It’s a common adage in IT that 80 percent of customers only use 20 percent of the features in the software they’ve purchased. That claim may sound a bit exaggerated, but think about your smartphone—how many of its features and apps do you use on a regular basis (or even know how to use at all)? Now imagine if you could use your smartphone to its fullest potential—imagine all the ways becoming “fluent” in your phone could save you time and money.
Optimizing is just as important when it comes to your Workday investment. Whether you implemented it years ago or months ago, it has many features you might not even know about that could improve your workday—no pun intended. If your investment in Workday isn’t improving your operational efficiencies or providing other tangible contributions to your business, it’s time to take a step back and figure out what exactly it’s doing for you (and how to kick things up a notch).
What to Keep in Mind When Optimizing Workday
Workday offers functionality for business planning, financial management, human capital management payroll, analytics, and more. With a solution so robust, creating the right process for onboarding or payroll can be confusing or challenging. No two businesses are exactly the same, which is why Workday offers a robust variety of ways to customize the solution to best fit your needs—but how do you know when it’s time to create your own option or go with an out-of-the-box feature?
Your first step is to decide what areas of Workday are not working for your organization or users. Next, create a list of features and processes that do work, while also thinking about ways they could be improved. Finally, learning about Workday best practices and ensuring your users have access to the training and resources they need will give them the chance to better able to solve issues that may arise in the future.
Where to Focus Your Workday Optimizing Energy
Once you’ve determined what Workday is and is not doing for your organization, you can develop a plan to start improving and optimizing your solution. Here are some key areas that we recommend:
Any time you combine two disparate systems (even if they’re both Workday), there are gains to be made from optimization, especially when you consider whatever new organizational hierarchies you’re working with now.
While every Workday org is different, most everyone uses the same classic modules, including Payroll, Talent, Expenses, and so forth. Learning the best practices for these modules will help you customize them to best serve your needs.
When you consider new regulations, benefit changes, and updated integrations (not to mention every other aspect of your Workday org that’s different from when you first rolled it out), it’s clear to see that every business will have optimization needs as it changes over time.
Workday security configuration is all about safeguarding your data from unauthorized access and misuse. You likely set this up during implementation, but some modifications can improve your security (especially with frequent Workday releases).
A good hard look at how your tenants actually use Workday (as opposed to how they should use it) will provide an insight into how to improve their experience.
If this all seems overwhelming—don’t worry, we have a wide network of Workday consultants that can guide you along this process.
Why You Need to Partner With the Right Consultants
Our approach is to start by understanding your business. After that, we come up with a plan catered to your unique needs. We’re also big believers in the old “fish vs fishing pole” proverb. Other consultants might just to come in and do the work for you—but our consultants want to be your strategic partner to help you achieve success after they leave your office.
Surety Systems believes your team needs to have the capacity to do the work without us, and we’re confident in this approach because it not only leads to long-term success—it’s what sets us apart from the rest.
Need further assistance? Not to worry! Our team of Workday experts can help you create a strategy designed to make the most of your investment in Workday. If you’re looking to increase efficiency and kick things up a notch, we’re here to help—contact us today.
