The HR team at Workday, like many companies post-pandemic, has been working to offer employees flexibility in their work location while also meeting the organization's business needs.

However, despite its flexible work model that it rolled out in early 2021—in which employees spend half of their time in the office or at a customer or partner site—employees still wanted more flexibility, says Ashley Goldsmith, chief people officer at Workday. The organization learned about its employees' expectations for flexibility through its weekly pulse survey, Workday Peakon Employee Voice, says Goldsmith.

Workday's HR team got to work examining how the company could offer employees time away from the office while still adhering to its core principles of having its workforce collaborate and connect, which Goldsmith says Workday believes is done best in person.