Jacqueline Prause, Author at ��Ĵ�ý News Center

Convista Harmonizes Workplace Culture with ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors Employee Central and ��Ĵ�ý S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition

Jacqueline Prause — Wed, 27 Mar 2024 12:15:00 +0000

In a merger between two well-matched organizations, cultural integration can be the key to successfully transforming into a single high-performing entity ready to take on new opportunities. Notably, more than a few high-profile mergers have failed due to cultural incompatibility. Add a third organization into the merger and the cultural complexities increase exponentially. But some multi-organization mergers do successfully navigate these challenges and reap the transformational benefits.

, a consultancy and ��Ĵ�ý partner based in Cologne, Germany, emerged stronger and better positioned to serve its clients following a that brought together three former consultancies: Axxiome Health, ConVista Consulting, and enowa. With 25 years of experience delivering transformation projects to its clients, Convista used that expertise in its own rebranding to present its capabilities to clients and employees: a vibrant people culture as well as a respected and trusted brand supported by for ERP and for core HR.

“Trust and transparency are common values that we share at Convista,” declares Convista CEO Martin Hinz. “Combined with a dynamic team spirit and passion, it’s what we bring to our clients every day.”

With a workforce of around 1,200 employees, Convista has made a name for itself through its dedication and expertise providing end-to-end solutions to clients throughout the world with a presence in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Poland, Spain, Brazil, Israel, and further locations across the globe. It supports client projects primarily in four sectors: insurance, industry, healthcare, and energy/utilities. In recent years, Convista has twice been awarded ��Ĵ�ý in the Financial Services sector.

“At Convista you meet everyone on the same level, independent of your skill level or where you are in your career,” says Stefanie Weber, project lead of People and Culture – HR Systems, Convista. “Also, when we’re working with customers, we try to approach them at eye level, which makes quite a good working environment. The implementation of ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors came as a natural extension to our brand and our culture.”

The Challenges of Data Siloed in Three Systems

Weber says one of the reasons she joined Convista in 2012 while studying business at university was the high priority its leaders place on trust and transparency, values that permeate the entire organization and empower employees in their work and career development. “Trust is one of our main values,” she underscores. “Also, the trust that people are willing to do their best to get motivated and move the company ahead.”

Convista grew quickly both organically and as a result of mergers with other consultancies. In 2019, IT service provider Axxiome Health joined the ConVista Group to deepen the organization’s expertise in the health insurance sector. In 2021, enowa joined the group, infusing its knowledge of industries and insurance. With the mergers complete, the incipient organization became on January 1, 2023.

Though team members were highly motivated to collaborate from the start, Convista’s vision for itself as a modern organization was held back in both its daily work for projects and internal services. Using disparate tools based on older technology and a patchwork of third-party solutions that lacked integration proved to be inefficient and unsuitable as a basis for decision-making.

“Whenever we wanted to have a report, even something as simple as a headcount, we always had to go into three different systems, collect the data, and report on that,” Weber recalls. “It’s just one of the many examples of why we really urgently needed one IT platform.”

Project ONE Achieves Milestone Integration

To build a strong foundation for future growth, Convista embarked on “Project ONE” with the goal to have one digital platform flexible and powerful enough for the entire organization. For this, it chose ��Ĵ�ý S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition and ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors solutions with self-service capabilities for employees to log time-off.

Overall, implementing ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors Employee Central with ��Ĵ�ý S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition can result in streamlined HR processes; end-to-end integration with seamless connectivity between HR and finance functions for accurate and up-to-date employee data across the organization; greater transparency of data for analytics and reporting on workforce trends, costs, and profitability to enable better strategic planning and resource allocation; and compliance with regulatory requirements and data security.

Among the key advantages is the ability for employees to access their own HR-related information, such as personal details and time-off balances. This self-service capability helps empower employees, improve transparency, and enhance the overall employee experience.

Convista’s project team decided for a phased approach to the implementation by first introducing the ��Ĵ�ý solutions in Poland and later in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland – with ��Ĵ�ý S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition planned to launch in the German-speaking countries during the course of 2024. To optimize success, the project team used the combined best practices of Convista and ��Ĵ�ý and hosted regular meetings that provided clear communication to steer the project. “We were always aligned on the requirements of the other teams,” says Weber, who managed the HR workstream. “We all knew the main goal of the implementation. This was helpful for everyone on the project.”

In-house experts from Convista certified on ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors solutions contributed valuable knowledge for the implementation. Consultants from ��Ĵ�ý Services and Support successfully integrated the cost center replication from ��Ĵ�ý S/4HANA Cloud to ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors and the workforce replication from ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors to ��Ĵ�ý S/4HANA Cloud, and delivered a detailed administration guide on the integration setup for Convista. Additionally, they provided an overview, the architecture guidance, and the navigation through major hurdles in performing the configuration to set up identity access governence (IAG), identity provisioning service (IPS), and identity authentication services (IAS). The ��Ĵ�ý Early Adopter Care program supported Convista for the master data integration (MDI) during the implementation and helped to solve all roadblocks efficiently.

On January 1, 2023, Convista’s 80-person team in Poland was the first to go live with the new ��Ĵ�ý solutions. “It was really a great experience for them and quite an advancement,” says Weber, citing the benefits of the new solutions that provide optimizations and intuitive workflows. The project took a pivotal turn on January 1, 2024, with the launch of ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors solutions for Convista’s 800 employees in the German-speaking countries.

“The biggest milestone was to have [��Ĵ�ý S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition and ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors Employee Central] speaking with each other,” says Weber, who emphasizes how valuable it is for the team “to have an end-to-end process within one platform.” With an integrated IT platform in place, she says that it is no longer necessary to do workflows, authorizations, or any other processes in other systems.

The seamless synchronization of data by using a common data model for ��Ĵ�ý business applications helps reduce the need for manual data entry and redundant processes. This means, for example, employee data that is maintained in ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors Employee Central is available in real-time in ��Ĵ�ý S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition; while master data, like cost center data, flows seamlessly from ��Ĵ�ý S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition to ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors Employee Central. Eliminating data silos enables the HR and finance teams to work with consistent, accurate data for all-important employment decisions and legal reporting obligations.

Now Convista’s team is unified in its brand, values, spirit – and employee data.

More Transparency and Intuitive Workflows Are Just the Beginning

Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, according to Weber, with employees speaking favorably about the improved transparency and workflows. “The first thing I heard from everyone was, well, this is simple and intuitive. They were so happy about it,” she says. “They are big fans of the mobile application. They find it very transparent and easy to use.”

For some colleagues, the new solution lets them view their own data for the first time. “When we went live, everyone was viewing their profile,” says Weber. “This was also quite new that you are able to see what data is maintained for your person, your address, but also job information – to view it and have this transparency. People like this very much and also the ability to have the self-services in ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors.”

To strengthen communication between HR and employees, Convista will bring more people processes onto the new digital platform. In fact, the team very recently implemented the ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors Performance & Goals solution for annual employee appraisals, goal setting, and project feedback. “It’s just the beginning,” Weber says. “There’s still a lot of work ahead of us.”

Hinz says, “We have been careful to preserve our workplace culture during the transformation. Now that we are rebranded as one organization, we are seeing the benefits of that early effort. With ��Ĵ�ý, we now have the digital platform to build people-centered processes that advance our vision as a unified, high-performing organization serving our clients.”

Find out more about .

Jacqueline Prause is a journalist at ��Ĵ�ý.

