Workday Acquires Peakon for $700M - Employee Feedback Platform

Workday commenced business operations today with a significant announcement. The company is set to acquire the employee feedback platform, Peakon, for a sum of $700 million in cash.

Recent events have demonstrated that companies require innovative methods to foster stronger relationships with their workforce, and Peakon directly addresses this need. According to Workday co-founder and co-CEO Aneel Bhusri, “The integration of Peakon into Workday will be highly attractive to our clients – particularly in light of the past year’s challenges, which have underscored the critical need for continuous monitoring of employee attitudes to maintain engagement and output.”

Throughout 2020, the lack of in-person interactions presented difficulties for managers in gauging the impact of COVID-19, remote work, and the various challenges of the year on their teams.

However, the value of assessing employee sentiment extends beyond the current crisis. Leaders in larger organizations recognize that as a company grows and becomes more geographically dispersed, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain a comprehensive understanding of internal dynamics. The platform utilizes regular weekly surveys to gather targeted insights about the organization, with customers having posed over 153 million questions through the system since its launch six years ago, emphasizing the importance of reliable data.

Phil Chambers, Peakon’s CEO and co-founder, views Workday as a natural collaborator. “Workday is a leader in assisting clients with data utilization. By combining our strengths, we can help enhance productivity, talent growth, and employee retention, while also streamlining employee interactions with their organizations,” he stated in a Workday blog post detailing the acquisition.

Established in Copenhagen in 2014, Peakon has secured $68 million in funding, as reported by Crunchbase. Its latest funding round, a $35 million Series B, occurred in March 2019. The transaction is anticipated to be finalized before the end of the current quarter, pending standard regulatory approvals.