Workday

What Workday does

Workday is a cloud platform that puts human capital management and financial management side by side. The argument for it is that headcount and cost live in the same system: when hiring plans change, the financial effect is visible without an export. That makes it interesting for companies where people cost is the dominant line in the P&L.

Features

• Human capital management: employee administration, payroll and talent management.
• Financial management: accounting and consolidation.
• Analytics and reporting: reporting across HR and finance data in one place.
• Cloud: real-time access from any device.
• Configurable: designed to be adapted and to scale with the organisation.

Strengths

• One source for people and cost: headcount planning and financial planning read from the same data.
• Reporting across both sides: no export step between the HR system and the finance system.
• Built to scale: the configuration model is designed for organisations that keep changing shape.

Limitations

• Cost: expensive in particular for small companies.
• Implementation effort: the rollout takes time and the platform needs to be learned.
• Connectivity: as a pure cloud platform it depends on a stable connection.
• Pricing is not published: a comparison needs a quote.

Alternatives

• NetSuite – ERP suite with a stronger operations and inventory side.

These entries are currently available in German only.

• SAP – enterprise software suite covering HR and finance.
• Unit4 – ERP aimed at people-centric organisations.
• Visier – people analytics on top of existing HR systems.