The challenge: Equipping Director-level leaders to lead transformation

Workday operates in a rapidly evolving technology sector being redefined and transformed by AI. In order to stay at the forefront of innovation in the market, its executive team identified business transformation was needed – and that the company’s 1,1OO Directors and Senior Directors had a crucial role to play. Adeption was selected as its partner for design and delivery of a leadership development experience for the Director population.

Internal discovery by the People & Purpose (HR) team identified five critical mindset and behavioral shifts Directors would need to make in order to successfully lead employees through the transformation.

• Take greater ownership to lead change
• Increase their focus on the business (vs. their immediate team)
• Achieve an appropriate balance of running the business and changing the business
• Proactively build connections across functions
• Design systems and processes to empower teams to achieve results and create lift

The Change Leadership Program (CLP) was developed as a key solution to help Directors make these shifts.

A development experience that uses business-critical work as the curriculum

CLP is a 9-month leadership development experience, which ran for the first time in 2O25 with 3OO Directors. It blends together virtual facilitated workshops, 1:1 coaching, self-paced digital workouts on Adeption’s AI-powered platform, and on-the-job application of insights.

Unlike traditional programs focused on theory, CLP uses business-critical work as the curriculum.

Unique elements of the experience design include:

• Innovative approach to participant selection: Workday’s People & Purpose team set out to select key ‘Change Agents’ as participants – evaluating Directors based on their involvement in strategic business challenges, their internal networks, and advice from HR business partners on high-potential talent.
• Strategic Change Goals: Each participant in CLP sets a high-stakes Change Goal with their manager, tied to Workday’s business priorities. The experience wraps around these goals, helping participants fast-track their progress while growing leadership capacity.
• Optionality: The experience design includes a Core Track with essential components, and an Optional Track with a range of skill-focused workshops participants can opt in to.

Delivering direct impact and ROI

The experience delivered exceptional results and ROI in its first year, shifting leaders from reacting to change toward taking active ownership of it.

• Goal achievement: 86% of participants completed or made significant progress toward their Change Goals (rated by managers).
• Business value: 98% of managers agreed participants directly contributed to advancing Workday’s business priorities.
• Cross-functional connection: 94% of managers reported that participants successfully influenced leaders and teams outside their functional areas.
• Leadership capacity: 83% of managers agreed that CLP accelerated the participant's ability to deliver long-term, sustainable change.

Key Success Factors

Discovery and co-design: The CLP team invested time in deeply understanding the needs and perspectives of all key stakeholders, including a co-design process led by Adeption, creating broad buy-in from the start.

Real work as the curriculum: Ensured participants developed their leadership capacity while progressing business priorities.

Talent system integration: CLP required participants to log and track their Change Goals in the Workday platform, ensuring development was integrated into the Talent Practice cycle.

Agile program design: Enabled the CLP team to add workshops to the Optional Track based on common challenge themes that emerged during initial coaching sessions.