Paychex vs. Workday Human Capital Management

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Paychex
Score 6.6 out of 10
N/A
Paychex Flex, of Paychex' Online Payroll Services, is a cloud-based human resource management and payroll platform. Paychex offers core and specialized services, and scales to meet the needs of small businesses, SMBs, and large enterprises.
$59
per month/+$4 per employee
Workday HCM
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
Workday Human Capital Management is a cloud-native system offering a globally consistent user experience. Workday HCM is part of an intelligent, unified system with other Workday products.N/A
Pricing
PaychexWorkday Human Capital Management
Editions & Modules
Paychex Go
$59
per month/+$4 per employee
Paychex Flex Service
Contact sales team
Paychex Flex Enterprise
Contact sales team
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
PaychexWorkday HCM
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeRequiredNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
PaychexWorkday Human Capital Management
Considered Both Products
Paychex
Chose Paychex
It’s great that Paychex is one place for all things, however workday in combination with a financial institution for managing 401ks is a cleaner and easier to use system. That being said, we didn’t utilize all the components of Paychex
Workday HCM
Chose Workday Human Capital Management
Workday blows SAP away in the human capital management space. Workday is extremely user-friendly where SAP made me want to pull my hair out on a daily basis, as did all of my coworkers. I think it this is mainly due to the fact the Workday is ONE platform, everyone gets the …
Features
PaychexWorkday Human Capital Management
Human Resource Management
Comparison of Human Resource Management features of Product A and Product B
Paychex
6.5
268 Ratings
22% below category average
Workday Human Capital Management
8.5
97 Ratings
5% above category average
Employee demographic data7.6215 Ratings8.382 Ratings
Employment history8.0239 Ratings8.792 Ratings
Job profiles and administration7.5173 Ratings8.594 Ratings
Workflow for transfers, promotions, pay raises, etc.7.4168 Ratings9.189 Ratings
Organizational charting1.01 Ratings9.388 Ratings
Organization and location management7.4155 Ratings8.885 Ratings
Compliance data (COBRA, OSHA, etc.)6.5144 Ratings6.760 Ratings
Payroll Management
Comparison of Payroll Management features of Product A and Product B
Paychex
7.5
310 Ratings
8% below category average
Workday Human Capital Management
8.9
80 Ratings
9% above category average
Pay calculation8.0292 Ratings8.468 Ratings
Off-cycle/On-Demand payment6.6150 Ratings9.818 Ratings
Benefit plan administration6.8171 Ratings8.463 Ratings
Direct deposit files8.2291 Ratings8.769 Ratings
Salary revision and increment management7.7207 Ratings9.166 Ratings
Reimbursement management7.6116 Ratings9.243 Ratings
Support for external payroll vendors00 Ratings8.756 Ratings
Leave and Attendance Management
Comparison of Leave and Attendance Management features of Product A and Product B
Paychex
7.1
158 Ratings
14% below category average
Workday Human Capital Management
8.6
75 Ratings
5% above category average
Approval workflow7.0112 Ratings8.574 Ratings
Balance details7.3150 Ratings8.474 Ratings
Annual carry-forward and encashment7.0119 Ratings8.860 Ratings
Employee Self Service
Comparison of Employee Self Service features of Product A and Product B
Paychex
7.7
267 Ratings
6% below category average
Workday Human Capital Management
8.4
95 Ratings
2% above category average
View and generate pay and benefit information7.7245 Ratings8.884 Ratings
Update personal information7.8257 Ratings8.693 Ratings
View company policy documentation7.5119 Ratings7.673 Ratings
View job history7.7181 Ratings8.884 Ratings
Employee recognition00 Ratings8.057 Ratings
Asset Management
Comparison of Asset Management features of Product A and Product B
Paychex
5.2
43 Ratings
42% below category average
Workday Human Capital Management
8.3
25 Ratings
4% above category average
Tracking of all physical assets5.243 Ratings8.325 Ratings
HR Reporting
Comparison of HR Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Paychex
6.0
175 Ratings
23% below category average
Workday Human Capital Management
8.4
79 Ratings
11% above category average
Report builder6.4145 Ratings8.875 Ratings
Pre-built reports6.3164 Ratings8.577 Ratings
Ability to combine HR data with external data5.291 Ratings7.865 Ratings
Onboarding
Comparison of Onboarding features of Product A and Product B
Paychex
6.2
171 Ratings
25% below category average
Workday Human Capital Management
8.6
57 Ratings
7% above category average
New hire portal6.8164 Ratings8.452 Ratings
Manager tracking tools5.6106 Ratings8.753 Ratings
Recruiting / ATS
Comparison of Recruiting / ATS features of Product A and Product B
Paychex
5.2
68 Ratings
38% below category average
Workday Human Capital Management
8.3
49 Ratings
8% above category average
Job Requisition Management5.636 Ratings8.046 Ratings
Company Website Posting5.434 Ratings8.339 Ratings
Publish to Social Media4.928 Ratings8.734 Ratings
Job Search Site Posting5.335 Ratings8.540 Ratings
Duplicate Candidate Prevention5.034 Ratings7.740 Ratings
Applicant Tracking5.039 Ratings8.140 Ratings
Notifications and Alerts5.262 Ratings8.444 Ratings
Performance and Goals
Comparison of Performance and Goals features of Product A and Product B
Paychex
-
Ratings
Workday Human Capital Management
8.4
61 Ratings
4% above category average
Corporate goal setting00 Ratings8.751 Ratings
