Workday cut 2,100 jobs across 2025 and 2026, including its CEO. Here is what your HR technology and workforce management expertise is worth independently.

Workday eliminated approximately 1,750 employees in February 2025 — 8.5 percent of its workforce — and then cut another 400 in February 2026, primarily from its Global Customer Operations team. The 2026 cuts were described internally as "non-revenue generating" roles, which is a clinical way of saying that customer operations headcount was reduced because the business model is shifting toward leaner delivery structures. CEO Carl Eschenbach stepped down in February 2026 after 13 months in the role, following a stock decline of roughly 40 percent over the preceding year and decelerating revenue growth.

This is a company that built its reputation as the dominant platform for large-enterprise HR and financial management — a space it still largely owns. But Workday's growth has slowed as it runs out of new large enterprises to convert and faces competition in the mid-market from SAP, Oracle, and newer AI-native platforms. The cost reductions are partly financial pressure and partly a pivot toward AI-assisted delivery that requires fewer human touchpoints in customer operations.

The people leaving Workday's customer operations and implementation teams have experience inside some of the most complex enterprise software environments in existence. Workday HCM and Financial Management implementations at large companies are multi-year, multi-stakeholder projects that require deep organizational and technical knowledge. That knowledge does not become less valuable because Workday restructured.

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Every large organization that runs Workday has ongoing needs: new module deployments, optimization projects, integrations, reporting builds, and the constant challenge of keeping the platform aligned with evolving business processes. Most of these organizations cannot staff those needs internally at the level required. They hire outside.

Workday functional consultants and architects working independently typically bill $150 to $275 per hour. HCM specialists with deep configuration experience in Workday's talent, compensation, and benefits modules are consistently in demand. Financial management specialists — especially those who have worked on Workday Financials implementations for enterprise clients — can often command $200 to $350 per hour given the smaller pool of qualified practitioners.

Workday system integrators — the certified implementation partners — are always looking for experienced contract consultants. Many former Workday employees land their first independent clients through those firms, which provides steady income while they build direct client relationships. That path is worth taking seriously as a starting point rather than trying to go direct immediately.

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Workday senior managers and customer operations directors typically earned $170,000 to $280,000 in total compensation. The equity component has been painful given a 40 percent stock decline over the past year, meaning people who were counting on unvested RSUs to make up a meaningful part of their comp took a real financial hit.

To set your consulting rate: if your target income is $180,000 and you plan to bill 900 hours in a first year (conservative, accounting for ramp-up), your rate needs to be $200 per hour. Add 30 percent to your target to account for self-employment tax and benefits costs, and your gross revenue goal becomes $234,000 — which requires $260 per hour at the same billing pace. That is a reasonable rate for senior Workday professionals.

One specific planning note: Workday implementations often run six to eighteen months, which means consulting engagements in this space can be long-term retainers rather than short project sprints. That is good for income stability, but it means your first client acquisition is the critical moment. Spend the first sixty days of your transition focused entirely on that.

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Workday's market is specific: large enterprises with complex HR and financial management needs. The buyers of Workday consulting services are typically CHROs, CFOs, and VP-level HR and finance leaders. They are not looking for a generalist. They are looking for someone who has been inside the system and knows exactly how to make it work for their specific situation.

Your positioning should match that specificity. "I help large organizations get their Workday implementation to actually do what they paid for it to do" speaks directly to a frustration that is nearly universal among Workday customers. Most large implementations have gaps between what was configured and what the business needs. You know how to close those gaps.

If you came from Workday's customer operations or success side, you also have an understanding of how the company manages its relationships internally — what it prioritizes, where the pressure points are, and how to navigate the support model. Former Workday employees often become the most effective advocates for their clients in dealing with Workday itself. That is a real and specific value proposition.

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