Workday Rising is about celebrating customers—learn who won the North America Customer Awards and the Workday Customer Lifetime Achievement Award. News announcements included AI-powered Workday Wellness, an expansion of the Industry Accelerators partner program, and Workday Ventures’ AI investments.
Workday Rising is all about customers and celebrating their successes. That came into sharp focus with inspiring stories about customer innovation—and awards honoring some of Workday’s rock star customers—during the Community Keynote on Wednesday.
It was another big day for news, too. Attendees learned about a new AI-powered solution for employee health called Workday Wellness, an expansion of Workday’s Industry Accelerators program, and Workday Ventures’ latest investments in AI.
Workday Chief Marketing Officer Emma Chalwin told the crowd that today was about celebrating an incredible community and inspiring each other to move forever forward. She emphasized the importance of the newly announced Workday Illuminate in that goal. “This is AI that lights your path forward.”
At Johnson Controls LLC, AI is used in various capacities, including leveraging AI in Workday Peakon Employee Voice to understand employee sentiment, explained the company’s CHRO Marlon Sullivan in a conversation with Workday Co-President Doug Robinson.
Robinson also spoke with Merlix Reynolds, vice president of accounting at RaceTrac, about how its finance team uses Workday to create value at a faster pace. Notably, Reynolds spoke about how Workday enabled improved dimensional reporting capabilities.
Sheri Rhodes, Workday’s chief customer officer, and Patrick Blair, president, global sales, then kicked off the inaugural North America Customer Awards. The winners included Bon Secours Mercy Health, Plexus, Team Car Care, Thomson Reuters, and Vertex.
Aneel Bhusri, Workday co-founder and executive chair, presented the second-ever Workday Lifetime Customer Achievement Award to Dave Smoley.
Bhusri recognized Smoley’s 30 years of experience leading technology change, and as a three-time customer who—when CIO at Flex in 2007—selected Workday, making Flex its “first truly global large enterprise customer.” Later on, Smoley led Workday deployments at Apple and AstraZeneca as the IT leader at those companies.
He also presented Smoley with bona fide rock star swag—an electric guitar signed by Workday brand ambassador and music legend Billy Idol.
Workday CEO Carl Eschenbach took the stage to recognize Salesforce, a technology partner in the Workday community. Whether it’s accelerating employee onboarding, enabling continuous financial planning, or closing deals faster, the Salesforce-Workday partnership is bringing humans and AI together to drive success for employees and customers, Eschenbach said.
To highlight innovations resulting from the partnership between Workday and Salesforce, Berea Schaffer, vice president of connected experiences at Workday, demonstrated how Workday for Slack can provide a seamless experience for onboarding with the addition of Workday Assistant, an innovation that will be available to adopters early next year. (Slack is owned by Salesforce.)
Schaffer demonstrated other scenarios with shared Workday and Salesforce connections, including a salesperson who gets AI-powered guidance and training recommendations, and another where Workday Assistant helps a sales manager elevate her team’s performance.
Eschenbach spoke virtually with Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, who was at his company’s annual Dreamforce conference in San Francisco. Benioff shared the excitement he’s hearing from customers around AI in the enterprise.
On Wednesday, it was announced that Workday Ventures, the company’s strategic capital arm, has made 10 new AI investments since the beginning of 2023 to fuel AI innovations that help organizations operate more efficiently and with increased agility.
“There is an incredible opportunity in front of us,” said Michael Magaro, senior vice president, corporate growth, Workday. Workday Ventures can help accelerate and connect the latest AI innovations to Workday’s growing ecosystem of customers, partners, and employees, Magaro said.
In its ongoing emphasis on putting people first, Workday also announced Workday Wellness, an AI-powered solution to help organizations focus on their employees’ health.
The first-of-its-kind technology will connect employers with benefits providers, enabling companies with a real-time view into what health benefits and wellness programs employees want and really use.
Cristina Goldt, general manager of workforce and pay at Workday, explained that great benefits can help organizations attract and keep employees, but it can be difficult to know which offerings they really want.
By harnessing the power of data and AI, she explained, Workday Wellness will empower companies to make more informed decisions about their benefits and wellness offerings—ultimately leading to healthier, happier, and more engaged workers.
Using the capabilities of Workday Illuminate and employee sentiment data from Workday Peakon Employee Voice, Workday Wellness gives organizations instant access to their employees’ feedback about wellness offerings. It’ll show if employees want child-care assistance, more mental health or dental options, better paid leave programs, and more.
Workday also launched 12 new partner Industry Accelerators to help customers across various vertical industries modernize their HR and finance operations.
Partners participating in the Industry Accelerators program combine their industry expertise with the power of the Workday platform to offer a suite of pre-configured solutions to customers.
The offerings address specific challenges within customers’ industries—examples include improving academic recruitment for higher education institutions, driving project efficiencies for professional services firms, and addressing labor shortages in the retail and hospitality sectors.
“Every industry has unique business challenges that require solutions designed specifically for them,” said Sophie Sharp, senior vice president of global industries and value management.
She explained that industry accelerators help customers harness the full power of the Workday platform, combined with industry-leading practices to ensure they stay ahead of the curve and achieve faster, more efficient paths to value.
The announcements boost the growing Workday partner ecosystem and highlight the co-innovation taking place on the Workday platform.
Other recently announced offerings include Global Payroll Connect, a platform unifying global partner payroll solutions, and the Built on Workday program, which lets partners build, manage, and market applications to customers on the Workday Marketplace.
That’s a wrap on our Workday Rising Daily news coverage. Whether you’re onsite at Workday Rising or following the news virtually, have a great rest of your week!
Don’t miss out on all the great news this week! Read issue one and issue two of Workday Rising Daily articles.
Kicking off Workday Rising 2024, CEO Carl Eschenbach set the tone by previewing Workday Illuminate, the next generation of Workday AI.
During the Innovation Keynote, Workday leaders shared how Workday Illuminate will accelerate manual tasks, provide real-time assistance, and transform entire business processes.
At our Community Keynote at Workday Rising, we announced this year’s Workday North America Customer Award Winners. Read on to learn how these organizations are creating value and innovating to drive their organizations forward.
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