Pleasanton: A widespread Workday outage disrupted workplace services Friday, November 13, leaving some employees unable to access their accounts, check pay information or complete routine human resources tasks.
The Pleasanton, California-based company said it placed some systems into maintenance mode while investigating the disruption and working to restore affected services.
Workday traced the problem to an issue discovered while testing its backup systems. The company said the incident left some information in an inconsistent state, potentially causing errors when users accessed accounts or completed tasks.
Employees at affected organizations experienced login problems and could not reliably use workplace tools. These services include payroll information, benefits management, recruiting, employee records and time-off requests.
The company apologized to customers for the disruption and said it was investigating the best way to restore service. Workday also committed to providing updates every 30 minutes while addressing the issue.
The Workday outage affected a platform used by more than 11,500 organizations worldwide. Its customers include major retailers such as Target, Walmart and Nordstrom, although the company did not identify which customers experienced service interruptions.
The disruption raised concerns for employees who rely on Workday to manage pay details, submit leave requests and handle other employment-related tasks. The company had not disclosed how many users were affected.
As of Friday afternoon, Workday had not provided an estimated time for full service restoration. The company said it was continuing its investigation and working to bring affected systems back online.
The outage highlighted the importance of Workday’s services to organizations that depend on its software for everyday workforce administration, including payroll, recruiting, benefits and employee management.
