Networking and learning at Workday Rising: ‘Just like old times’
In this blog, Brian Thangathurai, Business Consultant at SuccessDay, shares key insights he gained during Workday Rising in Stockholm. “It was nice to be brought up to speed on new features, but also to have the opportunity to shake hands—and being face-to-face with customers and prospects again.”
The previous edition of Workday Rising in Europe was held in 2019—before the pandemic, after which the event was cancelled twice. In the meantime, SuccessDay grew into an established name that takes care of customers before, during and after their HRIT implementation. At the first post-pandemic edition of Workday Rising, the Eindhoven-based company had its own booth from November 15-17 in Stockholm —receiving customers and prospects.
Powerful adventure
Brian joined SuccessDay through his brother Steven, who had been working there for some time. He was a law student and had great affinity for IT. When he struck up a conversation with Bas, he discovered that the HRIT field could be the right fit for him. “I was offered a job and grabbed the opportunity with both hands. I haven’t regretted it for a moment. It’s a tremendous adventure and I’ve already learned an awful lot here.”
Workday Rising had nearly three thousand visitors. In Stockholm, Brian enjoyed meeting many customers in real life, because since the start of his employment the interactions had often been online by necessity. “It was nice to shake hands and be able to look each other in the eye. I also did a lot of networking and made new connections. That went easier than I anticipated. I’m obviously not a sales guy, but I really believe in our services and that makes a difference.” There were certainly interesting prospects among them, and he feels that things could really work out with some of them.
Listening to the customer
Brian was given a free role during Workday Rising, which allowed him to attend several content sessions. He was updated on the latest trends and developments and latest features were explained to him. He also visited several sessions by organizations who wished to share their experiences about their Workday implementations.
The title of this edition was “Changemakers, it’s time to rise (let’s rise). By Changemakers, Workday is referring to Workday’s customers/users. Input from customers is important to Workday, Brian stressed. Users drive system innovation. Through the Workday community, users can ask their questions and provide feedback on the software package. There is a brainstorming feature where users can suggest ideas for new features or suggest changes to the existing software. Users can vote on these, and if there is enough support for a particular idea, Workday’s developers take it up.
Promising new features
The feedback and input from customers have paid off and Workday has presented quite a few new features. Below, Brian highlights some of the promising new products and features announced during Workday Rising. For example, Talent Acquisition has developed a new functionality for keeping candidates you’ve recruited engaged. A must in today’s job market, where jobs are up for grabs. The new CRM (Client Relationship Management) tool allows organizations to create completely customized landing pages on their career websites. “You can make your own identity stand out, also mobile friendly, and you can set this up by sector level, by job family or by job level, grouping relevant projects and jobs.”
In addition, this tool can be used to set up and roll out recruitment campaigns, eliminating the need to integrate with a specific tool such as Phenom People. This product can be seamlessly integrated with Workday’s Recruitment module, making the implementation process smooth. Brian: “For example, you’ll soon be able to develop a flow when a new project starts somewhere. You can approach people who have previously applied for a job at your company with an e-mail, point them to the special landing page about the project, and possibly send another reminder if you notice that the previous e-mail has not been opened or the link has not been clicked on. This way you stay in close contact with the target group and increase the chances of a successful match.”
Increase your employee engagement
In the coming time, Workday is investing heavily in Employee Engagement. When implementing innovations, the strategy is based on the 3 E’s:
- Engage
By improving the usability of the software for HR, managers, and employees alike, you’ll get more people using the system. You should be able to request a day off or submit an expense report with just a few clicks. - Everywhere
You should be able to use Workday anytime, anywhere, on any device. Think about principles such as mobile first and integrations with Teams and Slack, for example. This way, you don’t have to log into Workday separately for small administrative actions but can do so through a dashboard in the familiar Teams or Slack environment. - Empower
Enable personalized and automated solutions based on your role in Workday. By tying together a series of tasks, you build employee journeys that can be tailored to your company, departments, teams or even functions.
With the acquisition of Peakon, Workday users will soon have more options in employee engagement. “Surveys and mood trackers often annoy employees because the same questions are being asked constantly. Peakon’s smart software adapts the questionnaire based on your employees’ feedback, allowing you to keep the conversation going and go into more detail. This way, you can identify your employees’ thoughts, expectations and objections sooner and more effectively make decisions to improve their feelings.”
Finally, some relevant news related to Time Tracking & Absence Management. For the Time Tracking module, it will be easier for managers to approve employee time entries. The dashboard provides more useful information in one glance. Managers can easily notice employee alerts and errors and edit entries. In the Absence Management module, it has become easier for employees to request leave quickly, whether for days off or long-term (care) leave. By the way, this can also be done with the app on your phone. In addition, Workday is developing a function for buying/selling days off and processing waiting days. “They are obviously not idling, and they shouldn’t be, because developments are happening at lightning speed—the HR world is changing drastically,” Brian concludes.
