continuous adoption. Think of this like you would a personal fitness trainer that understands your goals, works with you to jointly map out a plan, and then has tricks and tips up their sleeve to ensure you reach your goal.  

This week at Workday Rising, we were excited to announce Workday Success Plans. These subscription-based plans offer a mix of education, tools, and services that you can choose from to suit your people, learning style, and business goals. 

You’ll get change management assistance, access to new webinars and training, and the ability to participate in small customer forums that foster peer-to-peer learning and networking. You’ll also receive personalized guidance from Workday experts, including answers that are specific to your configuration and the products you’re using.  

Just think of all the amazing features and dashboards you’ll be able to deploy to your team in a more timely manner. Our hope is that Workday Success Plans can make your internal Workday team heroes in your organization who constantly unlock new value and insights for the business. That’s why we’re currently working with a group of early adopters to get it right, with plans to release Workday Success Plans more broadly next year. 

So, let’s do this together. Let’s keep building on your vision, and get your people empowered and supported, so you can be as agile as you need to be in this changing world.