Individual goal setting00 Ratings8.760 Ratings
Line-of sight-visibility00 Ratings7.851 Ratings
Performance tracking00 Ratings8.659 Ratings
Performance Management
Comparison of Performance Management features of Product A and Product B
Paychex
-
Ratings
Workday Human Capital Management
8.8
64 Ratings
11% above category average
Performance plans00 Ratings8.963 Ratings
Performance improvement plans00 Ratings8.855 Ratings
Review status tracking00 Ratings8.759 Ratings
Review reminders00 Ratings9.058 Ratings
Multiple review frequency00 Ratings8.851 Ratings
Succession Planning
Comparison of Succession Planning features of Product A and Product B
Paychex
-
Ratings
Workday Human Capital Management
7.9
41 Ratings
1% above category average
Create succession plans/pools00 Ratings9.235 Ratings
Candidate ranking00 Ratings7.536 Ratings
Candidate search00 Ratings7.939 Ratings
Candidate development00 Ratings6.837 Ratings
Best Alternatives
PaychexWorkday Human Capital Management
Small Businesses
Dayforce Powerpay
Dayforce Powerpay
Score 9.4 out of 10
Dayforce Powerpay
Dayforce Powerpay
Score 9.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Paypro Workforce Management
Paypro Workforce Management
Score 9.2 out of 10
Paypro Workforce Management
Paypro Workforce Management
Score 9.2 out of 10
Enterprises
PeopleStrong
PeopleStrong
Score 9.9 out of 10
PeopleStrong
PeopleStrong
Score 9.9 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
PaychexWorkday Human Capital Management
Likelihood to Recommend
6.6
(323 ratings)
9.0
(130 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
1.4
(44 ratings)
9.0
(18 ratings)
Usability
6.9
(264 ratings)
7.8
(15 ratings)
Availability
5.9
(12 ratings)
6.6
(8 ratings)
Performance
7.1
(12 ratings)
7.3
(7 ratings)
Support Rating
6.5
(265 ratings)
8.0
(27 ratings)
In-Person Training
4.5
(1 ratings)
9.6
(6 ratings)
Online Training
8.3
(4 ratings)
7.0
(7 ratings)
Implementation Rating
5.6
(13 ratings)
8.0
(11 ratings)
Configurability
5.1
(9 ratings)
7.5
(2 ratings)
Ease of integration
9.1
(3 ratings)
8.2
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
6.5
(12 ratings)
7.3
(1 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
2.5
(33 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
3.5
(34 ratings)
5.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
PaychexWorkday Human Capital Management
Likelihood to Recommend
Paychex Inc.
For the most part, Paychex Flex is a very good payroll system and is well suited for a small business. Most basic features are simple and user friendly. For businesses that have hourly employees, its timeclock system is a good feature. For businesses that have a large number of employees and more complicated rules and policies, it might not be as appropriate because of the difficulty to set up for these rules and policies
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Workday
I would say it's well suited in every environment because I think it does so much. It's like the holy grail of HRIS systems is what I like to call it because thinking about all parts of the employee lifecycle, it lives here in Workday Human Capital Management. So I love the fact that you can do the people data analytics, you can store employee records, the talent acquisition pieces there. I'm thinking I can't think of anything negative right now except for the fact that I can't drill down into the data for the people analytics side. Other than that, I think it's literally, yeah, the holy grail of HRIS systems, I love it and I would highly recommend it.
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Pros
Paychex Inc.
  • It provides a well account of Retirement Plan Account Information.
  • Alerts are sent to email when there is new information to access.
  • Employee access both online and thru app.
  • Paperless options.
  • Easy and quick access to paystubs and tax forms.
  • Easy employee retirement management.
Read full review
Workday
  • Groups employees in management hierarchies and creates Org Charts that are easy to navigate and allow for visualizing management chains regardless of employee locations
  • Intuitive and easy to use. The Workday search functionality works very much like Google; one can search for anything that they have access to in the database and drill down into the various details. All information is connected through hyperlinks and users can easily keep digging into the details for as far as their security access would take them.
  • Tasks such as to do, review or approve items are sent to the user's Workday Inbox, very much resembling email. Notifications about outstanding "to do" items are also sent to each the user's work email address on a daily basis.
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Cons
Paychex Inc.
  • When it comes to audit reports, Paychex Flex could improve on helping clients locate the correct reports for audit purposes more easily
  • When a client receives a discount, it would be helpful if the discount were automatically provided each year, or if the Paychex rep proactively reached out to the client first, versus the client having to call and request that the discount continue.
  • It would be helpful if the invoice was emailed to the client versus the client logging in to access invoices.
Read full review
Workday
  • Should have more option in time sheet like choose project code or something.
  • On The pay page, it should have options to view past salaries; it may be there already but not in the version that I use.
  • The employee information page does not have a back button to navigate to the previous page.
