New Agent Reduces PAR Cycle Times by Up to 60% and Improves Decision Accuracy
New Agent Shifts Time from Paperwork to Mission Work, Strengthening Fiscal Stewardship and Taxpayer Value
WASHINGTON, April 28, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Workday Government (NASDAQ: WDAY), the enterprise AI platform for managing people, finance, and agents, today unveiled a new Personnel Action Request (PAR) Agent. Designed specifically for federal agencies, the PAR Agent modernizes how agencies manage critical HR transactions while keeping missions moving forward and delivering more value for U.S. taxpayers.
PAR Agent will Help Speed Up Hiring, Lower Costs, and Strengthen Mission Delivery
PARs are the backbone of federal HR operations. They capture every agency hire, promotion, reassignment, pay change, and separation, which are then fed into critical systems like payroll and benefits. But for many federal HR teams, the process is prone to human error and still runs on disconnected systems and paper. It takes an average of 22-45 days for routine actions like pay changes and an additional 80-120+ days for hiring and recruitment. This results in delayed hiring, impeded mission delivery, and increased costs for taxpayers through avoidable mistakes and rework.
The PAR Agent tackles these issues head-on by putting automation, checks, and real-time visibility right into the PAR process, while ensuring human oversight at every critical step. Integrated into Workday Government, the PAR Agent uses an unrivaled, clean dataset to automate routine steps, proactively catch errors by validating data against policies, and send alerts to prevent missed deadlines.
"Federal HR leaders are under pressure to fill critical roles, retain top talent, and ensure every personnel action supports mission readiness - yet they are often constrained by legacy, paper?based processes," said Lynn Martin, general manager, Workday Government. "With our PAR Agent, we are helping agencies move beyond manual PAR processing to an integrated, AI?enabled model that improves accuracy, accelerates cycle times, and gives leaders the real?time visibility they need to manage their workforce more effectively."
Transforming Federal HR with Up to 60% Faster PAR Cycle Times
The PAR Agent is designed to make life easier for federal workers, managers, and HR teams. By automating workflows and standardizing inputs, it can reduce PAR processing cycle times by up to 60%, cutting average timelines from 22-45 days to about 9-18 days. That means new hires, promotions, reassignments, and pay changes show up faster in people's jobs and paychecks, while HR spends less time chasing paperwork and more time on higher?value mission work.
Just as importantly, it changes the experience for everyone involved: instead of endless emails asking, "Where is my PAR?", employees, managers, and HR can see real?time status, understand what's happening next, and spend their time serving the mission - not tracking down forms.
Reducing Errors and Strengthening Stewardship to Deliver Greater Value for Taxpayers
The PAR Agent also reduces late and erroneous actions, cuts thousands of manual payroll corrections, and embeds the U.S. Office of Personnel Management's (OPM) requirements into a complete digital record that strengthens audit readiness and preserves data integrity. At scale, the impact of this agent could be significant. A high-volume agency, for example, with 10,000 employees processing around 5,000 PARs monthly could save over 64,000 internal labor hours and an estimated $3.56 million annually*, allowing resources to better steward public funds and deliver more taxpayer value.
This is the latest innovation from Workday Government dedicated to meeting the needs of the public sector. Workday Government is the enterprise AI platform that helps federal agencies modernize by unifying finance, HR, and planning on one platform with real?time visibility into mission-critical data. Powered by Sana, Workday's AI foundation, AI agents work inside federal controls so every action is permission?aware, auditable, and tied to a single source of truth--delivering a better experience for employees and greater value for taxpayers.
The PAR Agent is expected to be available to Workday Government customers in 2027.
*Estimates for the business value for an agency of 10,000 employees based on the PAR volume observed at the Department of Energy (DOE) since go-live.
For More Information
- Learn about the mission of Workday Government here.
About Workday Government
Workday Government is a wholly owned subsidiary of Workday, the enterprise AI platform for managing people, finance, and agents. Workday Government is dedicated to serving the U.S. government by unifying HR and finance on one intelligent platform with AI at the core, empowering agencies at every level with the clarity, confidence, and insights they need to adapt quickly, make better decisions, and deliver on their missions. Workday Government supports a range of agencies across the civilian, defense, and intelligence communities. For more information about Workday Government, visit workday.com/federal. For more information about Workday visit workday.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements including, among other things, statements regarding Workday's plans, beliefs, and expectations. These forward-looking statements are based only on currently available information and our current beliefs, expectations, and assumptions. Because forward-looking statements relate to the future, they are subject to inherent risks, uncertainties, assumptions, and changes in circumstances that are difficult to predict and many of which are outside of our control. If the risks materialize, assumptions prove incorrect, or we experience unexpected changes in circumstances, actual results could differ materially from the results implied by these forward-looking statements, and therefore you should not rely on any forward-looking statements. Risks include, but are not limited to, risks described in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including our most recent report on Form 10-Q or Form 10-K and other reports that we have filed and will file with the SEC from time to time, which could cause actual results to vary from expectations. Workday assumes no obligation to, and does not currently intend to, update any such forward-looking statements after the date of this release, except as required by law. Any unreleased services, features, or functions referenced in this document, our website, or other press releases or public statements that are not currently available are subject to change at Workday's discretion and may not be delivered as planned or at all. Customers who purchase Workday services should make their purchase decisions based upon services, features, and functions that are currently available.
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SOURCE Workday Inc.
