As companies grow and expectations rise, HR teams face increasing pressure to do more with less—streamlining requests, enhancing service delivery, and more. To meet these demands, many organizations are turning to digital platforms that can unify and automate their HR processes.

Among the top contenders are ServiceNow and Workday. ServiceNow is known for its ability to digitize routine HR services and build intuitive workflows. Meanwhile, Workday offers an all-in-one HCM suite with capabilities spanning talent acquisition, payroll, benefits, and workforce analytics.

In this article, we’ll compare ServiceNow and Workday across key areas, including features, benefits, and overall suitability—helping you determine which platform better aligns with your organization’s HR goals.

ServiceNow Vs Workday: At A Glance

Features

ServiceNow

Workday

Talent Development

Uses AI capabilities to offer real-time insights into workforce skills

Combines performance management, goal setting, and career development planning within a unified system

Employee Experience

Offers the Employee Center, which provides a unified portal for all employee needs

Uses machine learning to provide tailored content, tasks, and recommendations

Analytics

Offers Now Platform, which supports interactive dashboards with multiple widgets and filters

Provides over 5,000 pre-built, configurable reports alongside 175 dashboards

Mobile App

Supports self-help features, consolidated approvals, and AI-powered chatbots

Allows users to submit time-off requests, enter time worked, and manage expenses directly from their mobile devices

What Is ServiceNow?

ServiceNow HR is a cloud-based platform designed to streamline and automate business processes across various departments, including IT, HR, customer service, and more. It does this by operating as a ‘System of Action’, integrating seamlessly with existing systems to orchestrate tasks and processes without the need for extensive system overhauls. In addition, the platform's low-code development capabilities allow businesses to build and customize applications swiftly.

ServiceNow's versatility makes it suitable for organizations across various industries, including healthcare, finance, and manufacturing. Its solutions address challenges such as digital sprawl, operational inefficiencies, and the need for improved service delivery.

Unique ServiceNow Features

  • ServiceNow App Engine: ServiceNow includes tools for building custom apps with low-code/no-code capabilities, enabling rapid internal tool development
  • Digital End-User Experience: Tools that measure and improve how employees interact with digital services, identifying bottlenecks and frustration points

ServiceNow Pros And Cons

Pros:

  • Automated workflows that streamline service management
  • Integration with other tools simplifies operations
  • Effective ticket tracking ensures timely issue resolution

Cons:

  • Initial setup and configuration can be complex and unwieldy
  • The user interface can be more intuitive

What Is Workday?

Workday Human Capital Management (HCM) is an extensive HR platform designed to unify various aspects of human resources management. It offers a suite of applications that encompass human resources, benefits, talent management, payroll, time tracking, and recruitment, all within a single system.

Suitable for organizations of various sizes and industries, Workday HCM offers a flexible and scalable solution for managing human capital. Its unified approach ensures consistency across HR processes, making it a valuable tool for businesses seeking to optimize their HR operations.

Unique Workday Features

  • Workday Journeys: Guided, personalized experiences for onboarding, promotions, relocations, and other life-cycle events
  • Global Payroll Management: Native payroll processing and integrations for multiple countries

Workday Pros And Cons

Pros:

  • Centralizes benefits information for easy employee access
  • Provides a self-service option for employees
  • Offers a variety of integrations for various organizational needs

Cons:

  • Resetting login credentials requires HR assistance
  • The user experience is clunky and unintuitive, according to some users

ServiceNow Vs Workday – Features Comparison

Talent Development

ServiceNow's Talent Development platform emphasizes a skills-centric, AI-driven approach to employee growth. It integrates features like Career Hub and Manager Hub, providing personalized career guidance and enabling managers to oversee and support their team's development effectively. The platform's AI capabilities offer real-time insights into workforce skills, facilitating informed decision-making and proactive career planning.

In addition, ServiceNow's Opportunity Marketplace and Mentoring applications promote internal mobility and peer learning, encouraging a culture of continuous development.

Conversely, Workday's Talent Management suite offers a comprehensive, integrated approach to managing the employee lifecycle. It combines performance management, goal setting, and career development planning within a unified system.

