Mitigate risk and redefine ways of working with Workday

I started this blog series (see Human Capital Management and Payroll) as a way to provide information to my LinkedIn contacts, friends and Workday customers on what they should be thinking about as they focus on returning to the workplace and shift from crisis management to  recovery and moving forward in this new environment.

It's been a few weeks now, and it has been great to connect with many of you to hear your stories and learn how your organization was able to use Workday to operate with the flexibility and speed needed during the pandemic.

For example, many of you had to quickly pivot to digital orientations to expedite onboarding of new employees without having an on-site presence. Others had to encourage their remote workforce to use self-service for employee-related tasks such as payroll and benefits.

As companies switch their focus to strategizing for what’s next, they may want to invest or go deeper into a cloud solution for streamlining core HR and financial business processes to help with the recovery — and to deal with any possible future interruptions. 

PwC estimates that 45% of workforce tasks can be automated, which could save an estimated $2 trillion in global workforce costs.

However, with any transformational change, new technology can introduce new risks. Whether your company is just considering a Workday implementation or is already operational and looking for continuous improvement, an evaluation of internal controls can help your management teams promote an effective, efficient, compliant and controlled execution of business processes. To understand any gaps that may be introduced to your business’s governance program, you should conduct an impact assessment of your current business controls, connect those controls to the new functionality to be implemented, and reassess areas in the system such as definitions of sensitive data or sensitive actions. 

Below are examples of common situations  facing companies that are dealing with — or recovering from — significant business interruptions, along with considerations for addressing the situation in your Workday operations.

• Implementing organization-wide changes to the compensation of hourly and salaried employees may negatively impact payroll expenses and associated control points.
• Business interruption leads to temporary or longer-term workforce reductions.
• Reduction in workforce functions related to compliance or audit can impact the business’s ability to identify and respond to risk and compliance responsibilities.

Consider the following next steps as potential solutions:

1. Leverage Workday-provided tools, such as Rollout Compensation Plan Task and Request Compensation Change Enterprise Interface Builder.
2. Track event-related terminations for management reporting purposes, review and update severance configurations within Workday.
3. Create a transition plan to increase controls automation enabled in Workday, as well as embedding controls automation technologies outside of Workday.
4. Review emergency configuration, delegation and routing changes made as a result of disruption, and determine  whether evidence retention or approvals should be captured before they are forgotten.
5. Ensure that process documentation and standard operating procedures are updated to reflect the most current processes to prevent loss of institutional knowledge.

Preparation is key in times of rapid change. As your business evolves its behaviors and identifies new ways of working that make sense for your workplace, evaluate new strategies, tools, technologies, programs, and ways of collaborating and communicating for the future. Ensure that your processes and procedures support your business, enable it to sustain operations even in unforeseen circumstances and help it recover as quickly as possible. And please reach out with any questions, as well as any topics you would like to hear about in the future.