Cornerstone OnDemand vs Workday HCM

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Our analysts compared Cornerstone OnDemand vs Workday HCM based on data from our 400+ point analysis of HR Management Software, user reviews and our own crowdsourced data from our free software selection platform.

Workday HCM Software Tool

Product Basics

Cornerstone OnDemand is a cloud-based talent and performance management product. Together with its subsidiaries, it helps companies cater to their people development and management needs, handling the employee lifecycle from start to end. Five modules support recruiting, learning, performance and content management. It can be accessed from anywhere at any time, regardless of the user’s location or device type.
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Workday HCM is a SaaS solution that unifies all aspects of managing the employee lifecycle in a single HRMS. The suite of modules allows organizations to operate globally, run payroll, administer benefits, manage talent and facilitate learning, among other things.

While designed for medium and large enterprises, the platform can support the needs of smaller businesses as well. A business process framework provides control for all internal processes. The software is also equipped with audit tools and built-in security capabilities, and it offers mobile apps for flexible access.
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$6/User, Monthly
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$42/Employee, Monthly
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Product Assistance

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Product Insights

  • Attract the Right Talent: Showcase brand values and company culture via interactive media. An intuitive application mechanism, along with creative media, helps attract more quality job seekers and brings the right talent. 
  • Identify the Best Fit: Talent managers have a comprehensive view of the talent pool. They can receive suggestions and analyze candidates based on set requisition criteria to identify the best fit applicants. 
  • Simplified Hiring Process: Create automated workflows that simplify hiring procedures. Leverage detailed insights in a central place for candidate requisition purposes. 
  • Effective Employee Onboarding: Talent managers can create customized onboarding portals for hiring. Having a tailor-made, self-paced and interactive content platform helps eliminate challenges associated with onboarding. 
  • Data-Driven Decision Making: Track employee performance and visualize data with configurable analytics to make faster and more informed decisions. 
  • Optimized Employee Training: Provide a modern and optimized learning experience with automated assignments, optional and recommended content, powerful searching, self-driven browsing for employee development and more. 
  • On-Going Performance Development: Engage, inspire, motivate and coach employees to improve performance, achieve organizational alignment and build business agility. 
  • Easy Deployment: Easily deploy content in any form, like interactive assignments, quizzes, videos and more, using self-developed content or content curated by Cornerstone OnDemand. 
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  • Deep Data Insights: Equipped with reporting and analytics tools, Workday HCM provides a complete view of critical KPIs to inform better decisions. It allows you to become familiar with your workforce, promote employee growth, foster diversity and prepare for the future. Workday’s Prism Analytics and Data-as-a-Service applications provide graphs, charts, benchmarking reports and more. 
  • Fast, Enhanced Recruiting: You can streamline and speed up the recruiting process with collaboration tools, task reminders and calendar syncing. A referral leaderboard encourages employees to refer other qualified candidates. 
  • Easy Expense Reporting: Mobile receipt scanning and approval workflows simplify the expensing process for employees and managers. You can also set spending controls and give employees the ability to start reports. With data analytics tools, you can spot trends and gain insight into expenses throughout your company. 
  • Efficient Absence Management: This feature uses a smart calendar for managing time off. It also provides tracking for different types of absences and the ability to analyze carryover. 
  • Simplified Time Management: Time tracking and approval is available on any device, and alerts surface items that need attention. The system automates rules and calculations to cut down on manual tasks and the risk of errors. 
  • Improved Hiring Decisions: Dashboards present all your talent acquisition data in one place for easy viewing, and machine learning suggests areas of improvement. You can also compare your company to peers via benchmarking and use compensation comparisons to create effective offers. 
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  • Enable an Integrated Ecosystem: Select from a range of pre-built integrations and quickly plug in to the most suitable choice. Having an integrated and holistic ecosystem helps support organizational needs effectively. 
  • Applicant Experience: Recruiting tools include applicant tracking and an easy-to-configure website that help improve the overall experience of applicants. 
  • Learning Management: Offers numerous learning experiences. Consists of informal learning, delivery method management and reporting, all in one place. 
  • Machine Learning: Recommends content to learners, helping them improve self-driven development via quality content. 
  • Robust Partner Ecosystem: Helps extend the life of systems existing at partner organizations, minimizes disruption, and maintains effective localizations and customizations. 
  • Audit Insights: Supports administering and auditing employee record changes. Audits are carried out with minimal risk and aim to align talent management to the organization's talent strategy. 
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  • Payroll: Workday HCM offers payroll capabilities for the U.S., U.K., France and Canada. All transactions compile in the payroll module. It includes a calculation engine, which enables running reports and calculations for groups and individuals at any time. A compliance dashboard shows information about upcoming changes as well as the areas of greatest impact within your organization. 
  • Benefits Administration: The software supports a variety of plans, such as health, flex, wellness and retirement. Tools such as the ACA dashboard ensure proper coverage as well as aid managing forms and regulatory changes. The system supports integration with hundreds of providers. 
  • Talent Management: This feature includes onboarding and career and development planning components. New hires can access messages, videos and more from a single dashboard, and there’s also support for international and internal transfers. Pulse surveys and a skills cloud provide insight into your workforce. Additionally, you can set goals, perform reviews, manage succession plans, aid employee career development and pinpoint retention risks. 
  • Learning Management System: Equipped with LMS capabilities, this module helps your organization deliver and track a variety of training materials. Elements include scoring, quizzes, learning campaigns, video, learning paths and more. You can also offer courses to external groups. For extended training, the Workday Content Cloud grants access to third-party content directly from Workday HCM. 
  • Compensation Management: With this feature, you can build customized compensation packages for global use by choosing from over a dozen compensation plan types. It supports international currencies and allowance plans based on local limits. The toolset includes a grid worksheet, events coordination for things like new hires and promotions, pay-range segments, tracking of pay equity, configurable statements, and unified data from other Workday HCM modules such as payroll and benefits. 
  • Workforce Planning: The Workday Adaptive Insights Business Planning Cloud provides tools to create models, compare what-if scenarios and build hiring strategies. It also facilitates collaboration along with evaluation of metrics like costs and workforce breakdown. The platform provides review and approval workflows and integrates data from other organizational systems. 
  • Global Compliance: The solution’s flexibility enables you to configure the pre-built frameworks based on your company’s needs. It contains support for 240 countries, 1,500+ reports, 170 absence plans, geographic controls such as privacy preferences and date formats, and over 3,000 localized data fields. You can automatically translate into over 30 languages, receive free legal support across 58 jurisdictions and control all aspects of the setup. 
  • Workday Marketplace: You can extend the capabilities of Workday HCM by connecting it with third-party integrations for case management, hiring, training and other processes. Partner solutions include LinkedIn Learning, Salesforce Worker and Salesforce Chatter, Saba, HireRight Background Check, and Humanity Employee Shift Scheduling. 
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Product Ranking