Sales Performance Management: Empowering Sales Teams for Better Outcomes

Jacqueline Prause — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 14:15:00 +0000

In today’s dynamic business environment, organizations need highly efficient sales teams to generate revenue and stay ahead of the competition. But while advances in AI-powered tools have accelerated the sales process, they have also increased the value of soft skills and the relationship-building acumen that talented salespeople bring to their jobs. That’s why savvy organizations are more committed than ever to keeping their sales teams engaged and productive.

High-performing sales teams are using solutions from ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors to manage and optimize sales compensation and incentives – rewarding sales reps for their performance – while streamlining sales processes and using real-time insights to improve operational efficiency and drive revenue.

“There’s this renewed emphasis on efficiency,” said Rahul Iyer, general manager, Sales Performance Management, ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors, speaking to ��Ĵ�ý customers at the , held February 13-14, 2024, in Dallas, Texas. “Customers want faster, simpler outcomes – and they want to provide a great seller experience, as well. At ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors, we’ve threaded the intelligence of connected cloud applications throughout the SPM solution portfolio. This allows us to deliver the efficiency, transparency, and rich experience of ��Ĵ�ý in a comprehensive platform that covers a full range of end-to-end processes in sales compensation.”

Together for Success

Under the banner “Together we can make it better,” the summit event provided a venue for ��Ĵ�ý customers – some of whom came from as far away as South America – to meet one-on-one with experts and gain valuable knowledge from product road maps, demos, and deep dive sessions, as well as learn from one another’s experiences in customer sessions.

Iyer affirmed ��’s commitment to deliver the advanced innovations customers need to be competitive: “As a strategic partner to our customers, we have the moral responsibility to help them receive progressively more out of technology innovations, while accelerating with the best-in-class capabilities ��Ĵ�ý has to offer. We are simplifying from every angle to make it easy for our customers to adopt, so they can achieve business outcomes faster.”

Barbara Rubis Linning, ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors global vice president, Product and Engineering, presented the latest innovations and features across the sales performance management solution set, which includes , , , and . With features like territory planning and incentive compensation, ��Ĵ�ý sales performance management solutions enable organizations to optimize their sales performance for better business results. The solutions use advanced features – for tasks such as drive time analysis and mapping to optimize territories – to streamline processes and make workflows easier so that customers realize value faster. The ongoing introduction of the visual theme on key administrative pages delivers a fresh, modern user interface (UI) for an elevated user experience.

“We want our customers to have winning sales teams,” said Linning. “Their success is why we continuously look for new ways to build innovations and relevant features into the portfolio to accelerate business outcomes. ��Ĵ�ý is building intelligence that is relevant, responsible, and reliable because we believe it leads to smarter, data-driven decision making and results in better sales performance. Our new intuitive UI helps simplify tasks and puts people at the center of business for improved productivity.”

��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors solutions deliver , ��’s natural language processing AI copilot, to help people be more productive in their jobs using ��Ĵ�ý business solutions.

The integration of sales performance management solutions with and ��Ĵ�ý Datasphere enables seamless access to real-time data and analytics, empowering organizations to make informed decisions and drive sales success.

Winning with Sales Compensation

As the all-important link between an organization’s products and services and its customers, the sales team is a principal driver of bottom-line growth for the whole organization. Correctly incenting sales teams requires the use of proven strategies and solutions to align the pay program with organizational goals, said David Cichelli, revenue growth advisor at , who presented “Leading the Sales Design Compensation Project.”

He advised sales compensation leaders adopt an annual review process that includes assessment, strategic alignment, taskforce design, and comprehensive communication phases. “Sales compensation design needs to reflect the consensus of key stakeholders: sales, finance, product management, and HR,” he said. “By following a proven design process, you can develop a strategically aligned, effective, and motivational pay program.”

Supporting Customer Success for Better Outcomes

The summit showcased the ��Ĵ�ý ecosystem with sponsorships and informative sessions from , , , , , and .

��Ĵ�ý experts highlighted ��’s message of ongoing support for customer success: “We’re here for you,” said Tak Kusano, global chief operating officer of ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors. “��Ĵ�ý has a tight-knit community of sales performance management experts that bring deep domain knowledge to this niche space. That’s why we’re able to work so closely with customers to gain consensus on the road map and product innovations, like AI. We’re passionate about bringing the best of technology to ��Ĵ�ý customers.”

Eastman Energizes HR Reporting to Deliver One-Stop Insights to Leaders

Jacqueline Prause — Mon, 22 Jan 2024 13:15:00 +0000

In an ever-changing world, businesses require data-driven, real-time insights from HR reporting and analytics to make informed decisions that affect their workforce. But many HR teams still rely on older technology and struggle to fulfill demands for reports that encompass an increasing volume of metrics and data. The time they spend gathering, extracting, and transforming data across a patchwork of tools and spreadsheets detracts from other urgent tasks. Despite their efforts, the resultant reports are limited in usefulness by past data and often contain inconsistencies that require additional time to resolve.

Global specialty materials company overcame its HR reporting challenges by implementing story reports in ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors solutions, making its reporting easier and more efficient. For example, a standard talent report – once a labor-intensive task that took several days of precious time – is now generated in under two hours complete with detailed graphics that are continuously updated with live data. Indeed, an ��Ĵ�ý found that with the analytics tools available in ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors solutions, customers reported a 74% decrease in time spent on report generation, saving days and even weeks on HR reporting.

“The ability to give our [HR] information to leaders as they need it is huge,” says Nina Nabors, manager of Talent Systems, Eastman. She summarizes the transformation in improvement over past reporting methods. “Before, it was lagging data. It was never data that was live. Having that benefit of building the story report in ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors and it continuously updating with the latest information is very nice.”

Based in Tennessee, U.S., Eastman Chemical Company was founded in 1920 as a subsidiary of Eastman Kodak. It has a workforce of 14,000 employees in 15 countries. Energized in its purpose to “enhance the quality of life in a material way,” Eastman engages with customers in 100 countries to deliver innovative materials found in items people use every day, including safe, durable medical materials; premium plastics for eyewear frames and lenses; food and beverage packaging; sustainable fibers for luxury home furnishings; and energy-efficient window glass for the construction industry, among others.

Cloud HR Delivers Sustainable Value with Exceptional Employee Experience

To future-proof its workforce, Eastman set itself up for success by moving to the cloud with ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors solutions. Eastman was already using an on-premise human capital management (HCM) solution from ��Ĵ�ý, but wanted the scalability and cost-effectiveness of a cloud-based HR solution. “Delivering [HR] services in the cloud gives us an opportunity to make the technology available to our employees in a way that is more sustainable than having it housed on our servers,” says Nabors.

Prachi Sathe, director of Global HR Technology and Solutions, Eastman, underscores the value of receiving the latest innovations and new features with each biannual ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors release update. “We also wanted to make sure our HR platform is sustainable in terms of how we support it, how we grow it, and how we make more functions available to our employees. Going to ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors just made sense for us,” she says.

Eastman uses a range of solutions in – including ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors Employee Central and modules for recruiting, learning, compensation, variable pay, performance and goals, career development planning, and succession – to help harness the efficiency of end-to-end integration and provide an exceptional experience throughout the employee journey from hire to retire.

The ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors Recruiting solution, for example, is a key driver of Eastman’s talent strategy. “That’s how we bring our new talent into the organization. That’s really their first introduction to our tools,” says Nabors. “We’re bringing great talent into the organization. How we do it is very important, and ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors is a part of that.”

Accelerating Efficiency with Real-Time Analytics

Eastman needed a streamlined approach to HR reporting that accelerated efficiency and optimized value by fully using the analytics and data in ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors solutions. “We were using separate tools outside of ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors solutions to pull our reporting together,” recalls Sathe. “The challenges with that [were figuring out] how we get data out of ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors solutions and feed it into those reporting tools.”

