Three tips to reduce cost and inefficiencies of Workday Compliance
For Workday users, managing compliance is time-consuming, manual, and costly. New functionality, integrations, and system change can impact security and data access controls. Here we explore three ways to mitigate risk and reduce cost.
1. Understand your compliance landscape
Compliance is more than checking boxes. Organisations must navigate a range of regulations, from SOX compliance with the SEC to state, regional, and industry-specific mandates. Data privacy laws like GDPR and CCPA are continually evolving. These regulations aim to maintain operational integrity and provide clear evidence of compliance.
A Kainos poll of Workday customers highlighted major challenges: inefficient manual processes (35%), limited resources and expertise (35%), and a lack of supportive technology (29%). Constant changes in Workday environments—like updates, workforce shifts, and acquisitions—often lead to irregular checks or lengthy reviews. Auditors need to understand the existing controls, their ownership, and their integration with business processes. Many organisations struggle to document these controls effectively.
2. Automate and streamline processes
Manual compliance checks and point-in-time audits expose you to significant risks and rising costs. Non-compliance can be extremely costly, with penalties potentially tripling the investment needed for proper compliance measures. Costs include fines, reputational damage, stock price impacts, and the expenses of improving and evidencing controls. The ACFE reports that occupational fraud costs organisations 5% of their annual revenue.
Investing in automated compliance tools can streamline these processes. For example, building and monitoring Workday controls, such as segregation of duties, privileged access, user activity monitoring, and configuration changes, can be resource intensive. According to Kainos Workday Security and Compliance Experts, it costs about $300,000 and 500 hours to manage these controls effectively.
3. Implement proactive risk management
Effective risk assessment processes define a framework that surfaces requirements across business functions and allows the organisation to develop a shared view of risk using multiple criteria. These include perceived control maturity, financial impact, operational importance and resource/expertise risk. Business risks evolve as regulations change, so using a recurring risk assessment helps you keep a pulse on the key compliance risks affecting your organisation.
Start with a thorough risk assessment to identify vulnerabilities and compliance gaps in Workday. Proactive risk assessments and controls help mitigate risks before they escalate into costly issues. Addressing vulnerabilities early prevents significant expenses related to non-compliance penalties and extensive remediation efforts.
Technology is an effective way to level-up your compliance efforts and help your organization scale to the ever-changing risk landscape. We recommend using compliance technology to automate internal controls, including a healthy emphasis on preventive controls, that help avoid downstream costs of non-compliance. Alongside this, recurring risk assessments, compliance expertise and mature internal controls are all needed to form the bedrock of good risk management.