Workday HCM Feature Alert: New Work Schedules, but which are right for you?

In recent releases Workday has provided more options for configuring Work Schedules. In this article Steph Fisher (a 6+ year Time Tracking veteran) explores these new offerings.

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One of the most common challenges with Workday Time Tracking is the options around Work Schedules. This functionality is regularly misunderstood by customers and can be difficult to maintain.

These challenges are coupled with the introduction of Workday Payroll to establish a greater need to accurately reflect workers’ working patterns within Workday (particularly for the UK as this is required for Statutory Sick Pay Calculations).

We therefore welcomed recent Workday releases that have seen a steady stream of improvements to Work Schedules—from the import of Schedules from a Third-Party Scheduling System to Manager created Schedules, Workday have provided a range of ways to make it easier for customers to accurately report on Employees work patterns.

The question is whether these new options would give managers more functionality and flexibility?

ESS & MSS Work Schedule Changes

Initially, Workday introduced the ability for Managers to edit Work Schedules with a way to make one-off changes to the schedules for Workers they manage on a temporary basis for an individual, whilst preserving the schedule for other assignees. Any changes made by Managers would only apply on the day selected and this change would overrule any additional changes on the work schedule calendar.

I have used this functionality widely since its release and although on occasion it can be time consuming for those with large teams or a high volume of changes, generally it is very well received and gives Managers greater control to manage their Employees.

Workday then took this a step further by allowing Employees to also make changes to their own schedules. I will admit that I haven’t had much use for this functionality and would welcome readers to share their own experiences to expand my understanding. I like the idea of Employee Self Service editing Work Schedules as Customers can control what and how much can be adjusted by Employees, however controls around this would be a welcome addition in the future.

Ad Hoc Work Schedule Changes

Released in 2018, Ad Hoc Work Schedule changes enabled Customers to mass load Work Schedule assignments for their workers. This is designed to integrate with a Third-Party Scheduling System or be loaded in via the Enterprise Interface Builder (EIB). This functionality offers a hybrid scheduling solution bridging the gap between Workday and a Scheduling system. It has potential, supporting more flexible scheduling options and existing functionality from ‘days to include’ in Absence to AutoFill from Schedule in Time Tracking. So far so good; and I would like to call out some points to note, particularly if you are looking for a fusion of existing Workday Scheduling options in addition to the EIB. Any changes made via the Ad Hoc Work Schedule EIB are finite, meaning they cannot be amended directly in Workday. In addition, they will persist across any Job or Schedule change, which, may be ideal for some but less so for others who regularly swap shifts or adjust hours. The only way to amend a schedule that has been loaded via the Ad Hoc Work Schedule EIB is via the EIB itself which cannot be audited or approved.

One final point is that this functionality cannot be used for workers who have exclusively Hours-Only Time Entry Codes, a restriction which is not present for any other way of editing a schedule. Workday has a built-in workaround for this by allowing you to use any in/out code an Employee is eligible for in the EIB and recommends creating an In/Out Code if the Employee needs to be scheduled.

Manager Created Work Schedules

More recently Workday has introduced the ability for Managers to create Work Schedule Calendars directly against an Employee. Rather than becoming a physical schedule that can be assigned to multiple workers, these schedules are unique. They sit on the Employees record and can be beneficial for companies who have a wide variety of unique schedules. The new Assign Work Schedule Calendar User Interface gives managers the option to assign an existing schedule, create a new schedule using the existing schedule as a template or create a new schedule from scratch—and as it is an extension of the original business process, it remains accessible from the Hire and Change Job Business Processes.

This will benefit a lot of customers.  Here are a few points you should be aware of:

• Workday recommends that Employees are still assigned a default schedule prior to the new one being created as elements outside of the pattern are taken from their most recent schedule assignment instead
• As mentioned, these aren’t physical schedules so you can’t view, edit or report on them using the legacy tasks and business objects. Similarly, this means that for consultants using these during implementations they need to be moved manually from tenant to tenant.
• If you need to amend a manager assigned Work Schedule, Workday recommend using the Assign Work Schedule task to create a new, correct schedule for the worker or correct the initial assignment.
• Only pattern-based schedules are supported. For newer customers and those thinking of moving to Workday this shouldn’t impact you as pattern functionality has been improved greatly over the last few years and is now the norm for Work Schedule creation. However, for customers who went live prior to 2019, there may be some transformation work to move your Work Schedule Calendars from Calendar Events to Patterns for consistency.
• These cannot be added as worker eligibility within Time Tracking as they are tied directly to a worker, this means that on occasions where Work Schedule Calendar eligibility is needed you may need to explore other options.

Overall the recently-introduced scheduling options in Workday provide greater flexibility, and I have no doubt that there is more to come. Perhaps the introduction of Workday Scheduling will provide some of the additional flexibility that many are interested in.

Contact us for more information

As always, we’re here if you would like to find out more about these changes. Alternatively, more information can be found on Workday Community.

Or, if you would like any support with implementing any new feature, please get in touch today.