About the Team
The Incentive Compensation Design team designs innovative, data-driven incentive compensation plans that align performance and pay to Workday's strategic objectives and drive sustainable revenue growth. We lead the global strategy, design, planning, enablement, communication, and analysis of Workday's incentive compensation plans for all GTM functions, including Sales, Services, Support, and Customer Experience roles.

About the Role

As Sales Compensation Policy and Governance Principal, you will play a pivotal role in maintaining the integrity, compliance, and strategic alignment of our global incentive compensation programs. You will serve as the primary owner for the Sales Compensation Plan General Terms and Conditions (T&Cs) and oversee the governance framework for incentive exceptions. To be successful, you will need to partner closely with Legal, Finance, People & Purpose (P&P), and Sales Operations to ensure our policies are consistent, defensible, and reflective of our incentive philosophy.

• Own the Global Policy Framework: Define, maintain, and update the annual Sales Compensation Plan General Terms and Conditions. Ensure all policies remain consistent with Workday's global standards and reflect changes in regional regulations or business strategy.
• Program Manage the Compensation Exception Committee: Lead the end-to-end exception governance process. This includes facilitating review cycles, tracking exception precedents to ensure fairness and consistency, and providing clear reporting on exception trends to leadership.
• Policy Interpretation and Guidance: Serve as the subject matter expert for Sales Leadership and the broader Compensation team regarding policy interpretation, ensuring accurate application of plan documents during disputes or complex deal structures.
• Ensure Compliance and Risk Management: Partner with Legal and Finance to ensure all compensation plans and policies adhere to SOX compliance requirements, local labor laws, and internal audit controls.
• Audit and Precedent Tracking: Maintain a centralized repository of exception precedents, policy decisions, and historical plan adjustments. Use this data to identify gaps in policy and recommend proactive updates.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner with Sales Ops and Systems teams to translate policy changes into actionable requirements for downstream systems (e.g., Xactly) and ensuring policy language aligns with what is executable in our toolstack.
• Strategic Policy Development: Proactively identify areas where policy is ambiguous or outdated. Drive the development of new or updated policies to support emerging business motions, such as new product go-to-market strategies or changes in sales territory models.

VISA Sponsorship is not available for this role.

About You

Basic Qualifications (Required)

• Minimum of 11 years of experience in incentive compensation design, policy development, legal operations, or contract management
• Minimum of 5 years of experience managing complex governance processes, policy lifecycles, or exception committees in a global enterprise technology company

Other Qualifications

• Solid experience in global, enterprise technology companies
• Demonstrate strong ability to partner with cross-functional stakeholders including Legal, Finance, and HR
• Excellent legal/technical writing skills with the ability to translate complex business rules into clear, contractual language
• Analytical mindset with the ability to identify trends in exception data and proactively mitigate issues
• A consistent track record of managing competing priorities and stakeholders with varying viewpoints
• Self-motivated with strong organizational skills and high attention to detail
• Ability to act as an objective mediator when interpreting policies in sensitive compensation disputes

Workday Pay Transparency Statement

The annualized base salary ranges for the primary location and any additional locations are listed below. Workday pay ranges vary based on work location. As a part of the total compensation package, this role may be eligible for the Workday Bonus Plan or a role-specific commission/bonus, as well as annual refresh stock grants. Recruiters can share more detail during the hiring process. Each candidate's compensation offer will be based on multiple factors including, but not limited to, geography, experience, skills, job duties, and business need, among other things. For more information regarding Workday's comprehensive benefits, please click here.

Primary Location: USA.CA.Home Office

Primary Location Base Pay Range: $158,300 USD - $237,500 USD

Additional US Location(s) Base Pay Range: $143,300 USD - $254,500 USD

Our Approach to Flexible Work

With Flex Work, we're combining the best of both worlds: in-person time and remote. Our approach enables our teams to deepen connections, maintain a strong community, and do their best work. We know that flexibility can take shape in many ways, so rather than a number of required days in-office each week, we simply spend at least half (50%) of our time each quarter in the office or in the field with our customers, prospects, and partners (depending on role). This means you'll have the freedom to create a flexible schedule that caters to your business, team, and personal needs, while being intentional to make the most of time spent together. Those in our remote "home office" roles also have the opportunity to come together in our offices for important moments that matter.