Six challenges Workday customers can overcome as they return to the workplace

As many companies, including my own, start the process of returning to the workplace, it has made me look back over the last few months and give pause to how quickly COVID-19 has changed the landscape of the world and redefined our day-to-day lives. We might not know what will happen in the next few months, but one thing we know for certain is that work may never be the same again.

This is especially top of mind for our employees too. As the leader of PwC’s Global Workday practice, I hear from our teams that there are very strong concerns about the Post-COVID-19 workplace and how it will affect their safety and well-being. Fears of getting sick, transportation issues and carrying for family were cited in a recent PwC survey of American workers.

I am starting a series of blogs that can help you think through your strategy to enable your Workday solution to operate effectively and provide the data and insights you need for your business and help address the top concerns of your employees.

In my first blog, I want to focus on your Workday Human Capital Management (HCM) system. In PwC’s Reboot: Getting Back to the Workplace, we highlight the need to double down on automation and accelerate moves to digital. We know companies that have been operating digitally have been able to manage better during this crisis and continue to address their employees’ biggest concerns.

Here are six common challenges our clients have been able to address with their Workday HCM system for talent, compensation and benefits:

1. Managing mass reorganizations to support the changing needs of the business, as well as effectively tracking changes/impacts that are a direct result to the response.
2. Quickly and accurately processing temporary changes in headcount, work schedules and job functions.
3. Transitioning in-person onboarding activities to the cloud.
4. Managing employee compensation to address business needs (e.g. hazard pay, reduction of pay).
5. Preparing for the timely reinstatement of benefits coverage as furloughed employees return to work.
6. Enabling remote workers having access to their personal data to make updates. 

While we know that deployment is just the beginning with a cloud-based HCM solution. Effective management of your configuration and use of Workday can deliver the data and insights you need to make smarter workforce decisions, improve efficiency and drive employee engagement.  

Through our service offering, PwC’s Next Level HR Solution, we have identified a series of next steps to consider using your Workday HCM solution. 

•  Leverage Workday’s Org Studio to model and execute organizational changes.
• Transition to Workday Adaptive Planning for unified workforce planning, reporting and analytics.
• Consider creating specific supervisory organizations to house temporary workers needed to meet increased demand on the business.
• Digitize on-boarding and new hire orientation activities completely.
• Deploy Prism Analytics for actionable insights and data on your workforce. 
• Configure allowance plans to provide additional compensation to employees with increased responsibilities or the need for hazard pay.      
• Leverage Enterprise Interface Builder to manage mass compensation changes.
• Configure benefit reinstatement events to automatically restore prior benefit elections for rehired employees. 
• Adjust mobile application deployment and ensure remote access for workers.

We all know that as we return to the workplace, we won’t be going back to the same ways of working. As you embrace and evolve behaviors and new ways of working that make sense for your workplace, take the chance to look at new strategies, tools, technologies, programs and ways of collaborating and communicating for the future. Leveraging your investment in Workday can help you with the changes your organization makes to prepare for the future. Reach out with any questions and share topics you would like to hear about in the future.