Workday Functional Analyst

About the role

The Workday Functional Analyst serves as a strategic partner, subject matter expert, and platform thought leader for Workday as the system of record for HR and Finance data at TRS. This role owns the full delivery lifecycle—from eliciting and analyzing complex business and technical requirements across HR, Finance, and IT stakeholders through solution design, configuration, testing, implementation, and ongoing governance.

The position translates organizational needs into sophisticated Workday solutions that deliver measurable business value across HCM and Financial modules, including Core HCM, Compensation, Payroll, Absence/Time Tracking, Talent/Performance, Recruiting, Learning, FDM, Financial Accounting, Banking, Suppliers, Budgeting, Assets, Procurement, and Financial Planning.

The Analyst designs and governs Workday’s security model, enterprise data structure, and integration framework, ensuring seamless connectivity with upstream and downstream systems. The role also leads data migration, governs multi-tenant environment configuration, and designs the full Workday reporting ecosystem, including custom reports, Prism Analytics, Discovery Boards, and People Analytics dashboards.

The ideal candidate brings deep Workday platform expertise, strong requirements analysis skills, and a forward-looking perspective on how emerging platform capabilities—including embedded AI/ML features—can enable TRS’s strategic growth and operational excellence.

Responsibilities

• Serve as Subject Matter Expert and platform owner for Workday HCM and Financial modules, ensuring platform integrity and stakeholder alignment.
• Co-own Workday as the system of record for HR and Finance data, ensuring data integrity, completeness, and accuracy across all modules.
• Elicit, analyze, and document business and technical requirements from HR, Finance, and IT stakeholders, translating complex organizational needs into functional specifications, use cases, and system design decisions.
• Design and govern the Workday security model, including domain security policies, security groups (role-based, user-based, intersection), segment-based security, and segregation of duties; administer security group provisioning and serve as the primary escalation point for security issues and audit inquiries.
• Design and govern Workday’s enterprise data structure, including organization hierarchies (supervisory, company, cost center, location), the Financial Dimension Model (FDM), worktags, and cross-module data relationships.
• Design, build, and govern the enterprise integration framework using EIB, Core Connectors, Studio, and Cloud Connect; establish integration design standards, error handling frameworks, and monitoring protocols.
• Lead and execute data migration activities, including EIB loads, data validation, and reconciliation to ensure data quality and completeness.
• Analyze, design, configure, and validate advanced Workday configurations, including complex conditional rules, custom validations, dynamic business process routing, and multi-level approval frameworks.
• Design, build, and deliver Workday reports across all report types (Simple, Advanced, Matrix, Composite, Trending, and Transposed) and govern Prism Analytics datasets, Discovery Boards, and People Analytics dashboards.
• Evaluate bi-annual Workday releases, emerging AI/ML features, and new module capabilities; present business cases to senior stakeholders and assist with intake and prioritization of Workday change requests.
• Design, facilitate, and govern UAT frameworks; develop end-to-end testing strategies; and support deployment of system updates and bi-annual releases.
• Provide day-to-day system support, including troubleshooting, root-cause resolution, and end-user ticket management; maintain system documentation, including flow charts and process diagrams.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Business, Information Technology, or related field; or equivalent combination of education and hands-on Workday experience.
• 4+ years of hands-on experience configuring Workday HCM and/or Financial modules.
• Demonstrated experience eliciting and documenting business and technical requirements from cross-functional stakeholders.
• Experience designing and governing the Workday security model, including security groups and domain policies.
• Experience designing and building Workday integrations (EIB, Core Connectors, Studio, or Cloud Connect).
• Experience designing enterprise business process frameworks across multiple Workday modules.
• Experience with Workday data structures, including organization hierarchies and FDM design.
• Experience governing multi-tenant Workday environments and configuration lifecycle processes.
• Experience with Workday Report Writing, Calculated Fields, and advanced analytics tools, including Prism Analytics.
• Experience supporting Workday through bi-annual releases.

Skills

• Deep expertise in Workday HCM and Financial modules, including Payroll, Benefits, Compensation, Recruiting, and Talent/Succession.
• Hands-on experience designing and building Workday integrations (EIB, Core Connectors, Studio, or Cloud Connect).
• Proficiency with Workday reporting tools, including Report Writer, Calculated Fields, Prism Analytics, People Analytics, and Discovery Boards.
• Experience with advanced business process configuration, including complex condition rules, custom validations, and dynamic routing.
• Experience leading data migration and EIB loading activities.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and communication skills for both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Ability to manage multiple initiatives simultaneously in a fast-paced environment.
• Awareness of Workday embedded AI/ML features and emerging platform capabilities.
• Familiarity with Agile/Scrum delivery methodologies.

Pay

Pay Range: $80,614.20 - $125,758.00. Compensation will be determined based on the qualifications and experience of each candidate.

Benefits

• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage as part of the State of Illinois benefits program.
• Participation in the TRS retirement pension plan (a reciprocal system to other state and local pension plans such as SERS, SURS, IMRF).
• Option to contribute to additional State of Illinois deferred compensation plans.