Stay away if you are a smart technical person - Anonymous employee Workday Employee Review

1.0
Sep 28, 2014
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good culture, fun activities (a huge thank to employee programs team), work-life balance, strong CEO/founders

Cons

the company runs on technology written in 2000 even though its still "new" for HCM business. Irrespective of that if you are a smart technical person there are tons of reason why you should NOT join here unless you want to work for a government like job 1. innovation is highly discouraged and you can not change anything in the architecture/code unless you are one of the very few who joined the company in the initial stages. You are highly encouraged to be part of status quo and do whatever they asked you to do in the way they asked you to do. 2. EVERY decision has to be stamped by the few architects. If they don't understand it or don't wanna do it however compelling it is or how much of data you have to prove it, you can not do it. 3. You will sometimes encounter situations where you come up with ideas and they get shot down or ignored. But later, in few weeks, when an old timer suggests the same thing, everybody applauds it and rush to do it. 4. Unless you are part of one of the core teams, you will be working on their proprietary language which is about "clicking on sh*t" as they say it. It will make you a slave of the system and you won't learn anything. In fact, your value and your thinking abilities will go down drastically over time. You won't be able to use that experience in the future for your next job. 5. A lot of leaders in groups are either unaware of or afraid of new technologies. They don't want to even experiment with those and prototype new concepts unless they are comfortable with it. Always think in terms of how its gonna make there work complicated. In general, they have an old system even they are sick of keeping. But none of them want to rock the boat too much since its gonna affect their stocks at the end. The founders are wonderful to talk to and listen to and talks about the importance of innovation. But sadly innovation is really discouraged as long as the old timers are around. They have gotten comfortable with keeping a patched system and failing system than taking risks to improve things with new blood. If you want to improve yourself in few years, not afraid of taking risk and do innovative things don't even think about joining here. But if you want to find a place to peacefully retire, come at 9am and leave at 5pm, this is an ideal place.

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5.0
May 28, 2026
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CEO approval
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Pros

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Cons

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Workday Response
6d
Thank you for sharing your experience at Workday. It is fantastic to hear you've enjoyed the culture. We are pleased to hear life as a Workmate is a good one!
2.0
Jun 10, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Flex work model- 50% in office Direct team is supportive- great people (hope they stay)

Cons

Constant churn in leadership and shifting priorities. Feels like we can’t get anything done. VPs and SVPs who only care about managing up. Vision is lacking Slow decisions and lots of layers of approval Women pushed out of leadership Feels like they are gaslighting people with talk of being employee first yet they hire leaders who do not live that value.

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