Workday

Implementation &
Adoption Guide
Defining Workday Implementation Challenges & Solutions to Accelerate
Successful Software Adoption
Workday Adoption Guide
Workday has made its presence felt across all Human Resource Management (HRM) plays a
management spheres in one way or another. vital role in any organization. In the last decade,
Technology advancement usually brings many changes within the digital industry have made an
opportunities but not without its challenges. everlasting impact on the HRM world.

A few trends that continue to evolve and impact

Workday HCM can cost hundreds the industry today include the creation of social
of thousands of dollars annually at media and the subsequent sharing it entails,
more personalized and flexible employee benefit
a minimum and can even venture
options, fluid and flexible approaches to customer
in the millions to implement, feedback, technology that allows employees
update, or change. As a business- to take work home with them, agile career
critical software across an development, and leveraging workforce data.
enterprise, it’s crucial you don’t With a now digitally dependent industry, Workday
continues to innovate and lead the HCM race since
cut corners and to ensure
its inception in 2005.
successful software adoption
occurs timely and efficiently.
Workday has made its presence felt across all
management spheres in one way or another. As
technological advancement brings opportunities,
In this guide, we discuss some challenges faced it too brings challenges. In the same way
while implementing Workday, solutions to said advancements in Workday have provided incredible
challenges, and the use of digital adoption opportunities and options to HR, it is not without
solutions to drive better return on investment (ROI). its challenges.

Workday Implementation & Adoption Guide I 2

 One of the biggest challenges faced by
organizations is the adoption and acceptance
of the application in the existing eco-system,
as implementation demands the restructure of

29% roles, processes, and organizational functions.

Its implementation may invoke a cultural shift or
merger of personnel and program functionality.
This can create an unsettling atmosphere if not
addressed with transparency, communication,
29% of HR employees say
and a strategy that meets a companywide goal
that onboarding is the that everyone can get behind.
biggest challenge they
face when trying to improve In this eBook we will discuss challenges that
can arise while implementing Workday; various
employee engagement.
solutions, best practices, and strategies to
Source: (G2, 2018) decrease time to value; and how you can define
a successful Workday implementation.

apty.io Workday Implementation & Adoption Guide I 3

Table of Content
Introduction to Workday 5

Here are some common issues faced by organizations 7

implementing Workday…

How to Make Workday Implementation Easy 14

Make your Onboarding Smooth, Efficient, and Reliable 18

with a Digital Adoption Solution like Apty

Start Empowering Decisions at Every Level 22

with Workday

“
Workday: an Application Designed for Change

Business today changes fast. But by bringing

finance, HR, planning, and analytics together
“
in Workday, you gain the power to adapt.

– Workday.com

apty.io Workday Implementation & Adoption Guide I 4

Introduction to Workday

Source: Workday, 2023

As a senior tool in the human capital management (HCM) category, application admins look to Workday
as their digital transformation tool to centralize and unify human resources (HR) operations within a
single system. The cloud-based human resources information system (HRIS) solution improves critical HR
management facets to meet business transformation objectives and goals.

Workday also serves the financial management sector: Workday Financial Management. They have also
expanded into enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions with Workday Enterprise Management Cloud.

apty.io Workday Implementation & Adoption Guide I 5

 Source: Surety Systems, 2022

Workday is widely adopted as an HCM standard

because it makes HR’s jobs easier and business
processes smoother with seamless leadership
visibility that can be managed globally yet

8.2
Months
processed locally. It also makes data availability
easy and reduces unnecessary administrative
costs.

It’s one of the most powerful solutions in the

market, but not always the easiest to implement.
The period for Workday
implementation usually varies
Any delay in your implementation eats away at
from 6 months to 14 months and your software ROI for Workday. No one wants to
on average it takes 8.2 months to pay for software they’re not using. Avoiding any
execute across an organization. delays in your Workday adoption makes it easier
to see the value in your application.

Workday Implementation & Adoption Guide I 6

Here are some common issues faced by
organizations implementing Workday…

Relevant Read:

Top Workday
Implementation
Challenges
Read More

Source: Gartner, 2022

Workday Implementation & Adoption Guide I 7

Workday Implementation Challenges

1. Weakly Defined Project Scope

In order to define a scope, you need clearly defined requirements. Sometimes projects are defined
loosely, and this creates vague guidelines, project boundaries, and acceptance criteria during the
process that inevitably delays software implementation. Here are factors that affect project scope:

Source: Institute Project Management, 2022

• Software Updates: Every 12 months, your

Workday application goes through 2 major Relevant Read:
updates. For most organizations, it takes
around 8 months to implement Workday, so A Complete
plan for at least one Workday update in the
middle of your implementation. Workday Change
• Unclear Roadmap: Implementations are Management Guide
often delayed when companies don’t decide
on the project primary objectives or create
the roadmap without involving all the right Read More
stakeholders.