#26

among all
HR Management Software

#1

among all
HR Management Software

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Analyst Rating Summary

73
77
96
86
42
62
70
96
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Availability and Scalability
Employee Engagement
Learning Management
Succession Management
Performance Management
Availability and Scalability
Platform Security
Employee Self Service
Compensation Management
Employee Onboarding and Administration

Analyst Ratings for Functional Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

Cornerstone OnDemand
Workday HCM
+ Add Product + Add Product
Applicant Tracking And Recruiting Benefits Management Compensation Management Document Management Employee Engagement Employee Onboarding And Administration Employee Self Service Learning Management Payroll Management Performance Management Platform Capabilities Reporting And Dashboard Succession Management Time And Attendance Management Workforce Management 96 42 70 93 100 85 67 100 64 98 86 92 100 45 65 86 62 96 70 72 92 98 63 81 55 81 92 83 79 50 0 25 50 75 100
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Analyst Ratings for Technical Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

Cornerstone OnDemand
Workday HCM
+ Add Product + Add Product
Availability And Scalability Deployment Options Integrations And Extensibility Mobile Platform Security 100 50 42 92 100 50 73 100 0 25 50 75 100
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Analyst Ratings for Vendor Qualification Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

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User Sentiment Summary

Great User Sentiment 1252 reviews
Great User Sentiment 3039 reviews
84%
of users recommend this product

Cornerstone OnDemand has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 84% when considering 1252 user reviews from 5 recognized software review sites.

86%
of users recommend this product

Workday HCM has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 86% when considering 3039 user reviews from 5 recognized software review sites.

5.0 (21)
4.8 (14)
4.1 (464)
4.0 (1144)
4.3 (211)
n/a
n/a
4.4 (836)
4.3 (157)
4.8 (605)
4.2 (399)
4.1 (440)

Awards

SelectHub research analysts have evaluated Cornerstone OnDemand and concluded it earns best-in-class honors for Employee Engagement, Learning Management and Succession Management.

Employee Engagement Award
Learning Management Award
Succession Management Award

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Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Reporting: The reporting feature is simple to use and intuitive, with several options to choose from, according to 90% of reviews on reporting.
Robust Learning Module: It constantly stays up-to-date with the latest and effective learning trends to provide a better user experience, as indicated by 100% of reviews mentioning learning features.
All-in-One Solution: Cornerstone OnDemand is a complete solution for all performance management needs of companies in all industries, according to all reviews on this aspect.
Regular Updates: The platform consistently releases updates to serve users better, according to all reviews on software updates.
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Intuitive: 95% of users who mentioned ease of use observed that the software has an intuitive interface, making it easy to navigate and find information, even for novice users.
Multiple Functionality: 90% of users who mentioned functionality state that Workday HCM acts as a one-stop shop for many HR tasks.
Payroll and Benefits: All reviewers who mentioned payroll had a positive experience, with the ability to track hours, collect tax forms, log pay stubs and more.
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Customer Service: All reviews on customer service indicated that the response and resolution times are slow.
Learning Curve: According to 80% of reviews on this feature, there’s a steep learning curve and adapting to the system is time-consuming and complex for new users.
Mobile App: It has a slow and underdeveloped mobile app compared to the web platform, according to all reviews referring to this feature.
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Slow: Of reviewers who mention user interface, 5% noted some processes are slow, causing the system to show errors.
Requires Training: For first-time users, there’s a bit of a learning curve to get started, requiring training.
Clunky Mobile App: 85% of reviewers who mentioned the app noted that it has issues quite often and doesn’t include schedules, forcing users to use a separate app.
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Cornerstone OnDemand’s cloud-based talent and performance management solutions deliver robust learning capabilities alongside comprehensive performance tools. Slow customer service, a steep learning curve and an underdeveloped mobile application are some of the most repeated cons among user feedback. However, users thought highly of its regular updates and simple, intuitive reporting. Those, along with the learning and performance features make it a good option for companies with a high priority in those particular areas.

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Workday HCM is suitable for businesses of all sizes. It is a simple and easy-to-use product with multiple functions that contain all HR data in one place. Payroll and benefits are easy to view and verify. Some improvements are required in the mobile app and system speed. Otherwise, its payroll, timesheet tool, ease of use and unified structure can bring a lot of benefits.

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Screenshots

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