The Top 15 Workday Interview Questions and Answers

Preparing for a Workday interview? With Workday being one of the top human capital management (HCM) systems on the market, you can expect interviewers to ask a range of questions to assess your knowledge and experience.

In this article, we provide the 15 most common Workday interview questions and sample answers to help you ace your next interview We also explain Workday terminology and key concepts so you can give informed responses.

What is Workday?

Workday is a cloud-based software vendor that offers human capital management, financial management, and analytics applications. Workday HCM provides a unified system to manage the entire employee lifecycle, including core HR, payroll, talent management, and workforce planning.

Some key things to know about Workday

• Founded in 2005, Workday went public in 2012. It is headquartered in California.

• Workday uses a subscription-based SaaS model that allows customers to access the software and new features through the cloud.

• Workday applications are built on a single system which enables continuous updates. This eliminates the need for major new software releases or disruptive upgrades.

• Workday has over 50 million users and serves over 9,000 customers across 200+ countries. Industries served include healthcare, financial services, retail, technology, and manufacturing.

• Workday competes primarily against SAP SuccessFactors, Oracle HCM, and ADP. However, it holds a leadership position in cloud HCM systems.

What are the advantages of using Workday?

Some key advantages of Workday include:

• Unified system: HR, payroll, finance, and analytics are all in one system, providing a single source of truth. This eliminates silos and manual data transfers between systems.

• Intuitive user experience: Workday provides consumer-grade self-service which enables employees and managers to easily access information. For example, employees can view pay slips, update personal details, or request time off.

• Real-time analytics: Workday leverages big data and machine learning to surface personalized insights and recommendations in real-time. For example, accurately predicting retention risk.

• Mobile access: All Workday functionality is available on mobile devices so users can complete tasks on the go. Managers can even approve workflows like time off requests.

• Continuous updates: Workday issues new features and enhancements twice a year without disruptions. No major upgrades are required.

• Cloud delivery: Workday is accessible anytime, anywhere over the internet. Hardware investments and maintenance are not needed.

• Lower TCO: Workday’s unified system eliminates the costs of integrating multiple platforms. The SaaS model spreads costs over time.

What types of reports does Workday provide?

Workday provides a variety of reporting capabilities through three main tools:

• Standard Reports: Over 300 out-of-the-box reports for tasks like analyzing headcount, viewing employee profiles, or assessing turnover metrics.

• Reporting as a Service (RaaS): Allows power users to create customized reports by selecting specific fields, filters, and layouts. No IT skills needed.

• Workday Prism Analytics: For data discovery and interactive dashboards. Enables drilling into data from multiple angles (HR, finance, etc) to uncover insights. Requires some training.

Key types of HR reports include headcount reports, workforce composition, turnover, recruiting effectiveness, compensation analysis, diversity stats, and manager analytics.

For finance, standard reports cover areas like procure-to-pay, expenses, projects, assets, and inventory.

Explain some features of Workday HCM.

Some key HCM modules and capabilities include:

• Core HR: Maintain employee master data, org structures, job profiles, and other foundational HR data.

• Benefits: Manage open enrollment, life events, benefit plans, deductions and contributions. Carriers can integrate directly.

• Compensation: Model and execute total rewards from base pay to incentive plans and equity. Analyze compensation ratios.

• Talent Management: Performance reviews, goal management, succession planning, career development and internal mobility.

• Recruiting: Post jobs, source candidates, track applicants, manage interviews and hiring proposals.

• Time Tracking: Timesheets, leave requests, vacation balances and scheduling. Accrue time off and monitor compliance.

• Payroll: Payroll processing, tax filing, payments, and year-end reporting for over 50 countries. Handles complex pay policies.

• Analytics: 50+ KPIs out of the box. Build custom reports without IT help. Monitor trends with dashboards.

How does the talent management module of Workday help an organisation?

Workday’s talent management module provides the following benefits:

• Integrated performance, goals, development, and succession enables more holistic talent planning.

• Automated process workflow, reminders, and approvals ensures consistency across the organization.

• Customizable forms and calibrated ratings make performance reviews more transparent and meaningful.

• Development plans and skills assessments help employees pursue growth opportunities.

• Succession pools, career pathing, and internal mobility improve visibility into talent readiness.

• Talent bench strength analytics provide data-driven insights for workforce planning.

• Mobile access allows managers and employees to complete talent processes on the go.

Overall, Workday talent management helps organizations nurture and develop talent, identify high potentials, provide clear career paths, and make strategic workforce decisions – leading to a more engaged, productive workforce.

What is a RaaS report?

RaaS stands for Reporting as a Service, a self-service reporting capability within Workday.

With RaaS, business users can create and modify reports directly within Workday, without relying on IT skills or writing code. Key features include:

• Selecting specific fields, columns, and filters to customize the data presented

• Specifying grouping, sorting, aggregation, and formatting

• Producing bar charts, scatter plots, pivot tables, and other visualizations

• Scheduling reports to automatically run and distribute via email

• Sharing personalized reports with other Workday users

RaaS empowers HR and finance teams to easily build reports tailored to their needs – like headcount breakdowns, manager span of control, budget vs actuals, etc. No more waiting for IT!

What does ERP mean and how does ERP relate to Workday?

ERP stands for enterprise resource planning. ERP systems are business process management software that allow organizations to integrate and automate business activities across departments.

Workday is considered an ERP even though it focuses solely on HCM, financial management, and analytics. Traditional ERPs like SAP and Oracle offer a wider range of capabilities including inventory, manufacturing, project management, procurement, and CRM.

However, Workday’s cloud delivery model provides continuous feature updates and eliminates the need for large upgrade projects. This gives Workday an advantage over on-premise ERP systems.

While Workday has less breadth across business functions, it has more depth in HR and finance. Its unified platform delivers a single source of truth, eliminating the integration headache of traditional ERPs that maintain separate systems.

Tell me about yourself and why Workday is of interest.

I’m an HR professional with over 7 years of experience in talent acquisition and workforce management. I’m drawn to Workday for several reasons:

• I’m passionate about leveraging technology to enhance the employee experience and enable data-driven workforce decisions. Workday leads the market in modern HCM capabilities.

• Throughout my career, I’ve encountered the challenges of legacy, fragmented HR systems. Workday’s unified platform for HR, payroll, and talent is extremely appealing.

• Workday places high importance on developing a strong company culture and keeping employees engaged. Those are things I value highly.

• Workday is clearly an industry leader with incredible growth and momentum. I’m excited by the opportunity to be part of shaping the future of HCM technology.

• I thrive in fast-paced environments. Workday seems to really empower employees to take initiative and get things done. That aligns well with my working style.

Overall, I’m inspired by Workday’s vision and believe my skills and passion are a great fit with the organization. This role presents an amazing opportunity to advance my career while making an impact.

Why do you want to work at Workday?

There are several key reasons I’m so interested in working at Workday:

• The product – Workday is hands-down the leader in cloud HCM and finance. I’m genuinely excited about contributing to a product that is transforming how organizations leverage technology.

• The culture – From what I’ve heard, Workday truly walks the walk when it comes to employee engagement, collaboration, and career development. The culture seems very transparent, empowering, and aligned with my values.

• Career growth – With Workday’s hypergrowth and wide range of initiatives, I see tremendous potential to take on new challenges, expand my skills, and advance to new roles over