• Organizational Changes: Implementations

aren’t just about technologies. Often
employees’ roles and responsibilities change.
Be sure to include plans for a reporting
structure or job function changes.

apty.io
 Workday Implementation Challenges

2. Lack of Collaboration and Communication

Implementations involve different teams, which often leads to these common communication issues:

Source: Workday, 2023

• Involve more than one department to avoid a • Organizations often overlook the importance
siloed approach to implementation. Discover of collaborating effectively with service
and incorporate missing business-critical partners and consultants. This leads to a
integrations, process needs, educational communication gap which might eventually
requirements, or security necessities. result in project failure.

• Many organizations focus on involving its • Involving stakeholders at different stages of

leadership while adopting Workday and in the implementation will ensure smooth execution
process forget to involve mid-level managers of tasks. This also ensures the project is in line
and end-users. with leadership expectations, although, in some
cases, this step is overlooked.
• Organizations usually involve people from HR,
Finance and IT for Workday implementation
but they should also involve other functional
groups like those in supply chain management
that may use the application. If this is not done,
then product adoption gets hindered.

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Workday Implementation Challenges

3. Vaguely Defined Process 5. Not Prioritizing Regular Tests

without Prioritization and Quality Checks
Implementing new software requires
updating your processes. Here’s what you
should consider:

• Change business processes and optimize

them to meet your organization’s growing
requirements. Otherwise, outdated processes
could lead to confusion.

• Create improved processes to support your

new Workday workflow. If you don’t meet basic
Workday workflow requirements, employees
may find the application more cumbersome
and fall back on outdated processes and old
software. This could lead to failure.

• Designate a process owner at each stage to

prevent inconsistencies throughout the project.

• Make a list of 3rd-party applications with

which Workday must be integrated to ensure
proper steps are taken to reduce redundant
work, legacy stack problems, and late-stage
reactive planning to issues that arise.
Source: QATestLab, 2018

4. Including the Right Partners

at the Right Time If you wait until the end to test, you could
delay your implementation. Here’s why:
You’ll probably need some help with your
implementation. You should consider the • Late-stage quality checks that find a bug or
following: problem will take longer to fix because you’ll
have to make changes to the entire system
• Typically, service partners are not selected rather than the singular step that caused the
based on their expertise in a specific niche cascade of issues.
like Workday, which could create problems
especially if your domain provider is new to • A rigid waterfall approach to project
Workday implementation. management can delay implementations
because it doesn’t allow enough flexibility.
• Sometimes companies wait to recruit Workday Teams will have better luck using an agile
consultants in the execution stage. Include methodology.
them in the planning stage to ensure better
results.

Workday Implementation & Adoption Guide I 10

Workday Implementation Challenges

6. Substandard Documentation and Imperfect Decision Log

Documentation is a vital aspect of Workday implementation as it helps to guide the

user through complexities while navigating the system.

Source: Maddevs.io, 2022

• Using generic Workday documentation instead

of your own personalized and targeted
documentation can create issues with adoption.
Your organization could have a different set of
processes that won’t be mentioned in Workday
default documentation. In short, one size
doesn’t fit all.

• Another issue that big corporations encounter

is forgetting to make a decision log during
the execution process. A decision log helps
to track the individual who made the decision
and why they made said decision. This plays
an important role in the execution phase and
ignoring this usually leads to uncertainty.

Workday Implementation & Adoption Guide I 11

Workday Implementation Challenges

7. Underestimating Budget implementation to prove its value or worth.

They need to show a positive software return
and Time on investment (ROI) and that the platform is
effectively utilized to show this value.
Management is often focused on delivering
projects as quickly as possible at the lowest
• Budgets and implementation timelines are
cost, but that can create issues if you don’t
sometimes set based on information received
accurately plan for the resources needed for
during the sales process, but sales personnel
a large implementation. Reasons for
may not know the unique processes and
underestimated budgets and timelines include:
needs of your organization: the big picture. It’s
better to discuss the timeline with the project
• With large budgets come great expectations
management team and a consultant to create
and responsibilities: getting more for less.
the right expectations from the beginning.
And this couldn’t be truer during an economic
downturn, large mergers and acquisitions,
• Not having a proper digital adoption platform in
or during year-over-year (YoY) budgetary
place could result in increased spending and, in
evaluations. CIOs and leaders feel undue
most cases, misses an o`pportunity to speed
pressure to decrease (or even underestimate)
up end-user software adoption.
the cost and time associated with Workday

