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Workday Organisation & Design

Organizations in Workday

Organize workers into groups that serve a common purpose

Typically represent how work is done and how the workforce is structured; can
serve many other purposes and are used across the entire platform
Workers are tied to multiple independent organization types, each with a
different purpose.

What are Organizations used for?

Key Organization Principles

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Core component of Workday’s unified platform

Different organizational structures meet specific needs but are shared across
the entire platform

Efficiency and Effectiveness

Default and dynamic assignments minimize manual data entry and improve
data integrity
Each organization can have its own processes and characteristics

Governance and Compliance

Seamlessly integrated with security, reporting and business process

frameworks
Changes are auditable

Organization Types

Key Behaviours across Organization Types:

Staffing Assignments: Workers are assigned to organizations during staffing

events or on an ad-hoc basis
Organization Hierarchies: Organizations can be combined into hierarchies to
represent how organizations roll up to one another.
Role Assignments: Workers are assigned to organization roles, which are tied
to security access.
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Financial and Payroll Workbags’: Organization assignments are defaulted on

transactions and used for reporting purposes

Hierarchies

Some types of organizations have a corresponding hierarchy for grouping

organizations into a hierarchic structure
Hierarchies establish parent/child relationships. They don’t store the definitions
of individual objects, such as positions, workers, or financial accounts
Hierarchy structures can be defined with the order of subordinate organization
subtypes within a hierarchy ‒ When a hierarchy structure is in effect, you can
only create subordinate organizations of sub-types that are valid according to
the hierarchy structure
Organization hierarchy roll-ups can be changed at any point
Organizational roles can be inherited down the hierarchy ‒ Roles are filled once
at a higher level and inherited by those below

Organization Sub-Types

Organization subtypes are created by customers to enable a delivered

organization type to be further categorized
For example, Supervisory Organizations could be categorized as Divisions,
Groups or Departments ‒ Subtypes can be also be used to define levels in a
hierarchy
For example, a cost center hierarchy could include organizations with sub types
of Area and Function
The Organization Subtype can be appended to the organization name if
configured (e.g., Benefits Department, Executive Management Group)
All Organization Subtypes are tenanted data (customer-owned)
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Fundamental Organization Characteristics

‘Fundamental’ Organization Types have the following characteristics:

Reorganization Tasks
Availability Date
Visibility Configuration
Sub-Types are allowed

Reorganization Tasks

A Reorganization Event enables:

‒ Grouping reorganization activities with a common effective date into one event
for viewing and reporting purposes

The following activities use a Reorganization Event:

Create a new organization (except for Matrix Org)
Assign Included Organizations (e.g., Region or Location in a hierarchy)
Assign workers to a custom organization
Move Retirees
Other organization maintenance activities require an effective date vs. a
reorganization event and cannot be reported as part of the reorganization
Change Organization Assignments process changes organizations for workers
in a supervisory organization on the same date but is not a reorganization
event

Organization Availability Date

Defaults as Reorganization Event date when an organization is created; can be

updated to an earlier date
Informational only – not used in any delivered validations

‒ Workers can be assigned to organizations prior to the availability date

Custom validations can be written to prevent the organization from being used
in a transaction with an earlier effective date
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If date validations are not going to be used, consider always using

reorganization with an effective date of 01/01/1900 to prevent confusion.

Visibility

Visibility setting on an organization controls who can view details and members
of an organization
Everyone
Role Assignees
Role Assignees and Members
Role Assignees of Current and Superiors
Visibility is inherited from the superior organization and cannot be updated on
subordinate organizations.

Supervisory Organizations

Are required and critically important to HCM – all workers are hired into a
Supervisory Org
Group workers into a management hierarchy to specify who reports to whom
Supervisory Organizations report to one another to form the Supervisory
Organization Hierarchy
Each Supervisory Organization has one and only one superior (parent)
organization
Provide the context for staffing actions

Each worker is a member of a Supervisory Organization

A Manager (role) is assigned to a Supervisory Organization, or may be
inherited from a superior organization
A Manager is NOT a member of the organization(s) they manage

Locations & Location Hierarchies

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Location

Locations are used to track business assets and physical work spaces

Locations are also used to default data values, prompts, date formats, and time
zones
Each location is configured with one or more delivered ‘usages’ types

‒ E.g., Business Asset, Business Site, Campus, Par Location, Work Space,
Payroll Tax

Every position or job must be assigned to a Location with ‘Business Site’ usage
A location may roll up to another location

Locale

Enables control of display of multinational date, time, and number formats

To determine a self-service user’s language display, Workday evaluates (in this

order):
User’s language (user preferences)
User’s locale (user preferences)
User’s Location language
User’s Location Locale
Tenant’s language
Tenant’s Locale (the default is US English)
Specify Locale for each business site (worker location)

Work Space

A work space is mapped to a location and allows for more granular location
tracking, like building, suite, cubicle, etc.
Work space levels are hierarchical (up to 10 levels) and must roll up to a
‘Business Site’ type of Location
Optional configuration based on customer requirements

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Location Hierarchy

A rollup of ‘included’ locations

Often used to define geographical regions for regulatory reporting
Often used for security role assignments (not enabled directly on locations)
A location can belong to more than one location hierarchy but only once within
an individual location hierarchy
Workers are dynamically included as members of a location hierarchy based on
the location their location assignment

Costing Organizations

Company & Company Hierarchies

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Cost Centre & Cost Centre Hierarchies

Region & Region Hierarchies

Optional – Reflect area of responsibility rather than physical work location.

Regions can be rolled up into Region Hierarchies, often used to track
geographic or sales region.
Often used to facilitate financial reporting; can be used to attribute cost or
revenue separately from where it originated ‒ For example, a worker in a U.S.
location who supports the UK office can have their costs tagged to a UK region.
Generally, not used HCM-only purposes.

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Optional HR Organizations

Matrix Organizations

Reflect dotted-line relationships to a second manager

Are non-hierarchical and are not related to a supervisory organization
Workers are manually assigned to a matrix organization
Matrix relationships are reflected in organization charts
Can be used in eligibility rules and conditional logic across the application
The Matrix Manager might be given security to: ‒ View a member’s
compensation, past jobs, skills and experience, time off and leave and worker
history ‒ Participate in processes related to the matrix members

Retiree Organizations

Used for grouping terminated workers who have retired

Commonly used in benefit eligibility rules and conditional logic across the
application
Retiree organizations can be hierarchical (roll up to another Retiree
organization)
Retiree status is assigned to the worker using the Assign Retiree Status
business process and a termination reason code identified as a retiree reason

Other Organization Types

Committees and Committee Hierarchies

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