How a Federal Contractor Doubled Workday ROI With Mando

The Challenge

When a senior HR systems leader at a multi-entity federal contractor returned from a GenAI-for-HR conference, one takeaway stood out: everyone was chasing AI, but almost no one had figured out how to apply it meaningfully inside their org.

“Everyone’s building agents. But the data’s still garbage. Garbage in, garbage out.”

This wasn’t just a philosophical concern — it was a lived frustration. His team supported seven legal entities across the organization. They had already attempted three separate learning initiatives in the past two years. None of them reached more than 18% employee adoption. The team had also trialed two different internal documentation hubs, both of which saw usage plummet after launch.

“People don’t even log into Workday. If only a quarter of your workforce engages, your data isn’t real.”

The team was stuck in a loop: unclear data led to poor decisions, which made new systems harder to trust. Vendors kept pitching big-ticket solutions — including one skills platform with a five-year price tag over $1M — but none of it addressed the core problem: behavior. His team wasn’t refusing to learn; they were overwhelmed, under-resourced, and deeply averse to tools that disrupted their flow.

That’s what made Mando stand out. Instead of demanding users switch tools or sit through training, it met them where they worked. No logins, no learning curve. Just answers.

“That’s what I like about Mando. It doesn’t require a new tab or special setup. You ask your question, get your answer, and keep working.”

From Admin Rabbit Holes to Instant Answers

This wasn’t a massive HRIS team — it was lean by design, supporting a complex, multi-entity setup with fewer than five full-time admins. One of them became an early Mando power user. In her first month, she submitted over 20 high-value queries — ranging from compensation audits to security group troubleshooting — that previously would have taken hours of manual digging.

Before Mando, that same admin routinely lost full afternoons bouncing between SharePoint folders, internal wikis, Reddit threads, and Workday Community. PDFs buried in inboxes. Slack threads with partial answers. The team had become experts in searching — not solving.

Mando changed that dynamic.

“Now she just types two or three words, and it pulls the answer. It even links to the exact page in the Admin Guide.”

The impact wasn’t just cognitive. It was calendrical. That single admin reported saving 5 to 10 hours per week — over 25 hours per month — that used to be spent chasing down routine configuration answers. Multiply that across even a small team, and the math adds up quickly: with three admins using Mando regularly, they’re saving over 60 hours per month, the equivalent of 1.5 full work weeks of regained productivity.

“If I’m in a meeting and need something, I don’t log into Workday. I just paste the question in Mando. It saves me five, six hours a week.”

“It filters the first level of doubt. Even if it doesn’t have everything, it saves us a full day of work.”

Built for Speed

For this team, the key to value wasn’t perfect answers — it was momentum. Mando gave them something they weren’t getting from their training material or from Workday Community: forward progress. No waiting on tickets. No triage queues. No context-switching. Just fast, usable guidance grounded in the Workday system.

“It filters the first level of doubt. You can move without second-guessing yourself. That’s what saves you time — not just answers, but certainty.”

And when Mando doesn’t have the answer? The fallback is still better than baseline: the team gets a near-correct guess, guidance on where to look, or a pointer to a specific page. That alone shortens research time by hours.

The Bigger Picture

Six months into using Mando, the team doesn’t think of it as “AI” — they think of it as infrastructure. It’s not a tool they test; it’s one they trust. It sits alongside Teams, Outlook, and Workday as part of their daily workflow. And because it’s delivering real business outcomes, it’s begun to shift internal resourcing strategy.

“We paid $38,000 last year for a consultant to deploy compensation. This year, I’m training my guy internally for $7,200. That’s the model. Train the team. Make the tools easy. Let them run.”

That’s a $30,800 savings on a single initiative, and it’s enabled by the team's ability to self-serve and move quickly with Mando.

In total, between reduced dependency on external consultants and reclaimed admin time, the organization estimates over $50,000 in hard-dollar savings in under six months. And the soft benefits — faster onboarding, fewer blockers, improved employee confidence — are just as important.

Mando's Long Term Impact

Most AI tools try to automate people out of the loop. Mando does the opposite: it makes the people in the loop faster, sharper, and more confident. For lean HR teams inside complex orgs, that’s not a feature — it’s survival.

They don’t have time to wait on external consultants. They can’t afford to retrain staff on new UI metaphors. They need real answers, inside real workflows, at the speed of real work.

Mando delivered that in less than a month — and changed the way this team operates.