The Hidden Cost of Workday

Implementation
Read More

apty.io Workday Implementation & Adoption Guide I 12

 Workday Implementation Challenges

8. Migration of Data and Writing Report

The biggest challenge for any organization is data migration and report management. Although most
organizations give this a high priority, problems still arise when pushing your current data to the new
application. This stage requires data backups before migration and additional QA time after migration. Here
are some data migration issues to look out for:

Data redundancy

Mismatch of data
and information

Loss of data points

Issues while uploading

data in a certain format

Source: StreamSets, 2022

apty.io Workday Implementation & Adoption Guide I 13

How to Make Workday
Implementation Easy
The challenges associated with Workday can look overwhelming, but if
the necessary steps are taken at each stage, these issues can be quickly
mitigated or avoided all together.

Let’s review some potential solutions to ease Workday adoption and make
it more efficient. Listed below are a few strategies that if followed can help
resolve Workday challenges.

Avoid implementation delays and adoption challenges by following these

Workday implementation best practices:

1. Clearly define
your processes
• The processes must be
discussed and defined
with all the stakeholders
across the organization.

• Processes must be
drafted not only by
keeping the finance and
HR departments in mind
but also by considering
the business verticals
that will use it.

• Identify pain points in

your current processes
and plan to fix them.

• Create a workflow that

fits your organization’s
objectives and
customize it for each
role and job function.

apty.io Workday Implementation & Adoption Guide I 14

Workday Made Easy

2. Encourage collaboration and

communication
• It’s crucial to hire a Workday consultant in the
initial phase of planning and process design to
avoid confusion, mistakes, or issues you might
not be as familiar with before they happen.

• Make sure to involve every team that would

be affected by the Workday implementation
to avoid any conflict in later stages. This will
help departments feel heard, acknowledged,
and considered, which in turn will ensure buy
in and that the change is accepted across the
organization.

• Use a digital adoption platform with

your Workday application to reinforce
communication across the organization.
Workday Made Easy

3. Design specific training • Every job role and function generally has
different workflows and processes. Create
programs and on-demand training for each role and their subsequent
learning tasks so users can focus on the processes
and necessities of their position without
wasting time on irrelevant material.

• On-screen guidance customized by job function

reinforces conventional training. This will
also help employees overcome the inevitable

88%
forgetfulness that follows onboarding and
training: Ebbinghaus’ Forgetting Curve.
In-app guidance also helps organizations
increase their ROI in a span of just a few
months, decreasing time to value.

88% of employees think 4. Avoid unnecessary

their employer did a poor customization
job with the onboarding • Many organizations often try to customize their
process. (Gallup, 2017) software to their existing processes instead of
adapting to the future of what the role entails
and capabilities of the software. Updating your
process to match your technology would be
more productive in the long run.

• Unnecessary customizations not only cost

more in the rollout stage but also require more
time and labor during future stages of various

82% 70% upgrades over the lifecycle of the Workday

software. Change management is crucial to the
longevity of the software.

5. Create clear documentation

Organizations with a and decision logs
strong onboarding • Keep a list of decision logs as there will be
multiple decision-makers at each stage. A
process improve new paper trail or track record will help avoid
confusion, detail out why decisions were made,
hire retention by 82% and save time.

and productivity by • Even after implementation, creating

over 70% (Glassdoor, documentation is no easy task. Consider using
digital adoption solutions like Apty to provide
2015) immediate and customized announcements
regarding updates to specific user segments
within your Workday application.

Workday Implementation & Adoption Guide I 16

 Workday Made Easy

6. Secure adequate budget 8. Celebrate small and big

and time milestones
• Plan out your budget with a Workday consultant • Workday implementation can be daunting
and make sure you include all the resources and overwhelming, which eventually could
that would be required to make your Workday result in a lack of enthusiasm. So, break the
implementation efficient, effective, and implementation up into smaller milestones.
successful.
• Create celebrations for both big and small
• Evaluate the timespan and give enough leeway milestones to boost morale and increase
for testing at each phase to avoid any major awareness of implementation progress.
failures at the end of the project.

• Provide all the necessary resources to the

project team.