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Likelihood to Renew
Paychex Inc.
Overall I like the features that Paychex Flex offers. I am sure that there are other features that I am unaware of, so I am excited to see if there is more that Flex is capable of to make my job easier. The basic features are really user friendly and easy to access. If there ever is an issue customer service is great
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Workday
It is work to make one system the source of truth for our data, but now that it is done, there is less work involved in staying on this path. This means for us that maintaining and/or implementing new modules like performance, finance, talent, etc. is simple. It's a no-brainer
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Usability
Paychex Inc.
Some things could be streamlined. For example, we could do custom options for the "add items" tab which has so many options that we never use. "Medical Pay" could be something that the system remembers for the applicable employees. Salaried employees' salaries should definitely be auto-filled. Overall the system works well but I think it could be improved to be easier to use and read.
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Workday
Workday's on a great path in terms of user experience. Their goals is to deliver a use experience that doesn't require training or instruction, like Amazon on the consumer side for example. That's hard to do when you're talking about complex business processes and important and sensitive employee information, but they're doing it well
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Reliability and Availability
Paychex Inc.
We have not experienced any difficulties with unplanned outages. Notifications are always made for outages, and they do not effect normal business operations.
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Workday
In 2014, Workday has changed the update process. There will be two updates a year; the updates will be delivered to customers typically in a 24 hour window during these two weekends a year. They also keep the Community up-to-date about any planned outages, etc. There is weekly scheduled downtime on Friday night.
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Performance
Paychex Inc.
Unless there is lag time within the internet, the Paychex Flex website loads exceptional fast, pages load quickly and reports that I need to print or download load quickly. If I need to create a specialized report, once I complete it I receive an e-mail telling me my report is ready to be downloaded. Changing between web pages is fast as well.
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Workday
From my perspective, the system runs like a well oiled machine and I have not had any issues with customers complaining about speed. If a report is taking long to run, the report can run in the background and you can go about your business. For larger enterprises, there is additional space and machines to process the application in what Workday refers to it as Extended Configuration Tenant
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Support Rating
Paychex Inc.
Our dedicated representative is one of the main reasons we are sticking with Paychex Flex. If it were not for this person, other platforms could provide the same/similar functionality. It is the ability to speak with someone that understands our business and is willing to get questions answered in a timely fashion that keeps us with Paychex Flex.
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Workday
Workday is still learning about the needs of higher education. I have seen rapid improvement in support and knowledge over the last year so am confident this will continue to improve. Overall however, I have found the Support Team to be extremely responsive and Workday offers the advantage of having support across several timezones so that we never wait more than a few hours for a response.
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In-Person Training
Paychex Inc.
We did online training only
Read full review
Workday
Some training is offered online. Cost is per-person. This also gets quite expensive. Training doesn’t follow a logical path A to B. Starts in middle. When you try to do it afterwards at your desk, difficult.
• Training scenarios are not very real
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Online Training
Paychex Inc.
It was easy to understand and follow along. I do like the informational videos that we can utilize before we opt to call in for customer service support. It has made a difference since sometimes that resolves the issue I may have had and saved myself a phone call to Paychex support.
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Workday
I have done for report writing and mass imports (EIBs). They give materials and you run through examples, i.e. you don’t just watch them do tasks, so that is helpful. Training is expensive – a single reporting writing class is $600 per person for virtual training
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Implementation Rating
Paychex Inc.
Implementation was very smooth. The most cumbersome task was entering the current employees into the system during initial set up, but Paychex staff handled most of that and verified against prior system reports as well as internal reports provided to ensure 100% accuracy.
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Workday
It was implemented before my joining the company. At my last company, we used Workday professional services.

