Workday compliance gaps: Why auditors are flagging risk in non-production environments
As global data privacy regulations expand and enforcement becomes stricter, a growing number of auditors are shifting their focus beyond production tenants. For Workday customers, that means the lens is now turning toward non-production environments, those development, testing, and training tenants often overlooked in compliance strategies.
The risks hiding in these environments are significant. While production systems are typically protected with layered security, access controls, and active monitoring, non-production environments can tell a different story. These tenants often replicate real employee data for testing or training purposes, but without the same controls in place. The result? Gaps that are increasingly being flagged by auditors.
Workday is designed to evolve continuously whether it’s through the platform’s bi-annual updates or through custom configurations that reflect shifting business needs. But that evolution requires testing. And in that testing process, organisations often grant temporary exemptions, assign elevated access rights, or bypass standard data protection policies in order to accelerate deployments. What was once a short-term convenience can quickly become a long-term compliance liability.
More than ever, regulators and auditors demand proof, not just policies. A recent industry report shows that only 34% of organisations have completed end-to-end data mapping—a foundational requirement for laws like the GDPR, Quebec’s Law 25, California’s CPRA, and Brazil’s LGPD. Without that visibility, it becomes nearly impossible to demonstrate compliance across Workday’s full landscape.
Auditors now expect to see the same level of protection in non-production tenants as in production. This includes:
• Masking or de-identifying sensitive personal data in development and testing tenants
• Restricting elevated access based on role, geography, and need
• Enforcing the principle of least privilege consistently across all environments
• Demonstrating monitoring, audit logs, and real-time alerts to detect and address policy violations
One common misconception is that NDAs or internal discretion are enough to cover non-production environments. Increasingly, auditors are pushing back, requiring proof of protection, not just intent. Verbal assurances or signed agreements are no longer seen as sufficient controls when sensitive data is at stake.
The consequences of falling short are growing. With many new data privacy laws removing grace periods or "right to cure" clauses, violations in non-production environments can lead directly to enforcement actions. These include steep financial penalties, legal investigations, and public scrutiny, especially in industries where employee and customer trust is critical. What’s more, a compliance gap in a non-production tenant can delay a Workday transformation or upgrade project, forcing rework, slowing innovation, and creating friction between IT, HRIS, legal, and compliance teams. It can also damage your organisation’s ability to prove accountability during audits or internal reviews.
To avoid these pitfalls, leading Workday customers are applying the same rigor to all tenants, production and non-production alike. This includes implementing automated data masking, enabling dynamic access controls, and running regular privacy impact assessments (PIAs) across their environments. They are also investing in tools that deliver continuous audit readiness, ensuring they can demonstrate compliance on demand.
In today’s landscape, compliance is no longer just about good intentions. It’s about measurable, enforceable, and verifiable controls. And that means your non-production Workday environments must be just as secure as production, especially when auditors come knocking.
Missed our webinar? Catch the replay: Preparing Workday for evolving privacy laws