• Make sure to budget for an enterprise digital

adoption platform powered with proactive goal-
based insights that improve software adoption,
data-informed decisions, and business
process workflows. This helps reduce hidden
application adoption costs and time.

7. Make a data migration plan

• Involve a Workday and IT consultant to find any

gaps in the existing workflow or processes.
This will help you identify any issues, how
to improve them, and how to automate
any manual processes using the Workday
application.

• Map the dataflow across various platforms.

Figure out how the Workday application
programming interface (API) will talk and
exchange data with existing systems and
whether any data conversion is required.

• Make sure you have processes in place to pull

clean data that you may need to generate
a valid report. Most of the time you’ll come
across redundant, incorrect, or missing data
causing an error and can invalidate your data
set. Be sure to check for duplicated records or
data mapping errors when moving data from
old systems to your new system.

apty.io Workday Implementation & Adoption Guide I 17

Make your Onboarding Smooth, Efficient,
and Reliable with a Digital Adoption
Solution like Apty
Perhaps the biggest challenge
with Workday is getting users Most organizations fail to
to adopt the new or updated leverage any ERP solution
to its fullest because most
application or process. 80% employees forget about
80% of what they learn
Retraining and recreating training within 48 hours of training.
collateral makes the job more
difficult for both employees and
the organization. This aggravation
can be eased by utilizing solutions Apty’s cloud-based enterprise software
like a digital adoption platform. offers in-app learning and guidance to
accelerate digital adoption and time to value.

Here are the advantages that you can leverage by using a digital
adoption solution:

1. Easy content creation with

the ability to update quickly,
effortlessly, and utilize in-app
Learning & Development (L&D)
collateral helps develop more
effective and long-lasting
learning experiences. DAPs
work seamlessly with cross-
application integrations and
already developed L&D training
materials that can be embedded
in-app throughout guided
Workday pathways.

apty.io Workday Implementation & Adoption Guide I 18

 Enterprise DAP Solutions

2. In-app guidance for your employees are 4. Automated processes or paths through
personalized walkthroughs that guide each user Workday help speed up and accurately
through the process to ensure accurate process complete established business processes.
compliance. This is especially useful if the end These Workday walkthroughs can target
user has not logged into the platform in some segments to ensure successful process
time–for example during open enrollment or completion amongst users that struggle or
time off requevts. Imagine the time saved with those who are new to the platform or process.
a Workday platform that includes frequently Quick links and buttons conveniently placed
asked questions, reminder push notifications, within Workday can be triggered to launch
and guided pathways within the app. request form processes and implement faster
report creation, reducing errors and increasing
employee productivity.

3. Intelligent insights that give you an overall look 5. Field validations not only aid in process
at where and when user bottlenecks occur. compliance enforcement but also data hygiene.
This helps admins prioritize walkthroughs that With reliable data, stakeholders can now make
users falter on and need in order to complete data-informed decisions, saving upwards of
business-critical processes. over $3 million/year.

apty.io Workday Implementation & Adoption Guide I 19

 Enterprise DAP Solutions

On Average, corporate data Approximately 20% of the

40% 20%
grows at 40% per year.3 average database is dirty.1

Source: Neil Patel

6. Customized support content based on team or job function.

Personalized messaging and announcements can increase
employee engagement and decrease end-user frustrations from
lack of in-app help or information overload on unnecessary

32%
platform guidance for their level of application expertise.

32% of the non-

HR employees
believe that their
companies
do not invest in
their engagement.
(G2, 2018)

apty.io Workday Implementation & Adoption Guide I 20

 Enterprise DAP Solutions

7. Machine learning (ML) features like guidance, modules could be triggered or suggested to
goal-based tracking will analyze help build better more effective business processes
current user behavior, interpret within your application and user segment to increase
that use, and predictively tell an employee productivity.
admin whether your established
user adoption goals can be met
within the deadline. This guides
admin content creators toward
corrective software adoption plans,
messaging, and strategies before
it’s too late.

• Further futuristic predictive tools

may include features that consider
contextual enablement, process
optimization, and intelligent
automation. For example, when a
user gets stuck future Enterprise
DAP guides may read the interaction
history, and based on past behavior

DAP solutions like this decrease time to value and increase employee
productivity and software return on investment (ROI).

