Case Study: Panera Bread achieves $1.6M annual savings and faster payroll with Workday

Panera Bread - Customer Case Study

Panera Bread, a national bakery-café chain known for freshly baked goods and community focus, faced the challenge of managing more than 34,000 associates and complex HR and finance processes. The company needed greater scalability, a single system for core HR and finance, improved process visibility, and faster month‑end and payroll operations.

Panera implemented Workday across Human Capital Management, Payroll, Recruiting, Time Tracking, Financial Management, Expenses, and Procurement in a nine‑month deployment. The change delivered $1.6 million in annual savings, more accurate time data, a payroll cycle cut from 4 days to 1.5 days, dramatically faster process times (noted as 2 days versus 6 months), and overall improved visibility and efficiency.

Panera Bread

Courtney Higgins

Director, HR Technology