Workday Works Wonders on Platform for HCM

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is a software category that includes an array of business applications that includes human resources and finance. Workday is a vendor at the center of a new generation of ERP. My colleague Robert Kugel recently covered that company’s advances in finance using cloud computing to operate its platform. And I recently attended Workday’s technology analyst summit, where I got a deeper view of the technology under its applications and its efforts to perfect its processing potential. The company’s platform can support a broad range of applications, and it is advancing its efforts in analytics, collaboration and business planning. Today, however, only Workday itself is allowed to build applications on the platform, a situation that contrasts with many other ERP providers that make theirs available to third-party software developers and consultants.

At the summit Workday demonstrated the cloud-based spreadsheet technology that it acquired in 2015. Referred to as worksheets, it is embedded in its platform. Workday insists on the value of having a spreadsheet on its platform to provide flexibility for workers in the lines of business. We think it is a smart approach to bind spreadsheets into the platform as our benchmark research frequently finds that using them independently can be unproductive and even problematic in an enterprise setting. I did not agree with Workday’s presentation on the history of analytics and spreadsheets in computing; analytics and decision support systems were in business use well before spreadsheets were invented and date back to the 1970s and have been maturing for some time. But worksheets adds flexibility for the analytic in Workday Planning. With this addition, this application now competes with products of Workday’s partners, even ones in which it has invested such as Anaplan and Tidemark.

Planning is an essential business function that most organizations do not manage effectively in finance, HR and operations, and Workday’s efforts to unify planning like that needed to administrate the workforce can help organizations to optimally manage their business processes. Our research on next-generation business planning finds that two-thirds of organizations in which planning is integrated and its elements are linked said their planning processes work well or very well.

I am impressed by what Workday has introduced in its collaboration capabilities, which are blended with Worksheets, unlike in the majority of analytics and planning products in the market today in which have no collaboration or not easily accessed from within planning. Some of its technologists have significant experience in developing collaborative capabilities, and I expect that the company will be able to exploit embedded collaboration across its platform for social collaboration, which works much better than email or external tools that don’t maintain the contexts of discussions. Workday enables Worksheets and collaboration to operate across mobile platforms but also secures the data they use. As part of its platform, the application can access data in real time to provide up-to-date information and enable fast actions. These advances will not be available until the next upgrade, Workday 26, and more fully available in Workday 27, both of which the company says it plans to release in 2016.

Workday also demonstrated to analysts its Workday Insight Applications architecture, which provides analytics and metrics that are shaped into applications and used by its tools. It has continued to embed advanced technology including Apache Spark, machine learning and elastic search as part of its approach to big data and analytics. Probably most valuable are the simpler user experience and the ability to seamlessly present third-party information from across the Internet and within the enterprise. Workday has some work to do on data preparation and integration of other applications and systems, but I don’t doubt it’s assertions that it will deliver a simpler approach to the presentation of metrics and context for individual roles. Using its advances in collaboration and planning Workday will be able to set goals and track key performance indicators, which can fulfill the promise of scorecards and performance management for business. My colleague Robert Kugel outlined the finance overlap of ERP and performance management recently that outlines this shift This would help businesses focus on achieving their full potential.

The latest release of the platform, Workday 25, was the highlight of the annual Workday Rising conference last fall of 2015, also has advanced its suite of applications. Its human capital management (HCM) applications provide not only the core HR functions through self-service methods but also management of recruiting, learning, benefits, performance, time tracking and payroll – subtle but significant improvements since our last analysis in 2014. It also includes packaged application-specific dashboards. A new application called Workday Learning can help workers improve their job performance to realize their potential in the organization. Our research into next-generation learning management finds that nearly half of companies have increased their investments in learning. Workday now provides more flexibility to connect to third party payroll through its payroll interface and with what it calls Payroll Effective Change Interface (PECI). Workday has advanced its partnership with ADP to streamline access and processing of payroll. Our research into payroll management finds that payroll management integrated with talent management helps organizations establish more effective processes. Workday did not mention compensation management, during the analyst summit . The company sees this application as a capability of HCM, and could use the worksheets technology for modeling and analytics and adding workflow that operates across management, managers and workers.

I really like what Workday is doing in the area of employee engagement, which I see as essential to ensuring worker satisfaction and retention. Workday has built a framework to run campaigns and surveys to measure feedback and provide recommendations for how workers can improve their performance. This framework streamlines the process for job offers and acceptances, which most organizations now do manually. Workday is also advancing its efforts in workforce management to integrate with time clocks, support checking in and out, and manage absences and time off; it also has added abilities to track time worked by job type and to process large volumes of time entries.

Workday has set the bar high for business applications in the cloud with its progressive approach to its applications and platform and by embracing the new generation of innovative technologies in analytics, collaboration and mobility. Its platform is well prepared to advance nearly all aspects of human capital management for organizations and help HR increase its value to the business. Workday is on a mission to provide applications for HR, payroll, benefits, talent management and workforce management to ensure it can meet the merits of what is called human capital management. If you have not examined Workday’s products to see what is available today and what is coming in 2016, I recommend doing so.