Source: Digital Adoption, 2022

apty.io Workday Implementation & Adoption Guide I 21

Enterprise DAP Solutions

Start Empowering Decisions at Every

Level with Workday…Now that you’re equipped with
the right tools & change management strategy

Workday is one of the most effective Workday emphasizes that their application
ERP and HCM solutions for leading enterprises creates “[…]one source for financial, people, and
and their finance and HR departments. operational data, [where] everyone can access
real-time insights to make sound decisions.” In
Workday can yield high returns in productivity
an endless effort to meet this goal, you may get
and efficiency – when implemented correctly.
the impression that Workday implementation
process is too complicated or not working. But rest
assured, once you know all the roadblocks, have
You can do all of this with a digital meaningful insights into user behavior, and develop
in-app intelligent contextual content to address
adoption platform like Apty.
discovered challenges, you will see your digital
transformation goals come to fruition.

Workday Implementation & Adoption Guide I 22

 Enterprise DAP Solutions

Workday implementation and its

adoption process–if implemented
with a best practices methodology
in mind–can catapult organizations
But the implementation
forward faster with broader
oversight, open collaboration,
of Workday requires a
and continuous planning within
one portal. The Workday application
fundamental change in
provides real-time metrics to the
stakeholders across the business
the way HR professionals
verticals, which helps them track
and spot trends leading to
see challenges and issues
data-informed decisions to drive
business transformation goals.
with this Valuable digital
Effective HR increases productivity,
tool. It may not be the
makes onboarding more efficient and
faster, improves change management
software, but more about
plans, and decreases redundancies
and paperwork while allowing better
how you use it.
controls and oversight for leadership.

Source: Digital Adoption, 2022

Enterprise DAP Solutions

Apty is one of the world’s leading and award- in-app guide to increase user training autonomy,
winning digital adoption solutions. Without elevate employee engagement scores, decrease
interfering with security parameters, legacy stacks, attrition rates, streamline onboarding & business
or API integrations, the cloud-based Apty DAP sits process compliance training, and decrease IT
on top of the Workday application and acts as an tickets. It creates a self-service HR environment.

Fortune 500 companies have Apty’s DAP experts work with

achieved all the above goals by your team–more as partners or
utilizing Apty and weaving it into consultants than a vendor–to help
their onboarding, training, and you access the full potential of your
change management protocols. software: Workday.

Digital Adoption Done Right

Learn how a digital adoption solution can simplify your ERP or HCM
adoption and business process updates during change management
and onboarding initiatives.

Schedule a demo

Enterprises deploy 364 applications on average,

55% of these applications are

not used regularly.

55%
Enterprises are known to throw
thousands or even millions of dollars into
software purchases, customizations,
and training, failing to drive meaningful
software adoption. 70% of these digital
transformation initiatives fail.

apty.io Workday Implementation & Adoption Guide I 24

 Enterprise DAP Solutions

Trying to equip employees by calling upon

an outdated adoption approach is no longer
acceptable - and fortunately, it no longer “By 2025, 70% of
needs to be the status quo.
organizations will use
digital adoption platforms
Relevant Read:
across their entire tech
Enterprise Secret stack to overcome still
to Software insufficient application
Adoption. user experiences”

– Melissa Hilbert, Maria Marino, Stephen

Learn More
Emmott, 14 September 2022.

Enterprise DAP Benefits

A digital adoption platform (DAP) is designed to simplify & transform your
approach to software adoption and process compliance.

1. Onboarding & Beyond: 2. User & Process-Centric: 3. Enterprise Approach:

The emphasis of Enterprise DAPs help To ensure the success
digital adoption is on guide and analyze training, of cross-application and
in-context guidance onboarding, change complicated processes,
across applications with management, and business digital adoption demands
checkpoints to decrease process compliance to a holistic approach. When
human error and enforce accelerate digital adoption. done correctly, you can
business processes: increase your software ROI.
increasing data integrity
and productivity.

apty.io Workday Implementation & Adoption Guide I 25

About Apty
Apty, a cloud-based software solution, helps enterprises streamline their operations
and increase efficiency through guided employee experiences and proactive analytics
that accelerate digital adoption and process compliance. Using Apty’s successful
best practices methodology for digital adoption, enterprises can increase employee
engagement and improve data hygiene. Every month millions of users worldwide use
Apty to learn web-based apps and excel in their job at leading companies like Delta,
Hitachi, Mary Kay, Wiley, and many more.

For more information about Apty:

www.apty.io I See Apty on Workday I Blogs

Email: info@apty.io I Follow us on

Copyright ©2023 Apty I All Rights Reserved.

All names, logos, companies, or products mentioned here are the property of those respective companies.
In no way does Apty claim to own the intellectual property rights.