Workday offers a powerful cloud-based platform to streamline HR, payroll, and finance functions for both local and federal government agencies. By automating these critical processes, Workday helps government entities operate more efficiently and facilitates continuous improvement.
This article explores how Workday facilitates effective digital transformation and change management, modernizing human resources and financial management and promoting diversity and inclusion across the entire workforce.
Key Takeaways
- Workday Government Cloud facilitates effective transformation in federal agencies by automating HR and finance processes, streamlining operations, and enhancing real-time decision-making.
- Workday modernizes HR and financial management for federal agencies, improving talent retention, financial efficiency, and overall productivity through advanced analytics and automation.
- Workday’s commitment to security and compliance is demonstrated through various certifications and authorizations, ensuring robust protection for customer data and adherence to regulatory standards.
The Role of Workday in Government Digital Transformation
Workday Government Cloud is a game-changer for federal agencies, simplifying HR and finance by automating manual processes and continuously adapting to changes. This platform reduces complexity by offering an adaptable HR, payroll, and finance system, helping agencies operate more strategically and respond swiftly to new challenges.
Unified data environments and real-time decision-making become achievable with modern cloud-based IT systems like Workday, a significant advantage for government agencies faced with rising public demands for flawless digital experiences. AI and automation play pivotal roles in this landscape, significantly increasing productivity amid budget and talent constraints. With Workday’s empowerment solutions, agencies can streamline operations, enhance service delivery, and shift focus toward their core missions.
Despite the clear benefits, only 1 in 5 government leaders report progress in deploying technologies that streamline workflows and augment workforce capacity. Maintaining legacy systems limits time for strategic projects and community service improvements, making the shift to agile alternatives like Workday even more critical.
The federal government’s missions are vast and complex, often distracting agency leaders from their primary goals of focusing on managing the workforce and tracking budgets. Workday’s modern ERP solutions support the federal movement from legacy systems to more agile alternatives, enabling leaders to reclaim their focus on strategic initiatives.
Modernizing HR Processes for Federal Agencies
Workday is at the forefront of modernizing HR processes for federal agencies, providing streamlined solutions and personalized employee experiences. This transformation is about enhancing technology, empowering employees, and making HR a strategic partner within government organizations.
Moving to the cloud helps modernize human resources operations by:
- Bringing predictability to budget cycles
- Offering tools for automated payroll and benefits management
- Providing visibility into workforce makeup, retention risk, employee sentiment, and skills gaps
Given that 52% of public sector workers contemplate job changes and 33% consider retirement, talent retention poses a formidable challenge. Workday addresses this by utilizing data and technology to measure and improve DEIA outcomes, helping federal agencies attract and retain a diverse workforce.
Maintaining a motivated and effective workforce in public sector organizations necessitates modernizing HR and human capital management business processes.
Enhancing Public Sector Financial Management
Financial management in the public sector is critical for optimizing resources and ensuring transparency. Workday delivers finance analytics and automation solutions that:
- Assess value for dollars spent
- Facilitate efficiency and productivity improvements
- Streamline financial processes
- Promote accuracy and adaptability for public sector entities
Workday helps agencies in the following ways:
- Accelerate core closing processes
- Gain insights into service costs, capital project spend status, and program effectiveness
- Enable users to make informed decisions and improve overall efficiency
- Optimize financial resources and maintain current financial data with real-time financial reporting
- Allow government agencies to make knowledgeable decisions and enhance financial stewardship
The automation of repetitive finance tasks offers several benefits, including:
- Reducing the manual effort required from financial teams
- Promoting efficiency and ensuring consistent and accurate financial processes
- Improving audibility, compliance, and internal controls
- Driving accountability and transparency in public sector financial management
Leveraging Workday Adaptive Planning for Government
Real-time adjustments to plans with rolling forecasts provide a continuous picture of the business, allowing agencies to respond swiftly to changes. Workday Adaptive Planning supports top-down and bottom-up budgeting, allowing agencies to set targets or create detailed operational plans. This flexibility is crucial for managing resources and achieving strategic goals.
Workday Adaptive Planning helps government agencies by:
- Transitioning from manual spreadsheets and legacy systems to more efficient planning and budgeting tools
- Facilitating superior forecasting and data-driven decision-making
- Providing vital support for effectively serving constituents.
The tool also facilitates incremental and zero-based budgeting, leveraging historical data or starting afresh for a new fiscal year. Driver-based expense planning helps create tailored expense plans and perform allocations using a built-in rules engine, ensuring accurate and efficient resource management.
Improving Workforce Diversity and Inclusion
Improving diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) within government organizations is an ethical and strategic imperative. Effective DEIA strategies must impact the full employee lifecycle, including:
- Recruiting
- Training
- Hiring
- Engagement
- Promotion
A more recent executive order on DEIA aims to enhance federal recruitment, hiring, development, promotion, and retention of diverse talent. Workday supports these initiatives by providing tools and strategies to measure and improve DEIA outcomes and track progress, such as the VIBE index and VIBE heatmap.
Government agencies can use these insights to foster a more inclusive and equitable workforce, addressing the significant challenges associated with workforce diversity and inclusion. This commitment to DEIA improves organizational culture and enhances overall productivity and innovation.