Eastman’s customer success partner for the plan identified ��Ĵ�ý resources to help Eastman increase value from its use of ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors People Analytics. Eastman also joined a hands-on lab session at SuccessConnect 2022 to gain experience working with story reports, a tool available in the report center of ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors solutions. Story reports can deliver real-time data analytics and generate reports faster by using live data from across ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors HXM Suite, displaying presentation-style reports in a clear format with detailed visual graphics that communicate insights in an understandable way. As Sathe notes, “When we saw [story reports], it was so motivating for us that data is already there and tools are there. We came back and started working on our first dashboard.”

“We’re so happy Eastman joined us at SuccessConnect,” says Maryann Abbajay, chief revenue officer, ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors. “Hands-on lab sessions like the one Eastman participated in are invaluable learning experiences. Eastman is a great example of how customers are applying that new knowledge to unlock value with ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors. With story reports, they are already able to deliver the type of data-driven insights that transform HR into a strategic partner for the business.”

Data-Driven Insights That Advance People Strategy

Eastman began working with a manager dashboard, one of the many time-saving templates preloaded in story reports, and later built its own version tailored to the information requirements of its organizational leaders, supervisors, and people managers. The HR team also developed custom objects to use in its story reports, including an organizational hierarchy table with extensive drilldown capabilities and a currency exchange table to help executives track international labor costs. The story reports, customized with the look and feel of Eastman’s branding, quickly gained broad acceptance with Eastman’s organizational leaders.

The HR team recently built a dashboard showing a holistic view to help leaders identify opportunities to advance the organization’s people strategy. This dashboard uses data from ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors Employee Central and will later be augmented with data from the recruiting and learning solutions. A talent dashboard is also forthcoming to Eastman’s HR community, which includes talent partners and leaders. Sathe notes, “By creating the stories, as its name says, we are bringing various data sources together.”

Michael Glenn, talent assessment and analytics manager, Eastman, is building a new learning dashboard that will go out to all learning administrators and supervisors to enable them to see how many people are overdue on their learnings and what learnings are coming up in the next 30 days – and how many hours are required to complete the learning sessions. This information is especially important for production teams that work on fixed schedules, as it enables managers to plan the learning hours into the employee’s schedule.

To ensure the reports provide the right level of information to each recipient based on their role, Glenn intends to use the role-based access permissions available in story reports. So far, he is impressed with the feature, which saves him time from performing manual activities and distribution list maintenance. “We’ve been testing out role-based permissions and it is just working great,” he says.

Empowering HR Administrators with User-Friendly Solutions for Improved Productivity

Nabors says that though she has no background or training in analytics, she found that she was able to get up to speed with stories very quickly. She recalls previously spending several days to build a single report that integrated data from ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors Employee Central and ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors Recruiting. In stories, she is now able to generate the same report in just one to two hours.

Also, troubleshooting and addressing gaps in data is much easier. “If there’s an error somewhere – for example, requisition data that shows up under the wrong person’s name – being able to see it in a story is very easy,” she says. “It’s easy to address that error quickly because you can go right to the error without having to dig through lines and lines of data, rows and columns of data.”

Better Analytics for Faster Decision-Making

Eastman plans to build on its early success with story reports to drive more insights for the organization. For example, there are plans to integrate data to track progress towards Eastman’s ambitious inclusion and diversity , which include increasing diverse talent and supporting employees in bringing their whole selves to work. Real-time information from ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors solutions supports organizational leaders in advancing Eastman’s strategy to build a high-performing organization.

“We really believe in sustainability and sustainable outcomes,” says Sathe. “We want our employees to be self-service reporting employees and create better analytics that give them information versus data. What we were doing previously was giving them data. Story reports transformed this.”

For more information, read “.”

Coles Reimagines Volume Hiring with AI and Automation

Jacqueline Prause — Fri, 01 Dec 2023 13:15:00 +0000

, one of Australia’s most trusted and iconic brands, is steadfast in delivering on its purpose to help Australians eat and live better every day. Through its core business as a full-service supermarket retailer, Coles engages with millions of customers every week in its 860 supermarkets throughout Australia. The group’s other areas of business include its Click & Collect online platform, network of liquor stores, and financial services with nearly 1,000 additional retail outlets.

Guided by the organization’s clear , Coles’ team of 120,000 employees is dedicated to making a difference in the lives of customers and the local communities it serves.

In fiscal year 2020/21, Coles Group hired nearly 30,000 people to deliver on its business needs. Mike Virgo, head of Talent Acquisition for Coles Group, said this hiring volume was necessary to make sure the company was “positioned well to support our customers.”

The business environment, however, dramatically shifted as the public health crisis of the pandemic unfolded, resulting in repeated lockdowns and restrictions. As a neighborhood retailer dependent on in-person interaction to deliver most of its services, Coles found its workforce impacted by the pandemic. Faced with supply chain disruptions, panic buying behaviors by consumers, high employee absenteeism, and increased turnover, Coles urgently needed to step up its volume and pace of hiring to support its customers.

“Around 2020-2021, we started to experience one of the most significant shifts in the employment market we’d ever seen,” Virgo said in a at . “It started to create huge challenges for organizations around the world – around how we attract, retain, and hire talent.”

Catalyst for Change and a New Way of Working

To meet pressing business demands, Coles doubled its hiring volume from 30,000 to 60,000 people and increased recruitment advertising spend by a factor of three. Its talent acquisition team grew proportionally to manage the increased workload – but then labored under manual transactional activities that slowed processing times. As a result of the huge strain, variability in the candidate and hiring manager experience became noticeable.

Due to the volume of work, Coles looked for ways to evolve its system to create more speed, efficiency, and scalability. With a list of criteria, Coles began to review technology solutions on the market to find one that could support its vision for a new way of working. “We wanted to reimagine how we recruit for our stores,” Virgo said. “We needed automation and AI to remove a lot of the manual work in our systems. We wanted to create more consistency and uplift the experiences we were giving our candidates and our hiring managers. And ultimately, [the solution] needed to drive commercial benefit for us.”

As a key requirement, the new solution needed to integrate with . In 2020, as part of an organization-wide digital transformation that introduced ��Ĵ�ý S/4HANA and ��Ĵ�ý Ariba solutions, Coles modernized its HR and payroll processing, replacing a patchwork of outdated systems with ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors solutions. It became the first organization in the southern hemisphere to launch all modules of the ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors portfolio in one go. With all HR processes unified on a single platform, Coles benefits from having a single source of truth for people data that is accurate and available in real time for the entire organization.

Two-Way Integration Ensures Single Source of Truth in Data

To help with the project, Coles chose , an ��Ĵ�ý partner whose AI-powered Intelligent Talent Experience platform provides two-way integration with ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors solutions. Virgo said the two-way integration “allows us to have a holistic view of the candidates that progress through the process, no matter whether the team is operating in Phenom or ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors, and it allows ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors to be our single source of truth.”

There are several key benefits of Phenom’s solution at Coles. One is candidate attraction and engagement, which is achieved primarily through the Coles career site and chatbot. Another is recruiter automation and interview management, which provides automation and process efficiencies from when a job requisition is created in ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors solutions and replicated into Phenom until a hiring manager chooses a candidate for the job. Once a candidate is chosen, the two-way integration enables the HR team to access the data in ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors solutions and complete all compliance aspects, such as working rights, contract generation, and onboarding.

