Hi everyone, and Welcome back to the Unsafe Harbor podcast. In this episode, we’ll be talking to Rick and Matt of Incubane. We cover a ton of different topics in this one. We explore the differences between Extend and Built on Workday Marketplace, the impact of AI on HRIS processes, and the future of the Workday Admin role. Make sure you’re following Incubane, Rick, & Matt on LinkedIn. They have some of the best content (and memes). Here’s my conversation with Rick and Matt:
Incubane LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/incubane/posts/?feedView=all
Rick’s LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/rickleunisse/
Matt’s LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mkomendolowicz/
Built on Workday Marketplace - https://marketplace.workday.com/en-US/homeChristian’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christiandelcid/
Chapters List:
00:00 Introduction to Incubane and Its Vision
01:19 Evolution of Extend Apps
03:38 First Experiences with Extend
07:17 Understanding the Built on Workday Marketplace
11:44 Subscription Models for Built on Workday Apps
13:40 Favorite Extend Apps and Their Impact
18:43 Business Cases for Extend vs. Built on Workday Marketplace
24:29 Navigating Technical Debt and Integration Costs
25:05 The Evolution of Workday and Extend
25:55 The Perfect Storm: AI and Workday Marketplace
26:54 Transforming Workforce Management with AI
28:36 The Future of Workday: Speed and Strategy
30:40 AI's Impact on HR Roles and Responsibilities
32:20 Vision for Extend Apps and Built on Workday
36:40 Essential Skills for HRIS Administrators
40:47 Understanding Technology: A Path Forward
41:01 Advice for Career Advancement in HRIS
Back by popular demand, I talk to Dani DeMaio & Scott Lawrence in this episode. Dani is a Global Director of People Systems and Technology for a customer in the tech sector and Scott is a HRIS Manager for a customer in the Financial Services space. If you haven’t heard their original episodes of the Unsafe Harbor podcast, I highly recommend checking those out. Scott was episode #1 and Dani was episode #6.
We cover a TON of ground in this episode related to mergers & acquisitions, selling the benefits of Workday to the company being acquired, how to give feedback to others for improving the M&A process, and much more. Here is my conversation with Scott and Dani
Connect with Dani:
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniellelotuswelle/
HRIS Coaching - https://lotuswelle.com/
Connect with Scott:
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-lawrence-mba-37676190/
Website - https://slawrwnce7.wixsite.com/senior-hris-analyst
Connect with Christian:
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/christiandelcid/
Check out this Workday AI Workflow that I've been experimenting with. Please note, this is just a personal experiment I'm running in my free time but I wanted to share a quick demo, what I'm learning as a result of all of this, and the principles I'm (loosely) holding onto during this AI murkiness. Here's the full video and you can also view the video on YouTube and Spotify as well. Let me know what you all think. Also, if you are building AI agents or workflows for the Workday ecosystem, I would love to connect with you about that. Enjoy!
In this episode, we’ll be talking to Neelan Veloo and Adi Viswanathan, the co-founders of Mando, the AI Co-pilot for Workday Admins. Mando is an official Workday Partner that is using AI trained on Workday Community and knowledge contributed by a team of Workday experts.
We’ll talk a lot about Mando, how it works, and how we’re preparing for all of the incoming AI innovation. Before we get into that, I did want to make sure that I shared some information. My company is a happy Mando customer. As an independent podcast, I’ve decided early on to not take any sort of sponsorship. In fact, I’m personally paying out of my own pocket for things like video editing, recording, and hosting software and subscriptions.
The reason I share all of that is to say that the guests that I’m inviting to the podcast are all people and partners that I really believe in and want to highlight. Here is my conversation with Neelan and Adi from Mando.
Mando Website: https://www.mando.work/
Neelan’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/neelan-veloo/
Adi’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adityaviswanathan/
Mando LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mandosystems/
Christian’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christiandelcid/
Building Effective AI Agents by Anthropic: https://www.anthropic.com/engineering/building-effective-agents
In this episode, we’ll be talking to Mahdi Kafi. Mahdi is an independent consultant in the Workday ecosystem and the Founder of Turbin AI. Mahdi has been in the Workday space for 7 years and he’s been independent for almost 4 of those years.
Mahdi is definitely someone to follow if you’ve ever entertained the possibility of becoming an independent consultant. He’s super open about the best and worst parts of being independent and he gives A TON of great advice for making the leap. There is a link to his company, podcast, and LinkedIn in the shownotes. Be sure to follow him and check out all of his work.
Madhi’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mahdikafi/
Ask An Expert Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/6r5E78JQW9NxCL8rYykPE0?si=78dd4fec2e764a76
Turbin AI website: https://turbin.ai/
Christian’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christiandelcid/
In this episode, we’ll be talking to Carla Corley. Carla is the Managing Partner at Corner Office Consultants. Carla and her team have exclusively been recruiting Workday talent for the last 12 years.
