Workday launches Workday Learning, eyes Cornerstone, Saba

Workday said Tuesday that it plans to launch Workday Learning in a bid to take business in the learning management system market and partners such as Cornerstone OnDemand and Saba.

The company said Workday Learning is expected to land in the second half of 2016. Workday announced Workday Learning at its Rising conference in Las Vegas.

Like Workday's other expansions, Workday Learning is following a similar pattern. Customers ask for new applications, Workday tests the waters via design thinking, makes a formal announcement and then works with early adopter customers to craft features, workflow and the user experience.

For Workday Learning, the company has incorporated feedback from employees at athenahealth, California College of the Arts, Cornell University, and McKee Foods.

Leighanne Levensaler, senior vice president of products at Workday, said the goal of Workday Learning is to replace existing learning management systems because they can be clunky. "We want to help people engage, scale up, develop new skills and develop career opportunities," she said.

By integrating learning with Workday's core HR application, Levensaler said Workday Learning can be more peer-to-peer, mobile and collaborative. "People learn from each other," she added.

Workday Learning will also aim to put content in context and offer a recommendation system for training based on role, position and stage in career. Content will also range from in-depth to so-called "micro learning activities." Analytics will also be built in with Workday's other software.

That collaboration and peer-to-peer approach will ultimately be the secret sauce for Workday Learning. Levensaler also made it clear that Workday Learning will compete with current partners Cornerstone and Saba for business. "We will be competing, but we won't let our joint customers down," she said.