The Coles team gains additional efficiencies in its onboarding programs through the application of robotic process automation (RPA) powered by two bots that work in the background: Ashbotty processes the working rights and Usain Bot processes onboarding and manages pending recruits. “They take a lot of the transactional, manual work that we used to have team members doing. It can do that quickly, accurately, and it can do that 24/7 – which is particularly important for us as a seven-days-a-week business,” Virgo said.

AI-Powered Experiences for Candidates and Recruiters

Coles reimagined the candidate experience to launch a modern, tech-enabled career site – which has been chosen as a two-time winner of Australia’s Best Careers Site. The site includes an AI-powered chatbot to guide candidates as they look for information, search relevant job postings, and submit their applications. It also includes Coles’ Expression of Interest, always-on advertising that drives the growth of its talent pool and advances its talent marketing by reducing the need to advertise every role. A Hosted Apply process, facilitated by integrations with Phenom, presents a consistent candidate experience and increases the conversion rate on applications.

Phenom AI Scheduling, a key part of Coles’ hiring experience, enables candidates to book themselves an available interview slot and automates the coordination of hiring team calendars. The new solution provides a fully mobile-enabled experience to meet the demands of candidates for an omni-channel, real-time experience where they can learn, read, and apply for jobs where and when they want.

Inundated by nearly 1 million applications each year to review, Coles also took steps to elevate the recruiter experience and increase the speed and accuracy of candidate screening and job matching. It implemented Phenom Fit Score, an AI-powered feature that assesses a candidate’s suitability for an open role, based on location and optimal travel distances, availability, and working rights; then, assigns a fit score and surfaces the most closely matched candidates to the recruiters. In addition, the new solution empowers in-store managers to collaborate with recruiters to review candidates and make quick hiring decisions with confidence.

Talent Pools Grow with Improvements to Hiring Speed and Efficiency

With the new augmented solution, Coles is experiencing tangible benefits across multiple categories and key metrics for success: time-to-fill is down six days; time-to-hire is down two days, which is impressive considering candidates can book the in-store interview up to two weeks in advance; and advertising spend is down 50%.

Most notably for Coles as a people-centric organization is the development of its talent pool, now numbering 2 million potential candidates. It achieves an 85% application conversion rate on up to 1 million applications per year. Through its to be a safe, inclusive, and diverse workplace, Coles has applied the new solution to provide greater accessibility for more diverse candidates, resulting in an increase of 24% more hiring for people who identify as having a disability.

Virgo said that the talent acquisition team will continue to evolve its solution and assess more opportunities for AI and automation to bring value to the recruitment process. Although these technologies are not cure-alls for every recruitment scenario, they can save recruiting teams precious time and resources to focus on more high-touch interactions further down the recruiting funnel. In sharing lessons learned, Virgo noted, “I think the important call out is the level of automation you can inject in your process will likely diminish as the seniority, complexity, and requirements of your roles increase because they are likely to be more high touch, perhaps need more interpretation or judgment calls from your recruiters to identify who the right talent is for your organization.”

Watch on demand.

��Ĵ�ý Success Stories: Underway in the Amazon with the Hospital Boat

Jacqueline Prause — Fri, 27 Oct 2023 11:15:00 +0000

In the quiet darkness of the Amazon night, a broad boat deftly navigates a tributary of the Madeira River, making its way towards a tiny village of wooden houses and thatched shelters nestled on the shoreline. But the boat’s approach does not take the village by surprise. As it nears the riverbank, the cheers of children excitedly herald its arrival: “The doctors are here! The doctors are here!”

And so begins a new day of service for Ana Khouri, manager for Partner Delivery Management of ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors solutions. Khouri was a member of the 2023 expedition of (Doctors of the Waters), a non-governmental organization (NGO) in Brazil that provides medical and dental care, alongside essential socioenvironmental education, to the isolated communities of the Amazon River Basin. “We had such a welcome,” Khouri says, reflecting on her experiences in the villages the expedition visited along the Acari and Canumã rivers from July 31 to August 12. “We arrived there at night. The boat had not yet docked and everything was dark, and then all these kids were already at the edge waiting for the boat. They were screaming and cheering. It made me kind of emotional.”

Healthcare for Isolated Communities

For these communities, the annual visit of Doutores das Águas, now in its twelfth year, is often the only occasion people are able to see a doctor. Their villages are so remote that they would otherwise need to travel many days by boat just to reach the nearest health center. Many have been looking forward to the NGO’s visit. Beforehand, families receive a password to access the services onboard the boat, which include health checks, vaccinations, vital medicines, dental care, and new dentures.

Doutores das Águas sends one expedition per year into the Amazon, divided into two successive stages with each taking either a northern or southern route. Khouri’s expedition traveled south, navigating the Acari and Canumã rivers for 12 days to deliver services to six villages. The boat, 21 meters long and seven meters wide, has sleeping berths for 32 team members plus 12 crew members. It travels at an average speed of 15 kilometer per hour, powered by a 300 HP propulsion engine and has capacity to carry 13,000 liters of fuel, enough to last an entire month. Two generators are also onboard. Built specially for Doutores das Águas, it is equipped with modern medical equipment, including an ultrasound machine, four dental chairs and a dental lab, and a portable wash basin for lessons on teeth brushing. It carries enough stockpiles of vaccines and medicines to support communities for one year, until the boat’s next visit.

In 2023, the expedition provided services to 36 communities in 23 days to deliver 2,081 medical treatments or vaccines and perform 1,890 dental treatments and 62 micro-surgeries. And the onboard dental lab produced 265 dental prostheses or dentures, giving many people their smiles back.

Hidden Skill Set Reveals Passion for Healthcare

In the Amazon, even winters are intense, as daily temperatures reach 37 degrees Celsius with high humidity and frequent rain. The shrill buzz of mosquitos is ever present. Creatures of the rainforest move about invisibly, eager for a free pantleg or untucked shirt to crawl into.

For Khouri, who joined ��Ĵ�ý in 1999, life on the hospital boat is a long distance from her workspace at ��Ĵ�ý Brazil in Rio de Janeiro, where she ensures that partners have the enablement tools and support that they need to deliver successfully to customers. Her energetic, affable interpersonal skills and tenacity for problem-solving – the same qualities that help her succeed in her work at ��Ĵ�ý – enable her to thrive in dynamic environments.

But there is another side to Khouri that few colleagues know about. She has a background in nutrition with a master’s degree from Michigan State University. This hidden skill set, which is an integral part of Khouri’s whole self, qualified her to join the expedition as a socioenvironmental and nutritional health expert. “I always liked the healthcare field,” she says. “So, to be there and to be able to provide this benefit to these people and to be part of the team, that’s my motivation. We are giving the people healthcare.”

Learning by Doing for Health and Hygiene

In the early morning, villagers gather to listen to the doctor, dentist, and the socioenvironmental and nutrition team, who discuss the importance of nutrition and hygiene for long-term health. Afterwards, the adults go to the line to be called in for treatment. “We stay with the kids and teenagers. We play games about food, nutrition, garbage disposal, and recycling,” Khouri says. This year, 750 children received instruction in socioenvironmental and nutritional activities.

One game is a competition to see which team can collect the most garbage in a big bag. “The kids are all running, and we run after them, in this intensive heat,” Khouri says. A prize is awarded for the most garbage collected. There are lots of batteries and plastic drink bottles. “This is one exercise we do to tell them they shouldn’t just throw things on the ground because it’s going to be washed away to the river.”

Twice a day, the children receive instruction on how to brush their teeth. They each receive a dental examination aboard the hospital boat. “We teach them with games and music how to brush their teeth,” Khouri says. “In the boat, we bring a huge sink with eight places so we can have eight kids at once and we give them a small toothbrush and toothpaste.”