Regards,

Mark Smith

CEO & Chief Research Officer

Workforce Management for Human Capital Management

Historically workforce management has been centered on tracking time and attendance, absences and leaves. Organizations view the time and attendance system as the top priority to integrate with the payroll system; in our payroll management benchmark research half (51%) of organizations called it very important. However, only one in five have integrated the two to streamline processes. So limited an administrative and operational focus does not contribute to improving worker productivity or manager efficiency. Moreover, such an approach can foster employee turnover and undermine worker satisfaction and loyalty. Our research analysis underscores that paying insufficient attention to the worker experience can degrade employees’ sense of accomplishment and in some situations also degrade the customer experience.

Of course, managing the costs and efficiency of schedule-, time- and pay-related tasks, including compliance, remains important. However, these tasks, as well as those above, can be more easily accomplished with advanced workforce management software. Used to full capability, it can manage this operational environment and help managers drive not just productivity but also the success of the organization while also engaging the workforce.

Out of necessity, workforce management software is evolving as an integral part of systems for business units and for human resources. Importantly, advanced workforce management systems typically include analytics that help management understand workforce performance; in our previous workforce management research 61 percent of organizations said that analytics is important to workforce management. For example, analytics applied to optimization of schedules can help organizations manage workers to their expectations. Analytics also is critical to optimize workforce performance and to enable members of the workforce to understand their contributions to the success of the organization. Furthermore, analytics can guide executives and managers to improve decision-making and rectify issues that could be leading to increased costs and be out of compliance with regulations. Many organizations, however, are not prepared to undertake these efforts; they still use an array of spreadsheets or tools that are not synchronized with real-time data from workforce management systems.

As organizations evolve, their needs for more efficient and engaging workforce management is transforming workforce management. We have begun to explore this category further in new benchmark research on Workforce Management for Human Capital Management. This new research will gather and analyze data on enterprises’ current workforce management practices, the software they use and their plans for the future. Here are some of the aspects we will explore.

The availability of next-generation workforce management systems (which include analytics) through cloud computing facilitates adoption of and access to these applications and the information they use. In our previous research one-fifth (19%) of participants expressed a preference to use cloud computing for workforce management, and we expect this percentage to grow as the attraction of deploying software as a service in the cloud influences buying decisions. For most organizations there is value in having the vendor manage the implementation and maintenance of the systems, and the ability to stay current in newer releases also is significant. Organizations are most concerned with time to value in new implementations and efficiency of their teams in using it. Depending on their needs and budgets, they can choose to deploy it in a single customer private cloud or a multitenant public cloud.

Likewise the proliferation of mobile applications for workers and managers in today’s workplace dovetails with the interests and proclivities of the increasingly younger workforce. Almost half (45%) of organizations in our previous research indicated that they will deploy such new applications to improve productivity. We expect the readiness of organizations to use mobile devices including wearables will further increase demand for advanced workforce management. The use of smartphones to access information about employees, payments and benefits and corporate policies makes it easier for workers to review and request changes to schedules; it is a key way to provide the flexibility demanded by workers who want to balance their personal and business lives. Organizations that do not embrace mobile devices for their workers and managers risk decreases in productivity and workforce engagement that could lead to increased employee churn.

Younger workers also are comfortable collaborating using social technology such as messaging, forums and open threaded dialogue on topics. Employers need to learn to interact with them accordingly to retain talent; at the same time, these methods provide an opportunity to further optimize workforce management by engaging workers in new ways. These innovations include assigning goals and rewarding achievement along with using new communication channels to resolve issues quickly, easily and interactively – more than half of organizations in our research identified these capabilities as important. As social forms of collaboration become part of the communication fabric, organizations can gain valuable feedback from workers and also provide coaching to increase their effectiveness. Efforts to improve the skills and competence of workers also can benefit from learning management and other systems that are accessible on mobile devices.

Driven by the evolving nature of talent and challenges to retain it, advanced workforce management now has capabilities to address spectrum broad range of human capital management needs. Using it senior management can gain greater insight into the workforce in action while improving the work experience and complying with relevant policies and regulations. Most organizations will find that investment in workforce management can be justified by its ability to ensure compliance with regulations regarding the Affordable Care Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act and a growing variety of locally established worker rights mandates.

Employers are recognizing the value of a new generation of workforce management systems in enabling organizations to meet requirements beyond managing schedules, absences and time off. For example, one-third (34%) of those participating in our payroll management research said they plan to deploy new workforce management software by the end of 2016. Almost half (47%) said they are not satisfied with their current product’s functionality. Workforce management as it is evolving addresses concerns common to all industries and will play a key role in tomorrow’s human capital management. Finance and operations management should examine the benefits it will deliver by bringing more efficiency into their processes, in particular ensuring a more engaged and longer-tenured workforce that contributes to financial profitability.

Implementing this new generation of workforce management will require an in-depth understanding of the options available and the people, processes, information and technology issues that must be addressed. Our new Workforce Management for Human Capital Management benchmark research will examine advances in the three years since our previous research was published. I believe that workforce management has a stronger role to play in efforts to achieve operational excellence and customer satisfaction and that the benefits organizations can realize from using these applications can be significant. Please look for upcoming announcements of how you can participate in and learn from this cutting-edge research.

Regards,

Mark Smith

CEO & Chief Research Officer