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Why modern Workday teams need talent that speaks both tech and business
Most organizations don’t struggle to find Workday professionals. They struggle to find Workday professionals whose skills align with the realities of their business.
On paper, the Workday talent market looks strong. Certifications are widespread. Resumes show years of platform experience. Yet many organizations still face delayed implementations, underutilized functionality, frustrated stakeholders, and Workday teams that struggle to keep pace with change.
The issue is rarely a lack of Workday skills. It is a lack of alignment between talent capabilities and business needs.
Workday delivers its greatest value when the people behind it can translate business needs into scalable solutions—turning each phase of the platform into momentum, not rework. In this blog, we explore what those scalable skills look like and how leaders can align Workday talent to the needs of the business.
The Real Challenge Isn’t Skills—It’s Alignment
Because Workday sits at the center of how organizations hire, pay, manage, and plan their workforce, misalignment between talent and business needs has far-reaching consequences..
Decisions made inside Workday influence workforce planning, compliance posture, financial visibility, and employee experience. If the talent supporting the platform lacks business context, those decisions can quickly become misaligned.
When Workday skills do not align with business needs, the impact compounds over time. Organizations may experience slower adoption, increased manual work, frustrated stakeholders, and rising support costs. Over time, these challenges erode confidence in the platform and limit return on investment.
By contrast, teams that built around scalable skills create momentum. Each phase builds on the last, enabling continuous improvement rather than repeated rework.
Workday skills that scale are not static capabilities. They are adaptive skills designed to support growth, change, and long-term value—not just short-term delivery.
This misalignment becomes most visible after implementation—when Workday moves from delivery mode to real-world use, and teams are expected to deliver ongoing value.
Why Do Workday Teams Lose Momentum After Go-Live?
Go-live is often treated as the finish line. In reality, it is the starting point for realizing value.
Once Workday is live, organizations shift from implementation to optimization. Leaders begin asking new questions:
- How do we improve adoption?
- How do we streamline processes?
- How do we use data more effectively?
- How do we support growth, acquisitions, or reorganizations?
Many Workday teams struggle during this phase because they were staffed for speed rather than sustainability. For example, a team that successfully configured core HCM and payroll may lack the experience to redesign business processes or support advanced reporting needs. Over time, backlogs grow, enhancements stall, and the platform becomes reactive rather than proactive.
Without scalable Workday skills in place, organizations often find themselves revisiting earlier decisions, reworking configurations, or bringing in additional resources to correct course.
As organizations move into this optimization phase, expectations of Workday teams change just as quickly.
The Evolution of Workday Roles: From Implementers to Strategic Partners
Workday roles have evolved significantly over the past several years.
Today, Workday professionals are expected to operate across multiple dimensions. They are not only configuring the system but also advising stakeholders, translating business requirements into system design, and helping leaders understand trade-offs. In many organizations, Workday teams are asked to support transformation initiatives while maintaining day-to-day operational stability.
For example, a Workday consultant supporting a global organization may need to balance standardized processes with local compliance requirements, while also ensuring data consistency for leadership reporting. This requires far more than technical execution—it requires strategic thinking and business awareness.
As expectations rise, Workday teams succeed when their skills align closely with the business rather than operating in isolation. This shift raises an important question for leaders: are traditional technical skills enough to support these expectations?
Is Technical Expertise Enough to Build a Scalable Workday Team?
Strong technical skills remain essential. Scalable Workday professionals understand configuration, security, reporting, integrations, and data structures. They know how to build solutions that are stable, compliant, and performant.
What differentiates high-impact talent is how those skills are applied.
Consider a scenario where a business requests a highly customized process to address a short-term need. A technically capable but inexperienced resource may configure exactly what is requested. A scalable Workday professional, however, will ask additional questions: How often will this process change? Will it impact reporting? Could it create downstream complexity?
By applying judgment—not just technical knowledge—scalable talent helps organizations avoid over-customization and technical debt, protecting the long-term integrity of the platform.
That judgment depends heavily on understanding how the business actually operates.
Functional and Business Knowledge: Turning Configuration Into Value
Workday does not operate in a vacuum. It supports complex business functions, including payroll, benefits administration, talent management, and workforce planning.
Professionals with functional and business knowledge bring critical context to system design. They understand regulatory requirements, operational realities, and industry-specific nuances. This allows them to design solutions that work in practice, not just in theory.
For example, a Workday resource supporting benefits administration must understand enrollment cycles, compliance deadlines, and employee communication needs. Without that context, even a technically sound configuration can lead to confusion, errors, or increased manual work.
When technical expertise is paired with functional understanding, Workday becomes a strategic enabler rather than a transactional system.