Children who have no cavities at their annual dental checkup receive a badge. In communities where the boat has visited previously, the number of children with no cavities is increasing – evidence of the NGO’s impact on healthcare in the region. “We have lots of little kids, 5 years old or 6 to 7. They have the badge ‘Zero Cavities,’” Khouri says. “We also teach them how to wash their hands and to always wash their hands before they eat.”

“The kids somehow get attached to you,” Khouri says. “They don’t know you, but then at the end of the day, sometimes you sit quietly somewhere to have a break and they come and hug you. They stay with you. This is something that touched me.”

Tapping Natural Resources to Satisfy Global Markets

People in the communities along the river live simply from the land and the water. They sometimes sell the fruits, cashew nuts, and mandioca (basis of tapioca) that they cultivate. Many have begun to earn money by selling copaiba oil, used in traditional medicines. The oil is extracted using traditional, sustainable methods to tap tree resin. The oil is popular in high-end cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, including sunscreen, because of its anti-inflammatory properties. “Some of the communities extract the oil,” Khouri says. “Unfortunately, they sell it very cheap to the middleman, who sells it to cosmetics companies for a lot of money.”

The NGOs that work in the region, including Doutores das Águas, are encouraging the communities to create a cooperative so they can sell copaiba oil directly and receive more money, because the oil “is really cheap and it is very ‘in’ at the moment,” Khouri explains.

One Boat Is Not Enough

Khouri wants to participate in the next expedition of Doutores das Águas, scheduled for April 2024. Also, the communities change over time, as she notes, “Some of the communities disappear. They are so small that they migrate.” One community has become more developed since becoming connected to the region’s main road, making healthcare more accessible to community members.

“What I expect for the future of these communities is that they get more access to healthcare, improve hygiene, and take care of the river by adopting the garbage collection practice that we teach them,” says Khouri. “I would like people to know that this issue exists and that the need in the Amazon is huge. One boat is not enough.”

Watch on demand.

Top photo courtesy of Ana Khouri

��Ĵ�ý Customers Realize the Power of Connected Cloud HR and ERP

Jacqueline Prause — Fri, 20 Oct 2023 11:15:00 +0000

��Ĵ�ý customers are unlocking strategic value across the organization by using a single cloud platform to connect HR, run on solutions, with finance and other business operations that use . In various industries, large and midsized organizations alike are discovering the power of having a common people and skills data model that is used across the entire organization. The combined effectiveness of ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors solutions and ��Ĵ�ý S/4HANA Cloud is moving leading brands to new levels of strategic insight and organizational agility.

With this integrated approach, real-time people data from the ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors Employee Central solution is automatically consumed by ��Ĵ�ý S/4HANA Cloud and other ��Ĵ�ý cloud applications. This “single source of truth” helps to improve end-to-end business processes, experiences, and insights for the organization. Learn more in this ��Ĵ�ý Community .

Maryann Abbajay, chief revenue officer at ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors, spoke with some of these customers at to find out how they are leveraging the combined power of ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors solutions and ��Ĵ�ý S/4HANA Cloud to overcome business challenges and grow their organizations with people at the center of business. “These organizations show how HR and finance come together to enable business transformation while keeping employee experience at the center,” she underscored.

Pandora Becomes a Future-Ready Organization

Connecting people in the moments that matter is at the heart of , the world’s largest jewelry brand. Based in Copenhagen, Denmark, Pandora employs 32,000 people worldwide. With 6,500 points of sale, including 2,500 concept stores, Pandora depends on the experience of its brick-and-mortar stores, which account for the majority of its sales.

Three years ago, Pandora began its transformation from an analog retailer to a future-ready organization. It set out to strengthen and harmonize the global HR system landscape with an implementation of ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors solutions to gain efficiency in how the company hires, manages, and develops employees worldwide, thus replacing a multitude of local applications.

“We used the ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors portfolio as a driver of transformation,” said Mihael Šutalo, vice president of People Technology, Pandora. “This is transforming the experience. The future integration of ��Ĵ�ý S/4HANA Cloud with ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors solutions will give us a tremendous opportunity to manage our workforce and manage our revenue model in a completely different way.”

BT Group Connects People for Good

, the world’s oldest telecommunications company, recently modernized its HR information systems to provide a digital colleague experience for its 100,000 employees working in 44 countries. “In 2021, we started what we call our I-Connect program,” said Elaine Bergin, director of Colleague Experience and Delivery, BT Group. The program name highlights BT Group’s purpose: “We connect for good.”

The new colleague experience, launched in 2022, now uses the ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors Employee Central solution, reporting and analytics, and the full suite of talent and learning management solutions to support the organization’s big focus on skills. BT Group also uses ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors and ��Ĵ�ý Fieldglass solutions to manage a contingent workforce of 60,000 additional employees.

Bergin said, “Through our ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors journey, we’re in a great place with a single master source of truth on our colleague and contingent workforce data – and our organizational hierarchy.”

Brightspeed Manages Rapid Growth and Contingent Workforce

is a telecommunications company that provides affordable, quality internet in rural areas of the U.S. Since it started in 2022 with 30 permanent employees, Brightspeed has grown exponentially through acquisition. Today, it has 4,200 employees using ��Ĵ�ý solutions and a sizable contingent workforce. To manage growth, Brightspeed implemented ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors solutions, ��Ĵ�ý Fieldglass solutions, and ��Ĵ�ý S/4HANA Cloud.

Greg Williams, director of Human Resources Information Systems, Brightspeed, summarized the value of an integrated approach for the organization: “Finance is up and running on ��Ĵ�ý S/4HANA and with ��Ĵ�ý Fieldglass solutions. We import that data into ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors Learning, so our contractors can train on compliance and technical training. The ��Ĵ�ý S/4HANA data is integrated into , which is our time system. We capture millions of dollars of project costs. Those are sent back to ��Ĵ�ý S/4HANA on a pay-for-period basis.”

Versuni Gains Agility with HXM and Connected Cloud ERP

, formerly known as Philipps Domestic Appliances, is a consumer products company with the purpose to help people turn their houses into homes. It took the unique opportunity of reinventing itself as an independent company to transform its entire technology landscape. To succeed in a dynamic, consumer marketplace, it had to adopt best-of-suite applications that power advanced, digital-first consumer goods organizations.

By connecting ��Ĵ�ý S/4HANA Cloud to ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors solutions, Versuni has achieved three key benefits: a seamless user journey based on a single source of truth across the entire landscape; increased visibility achieved from the integration with other systems, especially finance; and improved reporting, which is leading to better decision-making. Lokesh Rastogi, IT platform leader for Finance and HR at Versuni, summarized: “It’s one source of truth, one system, and one number.”

��ٱ�é Creates Engaging People Experiences at Scale

, one of the world’s largest food and beverage companies, is using RISE with ��Ĵ�ý to help advance its digital transformation. With 275,000 employees in 188 countries, ��ٱ�é focused on the modernization of its HR systems. ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors solutions now enable it to standardize and automate HR processes and provide a personalized employee experience from recruitment to retirement. ��ٱ�é plans to continue its journey to migrate its entire business operations to with finance and procurement already live. To learn more, watch this .

Giancarlo Pala, head of IT/HR, ��ٱ�é S.A., said, “��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors is our people backbone. It provides the common processes, systems, and data that let us create engaging people experiences at scale.”

