HRIS Analyst (Workday)

An HRIS Analyst manages, configures, and optimizes the Workday platform — building reports, supporting end users, troubleshooting data issues, and training employees on the system. Compared to People Analytics (which is about analytical storytelling), this role is weighted toward system administration and support. It sits at the intersection of HR and IT.

This is the most direct translation of hands-on Workday and HRIS skills into a job title, and it's the most technical of the HR-adjacent roles. For someone with genuine Workday configuration and reporting experience, it's often the most frictionless move — because in this field, demonstrated hands-on experience is the currency employers hire on (see the certification note below).

• Configure and maintain Workday: business processes, security groups, org structures
• Build and maintain reports and dashboards (Workday Report Writer, calculated fields)
• Provide end-user support and troubleshoot data and process issues (tier 2/3 support)
• Manage data integrity — audits, mass data loads via EIB
• Support system upgrades and Workday's twice-yearly feature releases, including regression testing
• Train HR staff and employees on system use
• Partner with HR and IT stakeholders to improve workflows

• Workday HCM configuration and Report Writer are the core technical skills. Business-process and security configuration, calculated fields, and EIB data loads are the day-to-day toolkit.
• Data literacy and Excel for reporting, auditing, and data loads
• A troubleshooting mindset — much of the job is diagnosing why a process or integration isn't behaving

A note on Workday certification: Workday's own certification, Workday Pro, is client-side only. It's available exclusively to employees of Workday customer organizations (and to partner consultants through their firms) — students, job seekers, and independent learners cannot enroll or sit the exam on their own.

The practical implication reverses the usual "get certified, then get hired" logic: hands-on Workday skills get you hired first. Third-party courses can teach Workday concepts, and building real skills is what makes candidates competitive. The Pro certification typically comes after, sponsored by the employer once you're inside a Workday-using organization.

So this role is a frictionless move if you already hold genuine hands-on Workday experience. If your Workday exposure is thin, the realistic entry point is a role that gets you inside a Workday shop, after which certification becomes accessible.

National figures are strong and consistent; the local St. Louis picture is thinner and lower, which is central to the remote decision below.

How to read this: the national market for Workday HRIS Analysts sits around $104–109K on average, with remote roles commonly landing in the $85–110K band and widely available. Local-only St. Louis postings run materially lower — which is an argument, not against the role, but in favor of targeting the remote market.

This is the most remote-friendly role of the HR set, and the local/remote pay gap is the largest. Workday administration is inherently location-independent: configuration, reporting, testing, and user support all happen inside the tenant, not in a room. Local St. Louis postings exist (large employers that run Workday HCM), but volume is thinner and pay runs lower. Remote roles are abundant nationally and pay in the $85–110K+ band. For a St. Louis-based candidate, the remote market is usually the stronger target — both for volume and for pay.

St. Louis employers that commonly run Workday HCM (confirm the platform per posting — not every HR-tech opening at these companies is Workday): Centene, BJC HealthCare, Edward Jones, Boeing, Emerson, Mastercard, Anheuser-Busch, Enterprise Mobility, Stifel Financial.

Titles to search — direct matches:

• HRIS Analyst
• Workday HRIS Analyst
• Workday Analyst
• Workday HCM Analyst

Adjacent / same work, different label:

• HRIS Specialist
• HR Systems Analyst / People Systems Analyst
• HR Technology Analyst
• Workday Configuration Analyst
• HRIS Consultant

Growth titles (where this leads):

• Senior HRIS Analyst
• HRIS Manager
• Workday Consultant (partner/implementation track — often the highest-paying path)

Keywords worth searching in the job description field — these often surface the role better than any title filter:

• “Workday configuration”
• “Workday Report Writer”
• “business process configuration”
• “EIB” / “calculated fields”
• “system administration”
• “HRIS support”