Outage at HR Platform Workday Locks Millions of Employees Out of Their Account

A widespread Workday outage on the evening of November 13 left employees unable to clock in and out, access their pay information, request time off or file for benefits. The human resources platform said it placed some of its systems into maintenance mode after discovering an issue during testing. The company apologized for the disruption and said it is looking for the best way to fix the problem.

What happened

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the problem left some information inconsistent, and the company said it could cause errors when users try to access their accounts or complete tasks within its system. There was a spike in reports at Downdetector at around 5:19 p.m. Eastern time, though it has tapered off since then. It is not quite clear if the outage affected all of Workday's customers.

Customers affected

Workday said 11,500 organizations around the world use it for various HR tasks. Its clients include Target, Walmart, Charles Schwab, Nasdaq, Netflix and even the US Department of Energy and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Company response

The company has apologized for the disruption and said that it is looking for the best way to fix the problem. It placed its system in maintenance mode after discovering the issue.

Sources: Engadget