Accelerating Business Performance

��Ĵ�ý customers are experiencing firsthand the value of having HR and finance connected on a single cloud platform to help improve speed, accuracy, and insights. This integration can extend beyond the data to connect business processes and employee experiences across all business areas. To find out more about the benefits of connected cloud HR and ERP, watch on demand.

Igniting Workforce Potential with the New ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors AI Innovations

Jacqueline Prause — Tue, 10 Oct 2023 17:30:00 +0000

The intense competition for skills is compelling organizations to modernize their talent strategy. A future-ready workforce needs new skills and faster adaptability to keep pace with innovation and thrive in a rapidly changing world. HR leaders – as the organization’s champions of people development and culture – are at the forefront of a revolution in employee learning, growth, and skill development. That revolution is being driven by advancements in artificial intelligence (AI).

AI will truly inspire and transform the way people work and how organizations unlock individual and collective potential.

To advance this transformation, ��Ĵ�ý announced new capabilities at its SuccessConnect event that harness the power of AI to help organizations address the skills gap and ignite the potential within their workforces. These capabilities are embedded across the entire to help elevate the employee experience and guide every people decision, from talent recruitment and internal mobility to learning and performance management.

“The richest source of potential in your organization is your workforce, all that they are today and all that they can be in the future,” said Aaron Green, ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors chief marketing and solutions officer, speaking to the global HR community at SuccessConnect, held last week in Las Vegas, Nevada. “This is an opportunity for us to embrace AI to augment the way that people work and that’s how we ignite their potential. This allows us to maximize the skills within our workforces.”

Putting People at the Center of Business

Human experience management, an HR software category pioneered by ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors, puts people at the center of business with tools and technologies that help improve the employee experience and drive business results.

The ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors 2H 2023 release will include the general availability of new AI capabilities that can ignite potential in the workforce by raising employee productivity, increasing efficiency, and opening opportunities for growth and development. Joule, recently announced by ��Ĵ�ý, is a natural-language, generative AI copilot that can truly understand business. Joule helps make it easier and faster for employees to navigate complex processes and for HR teams to respond to requests. In addition, new generative AI use cases help HR teams to elevate talent, recruiting, and learning.

��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors solutions are part of the overall ��Ĵ�ý portfolio, one of the broadest suites of business applications available, all powered by ��Ĵ�ý Business Technology Platform (��Ĵ�ý BTP). The latest innovations in ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors HXM Suite are powered by to be relevant, reliable, and responsible. Learn more here.

“We are in a phase of rapid acceleration of AI,” said Green, who described how new AI use cases “will drive an outright transformation of two core facets of every organization: the way that people experience work and the way that we can unlock that individual and collective capability. That’s why we’ve delivered ��Ĵ�ý Business AI that is truly built for business.”

Talent Intelligence Hub: The Engine of a Skills-Based Organization

Skills-based organizations, where skills take precedence over roles and titles, benefit through improved business agility and employee experience. The key to building a skills-based organization is the ability to accurately assess the current skills and capabilities of the entire workforce, identify skills that are needed for the future, and implement a learning and talent strategy that can effectively address the gaps.

As the engine of a modern, skills-based organization, the is an AI-powered skills framework built into ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors HXM Suite that can drive an organization’s entire learning and talent strategy. Customers can benefit from having a single skills model that covers recruiting, onboarding, learning and development, performance, and succession. With a holistic view of the workforce based on skills data from multiple locations, they can make data-driven talent decisions and can more easily identify the right candidates for jobs.

Employees are empowered to take charge of their careers by guiding their own career development. The talent intelligence hub allows them to build and manage an individual growth portfolio, which includes their skills, competencies, aspirations, motivations, and work styles. Based on this data, they can receive personalized talent development recommendations, which can include assignments available on , mentors, and . The talent intelligence hub is now generally available.

“AI has arrived just at the right period of time to give us this productivity boost we need to grow,” Josh Bersin, industry analyst, shared in the keynote. “So, if you have an old-style management leadership team that says hire, hire, hire, hire…that’s not going to work anymore. It’s going to be automate, improve, redesign, reorganize – and that’s why these embedded AI tools like ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors produce will be essential to your company’s growth.”

Delta Air Lines: Skills Development Advances Business Strategy

is one company that is evolving to become a skills-based organization. An early adopter of the talent intelligence hub in ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors solutions, Delta is building an employee experience focused on skills development and continuous learning that supports its business strategy. Employees will be able to maintain their own individual growth portfolios of skills and competencies and receive personalized learning recommendations for their skill development and career growth.

“Delivering an elevated employee experience is important to us,” said Tim Gregory, managing director of HR Innovation and Workforce Technology at Delta. “We want a winning workforce and that means being able to attract the best and brightest from everywhere. We need to be able to see this talent through a skills lens. Our people work hard to develop and hone their skills. It’s personal, and when Delta is able to go beyond the traditional lens of job hierarchies and org charts, we create the elevated experience that attracts and retains the best talent.”

Through its skills-first talent strategy, Delta eliminated degree requirements for more than 90% of non-executive roles in an aim to close the opportunity gap for talented employees who have been skilled through alternative pathways – emphasizing the retention and advancement of internal talent based on skills, competencies, and experience as a key driver of career mobility.

Delta has set a long-term goal of filling 25% of its corporate and management openings with current talent that is in customer-facing roles. An internal review of job descriptions revealed that many jobs required a college degree. Gregory said, “We asked ourselves, do we care more about where their skills came from or if they have skills, are proficient in skills, are excelling in skills?”

Eliminating unnecessary degree requirements has enabled Delta to move ahead in its goal of advancing more frontline employees with customer experience into its managerial ranks, which has benefits for its business strategy and customer focus.

This is just one example of how Delta uses the talent intelligence hub to drive individualized talent development and put employees at the center of its transformation. Read more here.

The Power of the Talent Intelligence Hub

The power of the talent intelligence hub was clearly shown during a demo on the main stage at SuccessConnect. Amy Wilson, senior vice president of Product and Design at ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors, underscored the advantages of integrating talent intelligence within the ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors HXM Suite. “You will benefit from the simplicity and the power of a unified talent lifecycle – with a common language and a shared set of insights. And this extends beyond HXM to our entire ��Ĵ�ý ecosystem,” she said, highlighting ��Ĵ�ý S/4HANA, ��Ĵ�ý Fieldglass solutions, and partner applications. “We are leveraging this rich data to dramatically improve the individual experience, from inferencing skills based on talent data to creating recommendations in the ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors Opportunity Marketplace to our brand-new learning experience.”&�Բ��;&�Բ��;

The demo followed the talent journey of Jada, a retail associate at fictitious Cookie Delight, who has big aspirations to participate in the product launch of a new line of cookies. AI-generated learning recommendations guide Jada as she builds out her skills profile to apply for an assignment on the product launch team.

In ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors Learning, Jada can see personalized learning recommendations matched to what she needs to learn to stay compliant, what she needs to learn to succeed in her current job, and what she wants to learn. After she completes a course, her skill level in her individualized growth portfolio is updated to “advanced.” In ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors Opportunity Marketplace, she finds an assignment to help with the new product launch and applies for the opportunity. “We’ve made it even better with this release,” said Wilson. “We’ve added top picks for you, which are recommendations based on your skills and interests. And now the opportunities find you.”

The Future of Work Takes Off with AI

��Ĵ�ý has been helping organizations run their business processes for 50 years. Siva Sundaresan, senior vice president of Applications Engineering at ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors, provided a perspective for HR leaders on what the new AI capabilities will mean for the future of work.

