Poor Workday governance is more than a technical issue. It’s a business risk that drives up your costs, delays your transformation, and causes headaches for your team.
If you want to align your Workday platform with business goals, support adoption and protect your ROI, you need strong governance. Without it? Expect project delays, rising costs, and inefficiencies.
The cost of poor Workday governance
- Financial Losses - Manual workarounds, duplicated effort, and misaligned processes can increase costs by 15–25%. Outdated systems cost organisations like the US government $1 billion annually.
- Contract Mismanagement - 76% of employees don’t know who owns contracts. Auto-renewals and stalled approvals cause compliance issues and innovation delays.
- Compliance Risks - Fragmented data and weak oversight expose your organisation to fines and fraud, costing an average of $1.7 million per case.
- Operational Inefficiency- Poor integration and scope creep slow down decisions and prevent scalability.
The hidden costs (beyond the system)
Poor Workday governance goes beyond system errors and inefficiencies, it also causes you people problems. If you want to retain your Workday team, you’ve got to get ahead of the impact of poor governance on your people. Here’s why...
- Training that misses the mark - Generic training disengages users. Without clear value, they resist change, or ignore the system entirely.
- Stakeholder misalignment - Without alignment between HR, IT, and finance, projects stall. No ownership, no momentum.
- Cultural resistance - Lack of inclusion and poor communication create resistance. The result? Low adoption and delayed delivery.
- Human error - Poor planning, handovers, and communication are common. 59% of tech projects fail because of governance issues that are mostly human, not system-driven.
Strengthening your governance with AMS
AMS (Application Management Services) address both the system challenges and people-related gaps in Workday governance. Here’s what an AMS partner can bring to the table:
- Clear governance structures - AMS can define ownership, decision-making and workflows, removing any confusion and improving execution. They also establish approval paths and escalation procedures to ensure accountability at every level.
- Stakeholder engagement - AMS keep IT, HR, and finance fully aligned with regular checkpoints and shared goals. By facilitating continuous communication, they help eliminate silos and promote cross-functional collaboration.
- Tailored training & change management - They can deliver role-based training and change strategies that actually stick. This means supporting each user group with specific guidance, boosting confidence and speeding up adoption.
- Proactive optimisation - With real-time monitoring and continuous improvement, AMS keeps your Workday system agile and efficient. They can anticipate issues before they arise and recommend enhancements based on actual system usage.
- Built-in compliance - AMS provide regular audits, data reviews, and documentation to keep your governance audit-ready. They also ensure processes align with current data protection and regulatory standards.
- Culture of iteration - AMS fosters long-term improvement and adaptability, ensuring Workday continues to deliver. By embedding feedback loops and refinement cycles, they help your organisation evolve with minimal disruption.
Poor Workday governance costs time, money, and trust. Choosing a reliable AMS partner can solve these issues, bringing structured oversight, proactive optimisation, and people-first strategies to help you build a systems that works as hard as your teams do.
If you want to keep hold of your top-tier Workday talent, you’ve got to have the right support in place. Don’t let poor governance drain your resources and demotivate your team. Our AMS model embeds governance into the fabric of your Workday operations, protecting your system and your people. See how governance is built into our AMS partnerships.
Start your AMS journey with us today - reach out for more info.
