In Workday HCM, the Create Position task is used within the position management staffing model to establish discrete position records that represent headcount within an organization. One of the key fields in this task is Number of Openings, which is often misunderstood. This field does not indicate how many workers can occupy a single position; instead, it determines how many separate position records Workday will create at one time.
When you enter a value greater than one in the Number of Openings field, Workday automatically creates multiple positions with identical attributes. These attributes include job profile, location, time type, supervisory organization, and other position characteristics defined during the Create Position process. This functionality is designed to streamline administrative work when an organization needs several similar positions, such as during large-scale hiring or seasonal staffing initiatives.
Each position created is its own unique position object in the system, with its own position ID, lifecycle, and staffing history, even though the characteristics are the same. This ensures accurate tracking of headcount, budgeting, and reporting while minimizing repetitive data entry.
The field does not allow multiple workers to be placed into the same position, as position management enforces one worker per position at any given time. It also does not create multiple requisitions automatically; requisitions are created through a separate recruiting process. Additionally, it cannot be used to create positions with different characteristics, as all positions generated from a single Create Position event share the same configuration.
Therefore, the correct and Workday-verified purpose of the Number of Openings field is to create multiple positions with the same characteristics efficiently and consistently.