On top of all this, Workday's platform provides tools for continuous feedback, skill assessments, and succession planning, enabling organizations to align employee growth with business objectives. Its analytics capabilities offer insights into talent trends, helping HR professionals make data-driven decisions to optimize workforce performance.

Winner: ServiceNow focuses on AI-powered, skills-based development, whereas Workday offers an integrated suite that aligns performance and development processes. Hence, both software are tied here as both take different, equivalent approaches to get the same result.

Employee Experience

ServiceNow emphasizes a digital experience through its AI-driven self-service platform. Features like the Employee Center provide a unified portal where employees can access services, find information, and complete tasks efficiently. Additionally, ServiceNow's Integrated Experience and Service Feedback feature captures real-time feedback across various touchpoints, enabling continuous improvement of the employee experience.

Meanwhile, Workday focuses on delivering personalized experiences that adapt to individual employee needs. Its platform leverages machine learning to provide tailored content, tasks, and recommendations, enhancing engagement and productivity. Workday Journeys guide employees through significant events—such as onboarding or career transitions—by offering customized workflows that align with their roles and preferences.

Furthermore, Workday's integration with collaboration tools ensures that employees can access relevant information within their preferred work environments.

Winner: Workday’s more comprehensive approach to employee experience makes it the winner here.

Reporting And Analytics

ServiceNow's reporting tools are designed to provide immediate insights through its Now Platform. Users can create and modify reports using a guided flow, allowing for easy configuration, previewing, editing, and sharing. The platform supports interactive dashboards with multiple widgets and filters on a single screen, enhancing user engagement.

Additionally, ServiceNow offers natural language query capabilities, enabling users to ask questions in plain language and receive visually relevant results. Administrators have full access to manage reports, roles, and data sources, ensuring data security and integrity throughout the reporting process.

On the other hand, Workday provides an extensive analytics and reporting suite that integrates real-time HR and finance data, delivering critical insights directly within the flow of work. With over 5,000 pre-built, configurable reports, users can create reports that are both detailed and reliable.

Furthermore, Workday allows users to visualize key metrics with the help of 175 pre-built, configurable dashboards. Users can also build their own data visualizations with intuitive drag-and-drop discovery boards that do not require any coding knowledge. Finally, these reports and dashboards can also be viewed on a mobile device, ensuring access anywhere and anytime.

Winner: While ServiceNow excels in offering customizable reporting tools with interactive dashboards, Workday simply provides a lot more in terms of reporting options. Therefore, it wins this category.

Mobile App

ServiceNow's Now Mobile app focuses on providing a unified, cross-departmental experience that simplifies everyday work tasks. Users can submit requests as well as find information all in one place. The app also supports self-help features, consolidated approvals, and AI-powered chatbots for live assistance.

Additionally, it offers customizable branding options, allowing organizations to tailor the app's appearance to match their corporate identity. With low-code development tools, businesses can easily customize and deploy mobile workflows to meet specific needs.

In a similar fashion, Workday's mobile app is designed to provide employees and managers with access to HR and finance tasks on the go. Employees can submit time-off requests, enter time worked, and manage expenses directly from their mobile devices. Managers have the capability to approve requests, view team profiles, and access dashboards for real-time insights.

The app emphasizes security with features like one-time passcodes and ensures data is always up to date through cloud synchronization. Its user-friendly interface and comprehensive functionality make it a valuable tool for organizations aiming to enhance workforce engagement and efficiency.

Winner: Workday’s mobile app offers more features geared towards employees and employers alike, making it the winner here.

Which One To Choose – ServiceNow Or Workday?

At the end of the day, both ServiceNow and Workday offer enterprise-grade solutions that enhance HR operations, but each serves different organizational priorities.

ServiceNow is best suited for companies seeking a powerful platform to streamline service delivery and automate workflows across departments. This makes it a strong fit for IT-driven organizations and enterprises focused on operational efficiency.

Workday, on the other hand, is ideal for businesses looking for an all-in-one HCM suite that combines HR, payroll, talent management, and financial management in a single system. It’s particularly effective for medium to large enterprises in sectors like healthcare, education, and professional services.

Therefore, the right choice depends on your company’s structure and whether your focus lies in workflow automation or unified people management.

With that said, if you are considering more alternatives, try looking into similar software such as Gusto HR Software and ADP Workforce Now.