Best Practices for Cloud-Based Solutions in Government
Implementing cloud-based solutions in government requires a strategic approach focusing on agility, scalability, and user-friendliness while addressing security, integration, and compliance concerns. Agility and scalability are among the main advantages of cloud-based solutions for governmental organizations.
Government IT leaders should view cloud-based systems as part of a broader roadmap, ensuring they fit into an overarching cloud strategy communicated to business units. This strategic approach helps achieve quick project wins by demonstrating success with smaller, manageable components before full-scale implementation.
Understanding the transformational power of the cloud and its impact on security, development, and change management is critical. A successful cloud migration necessitates addressing key operational needs, such as latency, integration, security, and compliance, and building a cohesive project team.
The Future of Workday in State and Local Government
The future of Workday in state and local government highlights the following trends:
- Greater use of cloud services
- Automation
- AI
- Machine learning
Global data creation is predicted to surge significantly by 2025, making data integration between disparate systems vital for real-time decision-making. However, 59% of government leaders believe their inability to connect data to business outcomes harms organizational agility. The future of Workday in state and local government involves addressing these challenges and leveraging technology to enhance data access, decision-making, and overall organizational efficiency.
State and local governments can benefit from enterprise software with cloud services, automation, AI, and machine learning. These technologies can enhance data access and improve user experiences. By 2024, a significant portion of government AI and data investments will impact real-time operational decisions, enhancing decision-making capabilities.
How Workday Supports Government Agencies’ Mission
Workday Government Cloud offers the following benefits for government agencies:
- Aligns mission, strategy, and financial plans
- Ensures security and compliance
- Empowers decentralized decision-making
- Allows staff members to access and manage their data
The key capabilities of Workday Government Cloud include:
- Being mobile-first
- Easy to use
- Having embedded real-time actionable analytics
- A consistent security model
- Always-on audit and controls
- FedRAMP Moderate Authorization
Accelerating Deployment with Launch for Government
Launch for Government is a deployment model for small and midsize local governments. This model aims to be more affordable, lower-risk, and faster in delivering digital transformation. It focuses on:
- Prepackaged functionality
- Realistic timelines
- Calibrated budgets
- Accelerated deployment by prepopulating the tenant
Moving away from traditional large-scale, multi-year projects, Launch for Government offers a more efficient and effective approach to digital transformation. This accelerated approach provides access to world-class tools and technologies without the long wait typical of traditional implementations.
Launch for Government capitalizes on insights from hundreds of customer deployments to ensure a smoother and more efficient transition to digital solutions for smaller local governments.
Enhancing Productivity with Workday Prism Analytics
Workday Prism Analytics enhances productivity by blending diverse data sources for comprehensive analysis. Public sector clients can use this tool to generate valuable insights and metrics, such as overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) and overall labor effectiveness (OLE).
Workday Prism Analytics optimizes productivity and efficiency by:
- Identifying how employee performance influences overall equipment and labor effectiveness
- Measuring metrics, such as employee productivity versus OEE and output and cost of labor per production run
- Providing a clear picture of operational performance
By utilizing data analysis to gain insights, government agencies can make informed decisions, improve resource management, and enhance overall organizational effectiveness.
Workday’s Commitment to Security and Compliance
Workday demonstrates a strong commitment to security and compliance by achieving various certifications and authorizations. The SOC 1 Type II report covers the design and operating effectiveness of controls relevant to Workday enterprise cloud applications, ensuring robust security measures.
The SOC 2 Type II report assesses Workday’s control environment annually against AICPA’s Trust Services Criteria, addressing the following areas:
- Security
- Availability
- Confidentiality
- Processing integrity
- Privacy
Workday Information Security Management System (ISMS) meets the ISO 27001 standard requirements, and the company has achieved certifications for ISO 27017 and ISO 27018, ensuring cloud service security and personal data protection.
Workday’s FedRAMP Moderate Authorization also ensures standardized security for federal data, demonstrating its dedication to safeguarding customer information.
Partnering with the Experts
From outlining plans for a comprehensive Workday implementation and navigating complex data migration processes to leading change management initiatives and maintaining effective communication across internal teams, Surety Systems can help.
Our senior-level Workday consultants have the skills and experience to understand your critical project needs and ensure your team is prepared for continuous improvement over time.
Contact Us
For more information about our Workday consulting services or to get started on a project with our team of expert consultants, contact us today.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Workday HCM?
Workday HCM offers a suite of cloud applications designed to provide workforce and operational insights. These applications offer unified global information from one source, allowing for up-to-date data accessibility at any time and from anywhere.
How does Workday Government Cloud support digital transformation in government agencies?
Workday Government Cloud supports digital transformation in government agencies by simplifying HR and finance processes, automating manual tasks, and enabling real-time decision-making, ultimately helping agencies adapt to changing needs and operate more strategically.
What are the benefits of Workday Adaptive Planning for government agencies?
Workday Adaptive Planning offers efficient planning and budgeting tools for government agencies. It enables better forecasting, real-time adjustments, and data-driven decision-making for effective resource management.
How does Workday enhance financial management in the public sector?
Workday enhances financial management in the public sector by providing finance analytics and automation solutions that streamline processes, offer real-time reporting, improve auditability, and promote efficiency and transparency in financial management.