The more I learn about Carla and Corner Office, the more there is to appreciate. However, the Workday Compensation & Market Guide that they make available is one of the many things that sets them apart. If you don’t know about the Compensation & Market guide, you need to check it out. I’ll have a link in the show notes that you can use to request a copy of the most recent guide.
Carla and I cover a lot of the key findings from the most recent guide and we discuss some key factors/trends we’re watching for in the ecosystem this year.
Compensation & Market Guide: https://cornerofficeconsultants.com/workday-salary-survey/
Career Cheat Sheet - https://cornerofficeconsultants.com/tips-impact-your-workday-career/
Carla’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlacorley/
Corner Office LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/corner-office-consultants/posts/?feedView=all
Christian’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christiandelcid/
In this episode, we’ll talk to the one and only, Dana Nairn. Dana is a Principal Advisor on Kognitiv's Implementation Services team. She’s been in the ecosystem for almost 11 years. Let’s be real, you have probably already heard of Dana or have seen one of her posts on LinkedIn. I mean, she’s the #WorkdayWoman after all.
This was a really fun conversation. We cover some of the recent changes to the Workday Pro Certifications, Public GMS tenants going away, what it’s like working for a WD Partner versus a customer, and more. With all of that out of the way, here is my conversation with Dana Nairn
Dana's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/dananairnworkdaywoman/
Christian's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/christiandelcid/
In this episode, we’ll be talking to Dani DeMaio. Dani is the Global Director of People Technology & Systems for a customer in the Tech industry. She has been in the ecosystem for almost 7 years and is a regular attendee at the Houston Regional User Group.
Dani’s experience is really interesting. She’s definitely played a player-coach role within the ecosystem and she’s able to almost effortlessly go from talking about detailed Workday configuration to then talking about how to strategically deploy features.
I think her perspective and experience has fully prepared her for navigating the world of Mergers & Acquisitions, which is a lot of what we cover in this conversation. Here's my conversation with Dani.
Dani's LinkedIn -https://www.linkedin.com/in/danijdemaio/
Christian's LinkedIn -https://www.linkedin.com/in/christiandelcid/
Happy New Year and welcome back to the Unsafe Harbor podcast! In this episode, we’ll be talking to Greg Higgins, Manager of HRIS Solutions & Analytics for a pretty big customer. He has been in the ecosystem for almost 10 years and is a regular speaker at Workday events like Rising and Regional User Groups.
I’m super excited for this episode because we get to talk about one of my favorite things in Workday: Discovery Boards. We’ll cover the good, the bad, the ugly, and we even talk through how Discovery Boards could improve.
In this episode, we’ll be talking to Joshua Alexander. Joshua is an Account Executive at Syssero. I initially met Joshua while he was a recruiter for Syssero and he’s easily become one of my favorite people in the ecosystem.
Since Joshua gets to connect with both hiring managers & candidates, he has such a fascinating perspective of the current state of the Workday world. On this episode, we talk recent shifts in the ecosystem, seasonal trends, and skills that are growing in demand. Here’s my conversation with Joshua.
Connect with Joshua:
Joshua's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshua-l-alexander-a9a39123a/
Connect with Christian:
Christian's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/christiandelcid/
Christian's Twitter/X - https://x.com/cdelcid21
In this episode, we’ll be talking to Shannon Whitley. Shannon is a Director of People Operations & Systems in the Tech space. He has been in the ecosystem for 10+ years and has been part of multiple Workday implementations.
I initially learned about Shannon through his Boomerang integration and WOW, am I glad that I found out about his LinkedIn & Github pages. Shannon might be one of the best when it comes to creating contributed solutions. Be sure to check out Shannon’s LinkedIn & Github pages.
Just as a heads up, this conversation happened before Workday Rising this year. We do talk about technical tools and AI but obviously, we don’t cover anything that was announced at Rising.
Connect with Shannon:
Connect with Christian:
In this episode, we’ll be talking to Keith Bitikofer. Keith is a wealth of Workday knowledge and insight. He is the author of the book “Workday Gold: Software Support Model Edition”, he’s been a regular speaker at Workday Rising & DevCon, and he’s personally coached dozens of people across the ecosystem.
With his 30+ years of IT experience and his experience being Early Adopters to functionality like Workday Learning, Prism, & Extend, Keith has a developed unique perspective on where the ecosystem has been and where it could potentially go. I’m so thrilled to share my conversation with Keith.
Be sure to connect with Keith:
Connect with Christian:
In this episode, we’ll be talking to Scott Lawrence, who is an HRIS Supervisor supporting a fast-growing customer in the waste management space. If you spend any time on LinkedIn, you’ve probably seen one of his posts or solutions ranging from topics like Workday Worksheets to Security Reports. Scott holds Workday Certifications in HCM & Security but he’s also a master documenter and teacher.
Scott has quickly become one of my favorite follows on LinkedIn. If you haven’t yet connected with him on LinkedIn, I would highly, highly recommend it.
Connect with Scott:
Connect with Christian