Based upon my experience at my last company, I would rate the implementation experience an 8/10. There are different ways to set things up and we had different people telling us different things. It set us back a couple of times.

Regarding configuration advice, we could set things up where every manager has supervisory organizations, or have it financially based i.e. aligned to cost center/department. We chose the individual manager path and I think we should have chosen a department route. Going down the individual manager path, to maintain the information, we have to inactivate a supervisory org whenever a manager changes/leaves.
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Alternatives Considered
Paychex Inc.
We still use QB Desktop Pro to maintain a Check Register / Overall Balance for the company, but once having tried QB Payroll Online for about 3 months prior to finding Paychex Flex I can tell you that there's just no comparison. QB online is VERY EXPENSIVE and not so user-friendly. I hated every minute of those 6 payrolls we ran through QB online.
Read full review
Workday
Workday is an incomplete product, by this I mean it must work alongside other products and does not work by itself. Trying to make several different products work smoothly together becomes very challenging. As compared to ADP products, when purchased all together work very well all together. Also, ADP has extensive Training programs and extensive Customer Support. So ADP's products are far superior to Workday's products in my opinion.
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Scalability
Paychex Inc.
I generally do payroll at the office, however I have had to go remote due to internet issues and also had to take payroll on vacation with me. Very easy to log in wherever you are and manage your TAA and payroll
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Workday
Workday has released Financials and is continuing to develop it's Human Capital Management footprint with the addition of Workday Recruiting. I think customers will find that is easy to add on additional functionality in the system. Workday does make it easy for customers to make changes without relying on IT resources. The Business Process framework is a visual tool that allows functional resources to make changes and see the flow of the transaction
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Return on Investment
Paychex Inc.
  • I do not believe we have saved anything additionally. The time we've had to spend to get things to hopefully work is sad. This is the reason we've had to turn off all extra "products" of Paychex Flex. Time and Attendance is horrible. Benefits management is horrible. The user experience is horrible.
  • One thing I do not understand is why are updates for states, cities, counties, school districts, etc. not automatically updated? Should we not get a big red flag if we have an employee living/working, being paid in CA, but they aren't set up for CA sick time? If it is required to be on the paycheck stub to show the balance of the sick time, why would we not be notified that we are out of compliance?
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Workday
  • Positive ROI, we were one of the first organizations that went with Workday HCM, and we received numerous discounts. Cloud systems are the way to go and we feel the system is stable for our growing work force.
  • The user conferences have been helpful to network and learn more deepness in the modules and functionality.
  • Right off the bat, our implementation costs were lower than budgeted and we had less 'billing' surprises.
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ScreenShots

Paychex Screenshots

Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of

Workday HCM Screenshots

Screenshot of Workday Human Capital Management HomepageScreenshot of Workday Human Capital Management Manager Insights HubScreenshot of Workday Human Capital Management HR Partners HubScreenshot of Workday Human Capital Management Expense AnalysisScreenshot of Workday Human Capital Management Skills DashboardScreenshot of Workday Human Capital Management HR Operations and Compliance Dashboard