Why Stakeholder Skills Are Central to Scalable Workday Teams
However, even the best-designed solutions fall short if teams can’t align with the stakeholders around them. This is one of the most overlooked Workday skills.
Workday teams regularly interact with executives, HR leaders, finance partners, IT teams, and external vendors. Each group brings different priorities, expectations, and levels of technical understanding. The ability to translate complexity into clear guidance is essential.
For instance, when leaders request new reporting or changes to business processes, scalable Workday professionals help them understand trade-offs related to data integrity, compliance, and long-term maintainability. This guidance builds trust and ensures decisions support business outcomes rather than short-term convenience.
Strong stakeholder skills accelerate adoption, reduce friction, and keep initiatives moving forward even as priorities change. Ultimately, these combined skills determine whether Workday supports the outcomes the business actually cares about.
What Business Needs Should Scalable Workday Skills Support?
To align talent to business needs, organizations must first understand what they expect Workday to support.
While priorities vary, most organizations rely on Workday to enable several core outcomes:
- Growth and scalability, including headcount changes and global expansion
- Compliance and risk management across payroll, benefits, and reporting
- Operational efficiency through streamlined processes and automation
- Workforce experience for employees and managers
- Change readiness to support acquisitions, reorganizations, and transformation initiatives
Workday skills that scale are those that consistently support these outcomes—not just during implementation, but throughout the platform lifecycle.
Is Certification a Reliable Measure of Workday Fit?
Certification also plays an important role in determining the fit of potential Workday hire. It validates baseline platform knowledge and demonstrates commitment to the Workday ecosystem. However, certification alone does not guarantee alignment with business needs.
It does not measure experience navigating ambiguity, advising stakeholders, or making trade-offs under pressure. Organizations that rely solely on certification when evaluating Workday staff often encounter gaps later.
Scalable Workday skills are developed through experience, exposure, and continuous learning across multiple phases of the Workday lifecycle.
A Practical Way to Align Workday Skills to Business Priorities
Aligning Workday talent to business needs does not require a complex framework; it requires intentional planning.
When speed and stability are the priorities, organizations benefit from strong technical execution and disciplined design decisions. When adoption and optimization matter most, functional fluency and stakeholder communication become critical. When transformation and growth drive the roadmap, strategic thinking and change leadership are essential.
The most effective Workday teams combine these capabilities in a way that reflects where the business is today and where it is headed next.
Aligning Workday Staffing Solutions to Long-Term Outcomes
One of the most effective ways to build scalable Workday capability is to align staffing decisions to long-term business outcomes rather than short-term project timelines.
Instead of asking who is needed to complete the next phase, organizations should consider what capabilities will be required over the next year and beyond. Growth plans, transformation initiatives, and operating models all influence how Workday talent should be structured.
Strategic Workday staffing solutions balance continuity with flexibility. They ensure critical knowledge is retained internally while allowing organizations to scale specialized expertise as needs change.
Flexible Staffing Models That Support Sustainable Workday Teams
There is no single right way to structure a Workday team—and the most effective organizations recognize that their needs will change over time.
Most organizations benefit from a blended approach that includes core internal staff for governance and alignment, specialized project talent for major initiatives, and flexible support models for ongoing optimization. The challenge is not choosing one model, but knowing when and how to shift between them as business priorities evolve.
This is where experienced Workday partners add value. At The Planet Group, we help organizations design Workday staffing models that balance continuity with flexibility—ensuring the right skills are available at the right moments without overextending internal teams. Whether supporting a major transformation, filling critical skill gaps, or scaling ongoing support, the goal remains the same: keep Workday aligned to the business.
When aligned correctly, flexible staffing models reduce risk, improve continuity, and allow Workday teams to adapt as the business evolves—without losing momentum or institutional knowledge.
Turning Workday Skills Into a Long-Term Business Advantage
Workday delivers its most significant value when supported by talent that can evolve alongside the business.
Organizations that invest in scalable Workday skills move faster, adapt more easily, and make better decisions. They spend less time fixing problems and more time enabling growth. The difference is not how many people support Workday. It is how well their skills align with the business.
TPG’s Workday staffing solutions offer you the talent that can make that happen. We focus on scalable skills, proven fit, and long-term impact so your Workday investment continues to deliver real business value. We know the difference between someone who can “configure” and someone who can transform.
Our vetted professionals are ready and waiting to help scale your Workday platform from rollout to optimization. We have the experts you need for every phase.
Your Workday platform is only as powerful as the people behind it. If your organization is ready to align the right Workday skills to your business priorities, connect with The Planet Group today.
