Unsafe Harbor: a podcast about Workday

Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Unsafe Harbor Podcast. In this episode, I get to sit down with Michael Domingo. If you've spent any time on Workday LinkedIn, you probably already know Michael. He has a gift for saying the quiet part out loud and in the public eye. In this conversation, we review a few of his hottest takes so see if they've stayed the same or if they've cooled down...

Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Unsafe Harbor Podcast. In this episode, we get to talk to Neelan Veloo of Mando. It's almost exactly one year after our first podcast conversation with Mando and there's SO much that has changed. We get into some of the biggest debates in this one: Is AI eating Legacy SaaS? Is AI eating the User Interface (UI)? And where should the Workday Admin actuall...

Can AI actually fix the worst parts of Workday M&A integrations? I built two experimental Claude Skills to find out: an M&A Data Validator that checks employee lists against 19 business rules, and a Supervisory Org Builder that generates complete organizational hierarchies and Supervisory Org EIB files. In this demo, I test both workflows using fake employee data with intentional errors. N...

Is this the future of Workday Admin work? I've been building this MCP integration over the last few months using Python and Workday APIs. It's slow (running locally for data security), not perfect, and it's definitely a prototype right now. But it works and it does so without having to touch the Workday UI. You don't need to be technical. You just need to start small and build some...

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 ha...

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...

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...

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 th...

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 wor...

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 the...

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...

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 effortl...

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 thin...

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...

In this episode, we’ll be talking to Shannon Whitley. Shannon is a Director of People Operations & Systems in the Tech space. He has been in the ecosystem for 10+ years and has been part of multiple Workday implementations.  I initially learned about Shannon through his Boomerang integration and WOW, am I glad that I found out about his LinkedIn & Github pages. Shannon might be one of the...

In this episode, we’ll be talking to Keith Bitikofer. Keith is a wealth of Workday knowledge and insight. He is the author of the book “Workday Gold: Software Support Model Edition”, he’s been a regular speaker at Workday Rising & DevCon, and he’s personally coached dozens of people across the ecosystem.  With his 30+ years of IT experience and his experience being Early Adopters to functional...

In this episode, we’ll be talking to Scott Lawrence, who is an HRIS Supervisor supporting a fast-growing customer in the waste management space. If you spend any time on LinkedIn, you’ve probably seen one of his posts or solutions ranging from topics like Workday Worksheets to Security Reports. Scott holds Workday Certifications in HCM & Security but he’s also a master documenter and teacher. ...