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