“At ��Ĵ�ý, we are committed to implementing AI with ethics, privacy, and security at the forefront,” he said. “We have led the market in human experience and we are excited to help you embrace systems of intelligence. Talent intelligence is just the beginning. We will expand AI use cases across our portfolio. When you include HR, finance, supply chain, customer experience – that’s when you can truly transform the business.”&�Բ��;&�Բ��;

To learn more about creating skills-based organizations, register for this , to be held on November 8, 2023 at 11:00 a.m. EST.

Eurobank Achieves Compliance with New Labor Law Supported by Accuracy of ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors Time Tracking

Jacqueline Prause — Mon, 18 Sep 2023 11:15:00 +0000

For over 5,000 employees in , based in Athens, Greece, each working day begins with an important action to ensure the organization’s compliance with local labor legislation: they clock in on a personalized application powered by the solution.

Eurobank is one of Greece’s largest employers, numbering approximately 6,500 employees and one of the four leading banks in the country, with €81.5 billion in total assets under management and 500 office locations throughout Greece. In addition, it has 2,200 employees based at 120 sites in Luxembourg, Cyprus, Serbia, Bulgaria, and the UK.

As a leading employer in Greece’s banking industry, Eurobank provides its employees with a simple, modern method to accurately track their working hours. This not only ensures that employees are paid correctly but also helps the bank comply with strict new laws that require all clocked hours to be transmitted in real time to the Greek Ministry of Labor.

“We had to combine the strict legislation requirements along with a seamless and flexible work experience that we want to provide as an organization. We had to be very smart about this and we needed to do it fast,” says Maria Tachataki, head of People Engagement and Communications at Eurobank and leader of the ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors solution implementation team. “We achieved this using ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors Time Tracking in conjunction with (��Ĵ�ý BTP) in order to create that flexibility and achieve external connectivity.”

New Law Puts Labor on the Clock

In 2021, the Greek government enacted labor law 4808/2021, which requires organizations with more than 250 employees to provide daily “live” monitoring of their employees’ work schedules, shift planning, and overtime. The introduction of a Digital Work Card means employers need to connect their time tracking system directly to the Ministry of Labor’s ERGANI II IT platform for real-time updates to ensure compliance with rules around the maximum weekly working time and minimum daily and weekly rest periods for employees.

��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors Time Tracking enables Eurobank to maintain compliance with the new regulation – especially important as penalties can exceed €10,000 per employee.

“Compliance is a reality of modern business. Eurobank demonstrates its leadership in this area with an innovative approach for advanced and sophisticated employee time tracking,” comments Andreas Xirocostas, managing director, ��Ĵ�ý Greece, Cyprus, and Malta. “As laws and regulations evolve, it’s increasingly important for companies to have accurate data to meet compliance requirements. Companies that have visibility into their employee data will be best positioned to adapt to new regulatory directives.”

Unified HXM Suite for a Live and Interactive Experience

Since 2018, Eurobank has been using ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors solutions as its core HRMS for all HR processes and talent management operations. The bank has recently also introduced ��Ĵ�ý BTP as a solution for agility to help innovate and adapt to evolving business needs.

Harnessing the power of has enabled Eurobank to deliver an inspiring employee experience and empower employees with tools to improve their daily work. With its people-first approach, Eurobank has achieved impressive milestones for employee engagement among its active ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors users, including more than 775,000 training hours logged and 13,000 performance assessment forms completed. By utilizing 124 interfaces or APIs, the ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors portfolio can effectively integrate data with other Eurobank IT systems and applications.

“It’s a very live and interactive experience for our employees, and time tracking with digital punch clocks is the cherry on top,” Tachataki says. “Since we had the entire suite of ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors, implementing the time tracking solution was an obvious choice.”

Learn more about how Eurobank puts people at the center of business with ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors solutions.

Prioritizing Data Accuracy, Integration, and Employee Experience

Most importantly for Eurobank, the new time tracking solution needed to be reliable, accurate, and seamlessly integrated with other HR processes. The bank required a high level of data accuracy to comply with Greek law and perform payroll processing on a third-party system.

“We are in the process of digitizing a lot of our workflows and a lot of our systems and services in the bank,” says Tachataki, who underscores the attention given to ensuring an employee experience that accommodates shift work, remote work, and preapproved overtime and flex time – in addition to providing seamless work schedule management and optimization. “We wanted to go to a modern platform where we could give both the employee and the manager the ability to manage their schedule much more efficiently and transparently.”

The HR administrator’s experience also needed to be streamlined for efficiency and to reduce administrative burdens. “We wanted it to be simple,” Tachataki says. “We wanted to have reporting and analytics based on that to support decision-making processes.”

Change Management for Employees Enhances Success

Eurobank went live with ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors Time Tracking in January 2023, concluding a six-month project that included an intensive blueprint phase and near-daily interactions with the Ministry of Labor. Working within ��Ĵ�ý BTP, the IT team customized an interface to the solution, so the data collection adhered precisely to the requirements of Greek law. Altogether, the team developed 28 interfaces to facilitate the data exchange with the ERGANI II system.

Clear communication to the employees was an important contributing factor to the project’s success. “We provided a lot of training and support before we went live,” says Tachataki. “We went through a change management pathway with our employees to allow them time to adapt to this new reality. We continue to improve the module through the ��Ĵ�ý upgrades and through our own intuitive creativity with the platform’s abilities.”

When employees clock in or clock out in ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors Time Tracking, they see a clean, simplified user interface that facilitates quick action. They have an overview of their schedule – including flex time, approved overtime, and estimated leave time.

“The amazing results that Eurobank has achieved by using ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors Time Tracking for compliance show why agility is the watchword in business today,” says Maryann Abbajay, chief revenue officer, ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors. “When faced with new legal requirements, Eurobank reached into the ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors tool kit and adapted a solution to meet compliance – and it did it while keeping employee experience in focus.”

Truth in Data

As a result of providing an empowered employee experience through self-service, Eurobank logs over 5,000 clock-ins and clock-outs per day. ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors Time Tracking supports the company to make 131,000 API calls to the Ministry of Labor’s ERGANI II system each month.

Despite a high level of employee engagement, Eurobank is realistic that it is not possible to have 100% daily compliance among 6,500 employees, and some discrepancies have had to be clarified. Fortunately, this is an area where ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors Time Tracking supports the organization with data accuracy and transparency. “The point is to have a managed inconsistency,” says Tachataki, who explains, “If there is an inconsistency, you need to be able to justify it so you don’t get fined and have a system that very accurately logs employees’ clock-ins and -outs and supports your case. ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors can help us do this.”

Learn more about .

Versuni Gains Agility with HXM and Connected Cloud ERP as Strong Data Foundation

Jacqueline Prause — Mon, 11 Sep 2023 11:15:00 +0000

Contemporary living at its finest is exemplified by a rich blend of technology, innovation, and design that delivers an unparalleled experience. In the modern home, for example, a new generation of domestic appliances makes cooking and cleaning easier and more enjoyable, bringing the benefits of comfort and convenience to what were once demanding daily household chores. These innovations in the home afford us precious time to spend with the people we love and improve our quality of life.

, formerly known as Philips Domestic Appliances, excels in its purpose to help people turn their houses into homes, so they can lead happier, healthier lives. Versuni is headquartered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, with innovation, manufacturing, and commercial centers across the globe and a footprint in over 100 countries. With a global workforce of approximately 6,400 employees, Versuni advances a workplace culture of collaboration, empowered decision-making, and employee engagement supported by leading-edge HR.

