The Talent Gap In The Workday Ecosystem

Founded in 2005, Workday has gradually become the dominant platform for human resources and people management, the largest cost area for most businesses. Currently, about half of Fortune 500 companies use Workday as does a quarter of the Global 2000. Workday outshines the competition not only because it was born on the Cloud, but because it’s a unified system, combining HR, compensation, recruitment, and finance. Everything an employee might need for onboarding, scheduling, time tracking, career progression, and learning and development can be found and navigated on Workday. For HR managers, Workday provides a unified view of the workforce with analytics to track performance and facilitate data-driven decision making.

As a newer dominant platform with a massive addressable market, Workday is an interesting case study in how the strategy and evolution of a single company can scramble the labor market. First, I’ll attempt to explain the Workday talent gap, then explain what Workday is doing about it.

The Workday ecosystem demands three distinct types of talent:

1. Services Partners

Workday Services Partners are global and regional systems integrators certified to deliver new Workday implementations. Because Workday is so comprehensive and complex, the amount of work (and number of people) required for a new implementation can be substantial. As a result, Services Partners include many of the world’s largest tech services companies such as Accenture, Deloitte, IBM, and PwC. In total, Workday has 48 Services Partners.

Services Partners require trained workers who can implement and/or manage a Workday module like HCM (Human Capital Management), Benefits, or Payroll. They also need to be conversant with common functions like reporting and integrations. To work on Workday, Services Partners employees are required to obtain and maintain certification for each module. Certification is obtained by completing training and passing an examination. In addition, after passing the test, employees must recertify twice annually, after each new release.

Based on my research, I estimate that at the end of 2022, there were approximately 17,500 consultants certified to implement or manage one or more Workday modules, up 35% from approximately 13,000 at the end of 2021. But according to Lightcast, over the course of 2022, 16,761 unique jobs for certified Workday consultants were posted by Workday Services Partners, up from 13,371 in 2021.

With as many open positions posted by Services Partners during 2022 as the entire population of certified Workday consultants, Services Partners are experiencing an acute talent gap.

2. Advisory Partners

Workday Advisory Partners are smaller specialists with in-depth knowledge to advise customers on product selection and maximizing value from Workday instances. In total, Workday has 46 Advisory Partners.

While nearly all employees at every customer will need to learn how to become a Workday user, extensive training is not mandated, let alone certification. What Workday customers do need, however, are employees capable of configuring and administering the platform and supporting other users, which necessitates Workday skills. For Advisory Partners, Workday does not require training and certification, but Workday does offer the Workday Pro accreditation which is intended to reflect a high level of competence on the platform and to be equivalent to Services Partner certification. Maintaining Workday Pro accreditation requires recertifying twice annually with each new release.

My research indicates 4,500 Workday Pro certifications have been issued to date. Meanwhile, in 2022, Workday Advisory Partners and customers posted 7,000 open positions for Workday talent with Pro Certifications or the equivalent. With 1.5x as many open positions in 2022 as granted Workday Pro accreditations, Advisory Partners and customers in need of technical assistance face long odds in recruiting skilled and capable talent.

3. Customers

Workday customers require HR and finance employees with Workday skills and experience. While these skills can be non-technical (i.e., not expected to configure the full platform), when Workday skills are mentioned in the position description, it’s likely that the position is a Workday support role (i.e., heavy users of the platform with some responsibility for a component such as compensation administration or payroll).

Although customers are not required to train or certify employees on Workday, supporting a Workday implementation requires skills and knowledge of the platform. Based on available data, I estimate that 31,000 new support users joined the Workday ecosystem last year – a number that falls short of the 58,000 jobs posted in 2022 by customers demanding Workday skills.

Workday Talent Gap

Why is Workday’s talent gap so big? Workday’s greatest strength has become an area in need of improvement.

Workday delivers its solution as a service to ensure customers will be able to continuously consume new and updated features without the need to “upgrade” or “implement” a new version. This ensures customer success – a core value that is woven into the fabric of Workday’s culture and operations. Workday’s controlled approach is also reflected in its approach to training and certification. Prioritizing customer experience, Workday: (1) requires training and certification for all partner employees and consultants touching the product – and for every specific product they touch; and (2) carefully controls training and certification. For example, up until this year, Workday only made training available to partners or customers. So there was no way for anyone not already hired by a partner or customer to access Workday training. The result is an ecosystem where talent is in short supply and poaching talent from other companies has become the norm.

Closing the Gap

Recognizing its success would require new and innovative approaches to producing new Workday talent, Workday is already making progress in four areas:

First, Workday segments training so certain certifications are available to Services Partners, while other certifications are available to Advisory Partners. Workday is likely to break down these walls and open up certifications to all partners, starting by making Workday Pro accreditation available to Services Partners.

Second, on April 21, Workday made training available outside the ecosystem for the first time. Workday Basics is a short asynchronous online course (est. 5 hours) providing an introduction to the platform. Workday Beyond Basics provides the next step. Both courses yield a badge and, while Workday is currently promoting the courses for free, the plan is to charge $99 for each in the future. Since launch, over 10,000 people have signed up. This is a good start, but Workday go further to close the talent gap. Salesforce has been working on the same problem for nearly a decade. Salesforce’s Trailhead features hundreds of trails and modules covering all Salesforce products as well as topics such as development, administration, integration, marketing, and analytics. Best of all, Trailhead’s content is available at no cost to users although certification may require a fee.

Third, Workday is actively pursuing partnerships with universities with the goal of allowing university partners to incorporate Workday training into courses and programs of study. The goal is to produce thousands of new graduates with Workday skills and certifications.

Finally, as 48% of Workday job postings in 2022 requested more than four years of experience, Workday not only has a skills gap, but also an experience gap. Few Workday partners or customers are excited to hire someone with a Workday Pro accreditation who has never actually been involved in configuring or administering the platform. As a result, it’s not enough to focus on training alone. This is why last year, with Workday’s support, Helios, a Workday Advisory Partner and an Achieve Partners portfolio company, launched Rise, the first apprenticeship program in the Workday ecosystem.

Rise hires new and recent college graduates from university partners like University of Minnesota, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Carleton College, and Arizona State University. Rather than insisting on HR experience, let alone prior exposure to Workday, Rise hires apprentices based on potential and diversity. After joining as full-time employees, Rise apprentices receive last-mile training on HR and Workday, then obtain Workday Pro certification. In addition, Rise apprentices learn the consulting skills they’ll need to help Workday customers. Once apprentices have completed the program, they’re deployed to clients either on projects, managed services, or via staff augmentation. After a year, customers can bring experienced Rise consultants inhouse at no additional cost.

While this first Workday apprenticeship program is growing quickly, given the scale of the Workday talent gap and the importance of bridging the experience gap, it shouldn’t be the only one. Hopefully Workday will see fit to add other talent partners to its growing ecosystem.

While Workday is a wonder, its controlled approach to its product as well as training and certification created a talent gap. The good news is that Workday has already taken steps to close the gap and will undoubtedly do much more in the coming months and years. Expanding access to training, university partnerships, and embracing apprenticeship programs like Rise will allow Workday to meet the demand for talent and unlock growth for the Company and its partners.

If you’re interested in learning more about the Workday talent gap, you can find a new whitepaper on the subject here.