Time Tracking in Workday
Where It Goes Wrong — and How to Get It Right
September 12, 2025
Why Time Tracking Deserves Strategic Attention
Time tracking is a foundational element of workforce operations. Yet in many organizations, it’s often treated as an afterthought. This oversight is costly – especially for enterprises with complex labor structures, labor agreements, or operations across multiple regions.
When time tracking fails, the downstream effects are real: delayed payroll, compliance issues, manual rework, and frustrated employees.
Workday Time Tracking was built to handle these complexities — but only if it’s implemented with strategy and precision.
Six Common Pitfalls in Workday Time Tracking Implementations
1. Lifting and Shifting the Old System
Trying to replicate legacy Time & Attendance systems inside Workday is a recipe for friction. Workday Time Tracking is purpose-built — it can support your goals, but not with the same configurations or outdated logic. Avoid treating it as a plug-and-play replacement.
2. Resisting Standardization
“We’ve always done it this way” isn’t a viable policy justification. Time tracking should be streamlined, intuitive, and fast for employees and managers alike. Look for opportunities to simplify and standardize where possible — the goal is operational efficiency, not legacy preservation.
Standardization is especially challenging across countries due to differing labor laws, cultural expectations, and operational norms. That said, meaningful progress can still be made within individual countries or regions.
3. Confusing Time Collection with Time Calculation
It’s critical to distinguish between:
Time Collection: Logging ins, outs, breaks, and other work activities.
Time Calculation: Applying rules for pay, such as overtime or shift premiums.
Both processes matter. A well-designed solution needs to handle both with equal care.
4. Underestimating Complexity
Global organizations face enormous challenges in time tracking — different labor laws, regional rules, shift types, and labor agreements. Don’t oversimplify. Success starts with an honest assessment of that complexity.
5. Overlooking Real-World Use Cases
Many time tracking projects are built around labor laws and policy compliance — and while those are non-negotiable, they’re only part of the equation. Where implementations often falter is in failing to understand the actual business and its people.
Clients who take the time to map out detailed, real-world use cases before implementation — not just for compliance, but for daily operations — are far more successful.
6. Skipping Business Readiness
Even the best configuration will fail if users don’t understand how or why to use the system. If users bypass the system or overload HR with questions, that’s a sign your business readiness needs work.
What to Consider Before You Configure (or Reconfigure)
Whether you’re deploying for the first time or optimizing post–go-live, ask the right questions upfront:
- Do we have a clear, standardized set of labor policies? Can we simplify further?
- Do we fully understand the time tracking laws in every region where we operate?
- Have we developed use cases that reflect real-world workflows across roles and locations?
- What level of reporting do we need, and are we capturing the necessary data?
- Have we engaged frontline managers and employees to ensure usability and buy-in?
What Good Looks Like
When Workday Time Tracking is implemented effectively, it becomes invisible — not because it’s unimportant, but because it works:
Payroll runs smoothly, with minimal escalations- Managers spend less time correcting time reports
- Employees trust the system and use it correctly
- Audits pass cleanly with fewer exceptions
Unlocking Workforce Optimization
Forward-thinking organizations are using time tracking data for far more than just payroll. With clean, accurate inputs, you can:
Analyze productivity by role, shift, or region- Forecast labor costs with greater precision
- Identify overtime trends and burnout risks
- Track project or client profitability
- Inform strategic scheduling and workforce planning
Final Thoughts: Time Tracking Deserves Strategy
Time tracking isn’t glamorous — but it’s vital. When done poorly, the costs are steep: financial risk, operational inefficiency, and employee frustration.
The organizations that succeed with Workday Time Tracking are the ones that treat it like the strategic capability it is. They bring real-world use cases into the design process from the start.
So ask yourself: Does our time tracking setup reflect how we really work? And is it helping us operate smarter?
