Beyond Go Live: Workday Altitude 2021 Recap

By: Alex Maidy

Altitude is Workday's annual forum for consultants in the ecosystem to share ideas and brainstorm creative solutions for our customers. As one of Workday's newest AMS Partners, ERPA's entire leadership team attended Altitude. Held virtually, our team attended Workday leadership keynotes, Coffee Talks, and Braindates (group discussions to problem solve amongst peers), many of which put spotlights on the hurdles and challenges faced by us all during the last year.

Over the three days of sessions, our group participated in as many events as possible, forging new acquaintances in the wide world of Workday partners while also establishing ourselves as the new practice on the block. And, by logging in each day and being a vocal participant, I earned the fourth spot out of the hundreds of attendees in the Activity Challenge.

Overall, this year's Altitude provided considerable insight into what our Workday practice will be focusing on in the months ahead.

Here is a wrap-up of our takeaways from Workday Altitude 2021:

Expansion and Growth

Workday is dedicated to hiring many positions across consulting and development roles which means our entire ecosystem needs reliable, certified consultants to work on all levels of deployments. This is especially meaningful to us at ERPA as we are growing as well. With a grounded yet optimistic look at the post-COVID-19 workspace, ERPA is prepared to deliver the highest caliber teams for our current and future customers by looking at the best options for projects, including the right level of on-site versus remote work.

Innovation and Transformation

Through a new Four Stage Methodology, added focus on Workday Extend functionality, robust Packaged Solutions offerings and more, Workday aims to make the processes of both large scale and micro-deployments less complicated for customers. Whether it is an initial go live or add-ons to existing functionality, ERPA is already embracing the more iterative and agile approach to implementing for our customers that Workday unveiled at Altitude. By taking out roadblocks encountered on the path to production, we are excited to see that we are on the same page as Workday.

People Experience

The world of HCM is always changing and that means that the user experience is evolving as well. With Journeys and the latest in inclusion and diversity initiatives built into Workday, ERPA is fully committed to making sure our support of existing customer configuration is as user friendly as our newly built deliverables. Workday is only as good as how well it works for our customers and that starts with the daily users. We sometimes can mistake the newest and shiniest features for the ones that are easiest to use. By embracing the latest innovations in People Experience, we are aiming to deliver on this Workday promise right away.

Trust and Understanding Outcomes

Each Workday engagement needs to be met with a solutions mindset. This sounds simple enough, but we often find ourselves drawing the map as we go. This does not help us reach our final destination any sooner nor does it build customer trust. By understanding the outcomes of our projects and decisions along the way, we can make the entire journey more effortless. This approach is key to our methodology at ERPA as we design our approach to be scalable for every customer. We are able to do this by taking a step back and talking about our approach from the ground up rather than the top down. Each of the directors on our leadership team has directly implemented Workday for customers of all sizes, giving us insight into outcomes from various decision-making processes. By drawing our map first, we can trust in the outcome and build customer trust at the same time.

Advance and Progress Beyond What You Think is Possible

Our Workday practice at ERPA never sits idly by. Our leadership team and every consultant we bring on board spends time developing offerings that make our practice unlike any other in the ecosystem. This doesn't happen with more expensive computers or fancier office space. It comes with thinking of what we can achieve in Workday to make the customer experience the best it possibly can be. Through dashboards and reports, diagnostics and more, ERPA is already embracing what comes next so your organization can grow beyond.

Altitude left us all energized and engaged. And at this time next year, ERPA hopes to not only be attending Altitude but presenting as well. Hopefully you can be a part of that journey.

Alex Maidy leads the Time Tracking, Absence and Payroll team in Workday's ERPA practice. Learn more about our Workday leadership team here.

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