As its name suggests, Versuni – think “universe” – wants consumers to know that “our universe is the home” and specializes in domestic appliances that make routine tasks simple, enjoyable, and sustainable. Versuni has brands such as Philips, Saeco, Gaggia, Preethi, Philips Walita, L’OR Barista, and Senseo to cover cooking, coffee, garment care, floor care, and climate care.

Digital-First Company for Consumer Engagement

Versuni took the unique opportunity of reinventing itself as an independent company to transform its entire technology landscape. To succeed in a dynamic, consumer marketplace, it had to evolve from best-of-breed solutions that served its healthcare parent company to best-of-suite applications that power advanced, digital-first consumer goods organizations.

“Since we are in consumer products, we needed to be a digital-first, insight-led company to enable us to go for lifetime engagement with our consumers across our connected products,” says Lokesh Rastogi, IT platform leader for Finance and HR, Versuni.

Exuviate Transformation Wins ��Ĵ�ý Innovation Award

To establish a foundation for future growth, Versuni adopted an outside-in approach to harmonizing and simplifying all processes in a bid to achieve end-to-end transparency. The IT project was given a fitting name, “Exuviate,” to describe how the organization shed its old technology layer so it can transform into something new and distinctive as a consumer-focused enterprise.

Versuni worked with to carry out an organization-wide, greenfield implementation by leveraging for processes, (��Ĵ�ý BTP) for collaboration and integration, and for cost control. While firmly adhering to best practices, Versuni laid out a strategy guided by a crisp logic: “��Ĵ�ý unless…; cloud unless…; and best of suite.” Considered to be one of the largest RISE with ��Ĵ�ý projects in any industry, the transformation was completed in a record 18 months, when Versuni transitioned to ��Ĵ�ý S/4HANA Cloud, private edition in all countries.

With the new ��Ĵ�ý environment, Versuni reports 30% enhanced agility in its responsiveness, 85% improvement in standardization and harmonization, and 50% increased employee engagement. In recognition of its outstanding success, Versuni’s Exuviate project was chosen as an in the Industry Leader in Consumer Products category. For more information, read the press release from ��Ĵ�ý Sapphire Barcelona.

Opportunity for a New HR

The Exuviate project had set in motion the total transformation of Versuni’s IT landscape and established new business processes. The challenges facing Versuni’s HR department, however, were especially formidable: after the transition, there would be no way to manage and compensate Versuni’s workforce unless a new HRIT system was up and running globally. Relying on its legacy software was not an option.

Versuni’s HR team chose to help maximize value and maintain a clean core, one of the priorities of the Exuviate project. The team doubled down on the opportunity to achieve a full-scale HR transformation that affected all underlying HR policies.

“Due to the new setup of Versuni, we wanted to have a new HR policy for all countries, meaning we had a new organization structure to manage, new job family structure, new competencies for jobs, and a new salary structure,” says Amber Smeulders, business unit lead, HR Xperience expert at and hired by Versuni as program manager to manage the full HR digital transformation. “This was the biggest challenge in our program: it should be a happy marriage between managing a new HR policy together with following the design principles of best practice.”

“The HR transition to ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors solutions in itself was a massive task, so we ran the HR transformation as a separate pillar within the Exuviate transformation,” says Rastogi. This required Versuni to deploy ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors solutions in less than one year.

“We did it in 10 months from design to deployment,” confirms Rastogi. On April 1, 2023, Versuni went live in 52 countries simultaneously with 15 modules of ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors solutions, including , , , and .

“What Versuni accomplished in its HR transformation is nothing short of spectacular,” says Maryann Abbajay, chief revenue officer, ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors. “Versuni translated a new set of business demands and way of working into ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors solutions, really taking advantage of the connected cloud environment to gain visibility into its workforce and enable employee-centric HR. This is going to bring a new level of agility to Versuni that will set it on a path for long-term success.”

Versuni worked closely with ��Ĵ�ý to ensure it had access to the right resources and expertise. “We hired subject matter experts with ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors knowledge, but also worked with the HR business to make sure that the design of ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors solutions and the design of the HR policies were going hand in hand,” says Smeulders. With the right team in place and a clear governance structure, Versuni was able to complete the project in record time and fast track its time to value.

Reporting Gains Strategic Value in Connected Cloud Landscape

Although Versuni was satisfied with the operational reporting available in ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors solutions, it also needed cross-organizational reporting that leveraged data available in the connected ��Ĵ�ý landscape. Therefore, Versuni and ��Ĵ�ý created a solution for its management reporting. “We tried it out in HR as a proof of concept,” says Rastogi. “It was highly successful and now we intend to roll it out across the organization. It brings quite some benefits in terms of insights into our HR data.”

Smeulders agrees and looks forward to strategic insights from ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors with the connected environment. “We would like to combine the HR data with data coming from the other ��Ĵ�ý systems to really understand what is best for us when we talk about investment in positions, in HR policies, and in the right talents,” she says.

Complete Transformation in Record Time

By connecting cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) to ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors solutions, Versuni has achieved three key benefits. It now has a seamless user journey based on a single source of truth across the entire landscape. Another benefit is the increased visibility achieved from the integration with other systems, especially finance. Also, improved reporting is leading to better decision-making. Rastogi summarizes: “It’s one source of truth, one system, and one number.”

Enhanced employee experience is among the additional benefits of the HR transformation. Payroll consolidation resulted in a reduction of more than 20 providers into one global provider. Versuni lowered costs with a 70% reduction of local applications. Localization for time and attendance is now supported. Nearly all HR processes are now available on a mobile device.

“We’re still on the journey,” says Rastogi. “What is very clear across the organization is a mind shift change, a culture change. We’re starting to see that it is much more collaborative and faster. The decision-making is empowered and much quicker. It’s been a complete transformation – digital transformation as well as business transformation – in record time.”

Standard Chartered Gains Agility with Total Workforce Management

Jacqueline Prause — Fri, 28 Jul 2023 12:15:13 +0000

Faced with ever-evolving business priorities, organizations are increasingly looking to external workers to bridge the skills gap and attain success – which means the external workforce is only expected to grow. An Economist Impact , sponsored by ��Ĵ�ý, found that of organizations plan to increase their use of , which can include independent contractors, consultants, freelancers, temps, and other outsourced labor. It’s critical, therefore, that organizations have a total workforce management strategy that integrates both employees and external workers.

is a leading international bank headquartered in London with a presence in 59 markets. With over 83,000 employees and almost 14,000 external workers, implementing a strategy was crucial for the bank to remain competitive and compliant. Guided by a workplace culture that champions innovation, technology, and sustainability, Standard Chartered supports customers from around the world to open opportunities in new markets and to live up to its brand promise to be here for good.

“For us, it’s really important to have that total workforce management view, where we’re starting to think about workforce planning and skills planning as the future of work,” said Melinda McKinley, global head, HR Strategy and Digital Transformation, Standard Chartered. McKinley key insights from Standard Chartered’s HR transformation at ��Ĵ�ý Sapphire Orlando.

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Due to changing regulations, the banking sector has faced an increasing demand for workers with specialized skill sets to meet IT and cybersecurity requirements. This has led many finance organizations like Standard Chartered to tap into the external workforce. Today, Standard Chartered’s external workers are integral to how the organization operates. But initially, it lacked the technology and insights to effectively manage them.

The bank had an over 20-year-old HR system that made it increasingly difficult to innovate and respond quickly to changing business and regulatory requirements, according to Steve Leighton, head of HR Digital Enablement, Standard Chartered and a member of the team undertaking the HR transformation journey since it began in 2017. “We wanted to replace that legacy system, transform, simplify, implement a global process, and really make an improvement in the experience.”

One strategic requirement stood out as key to the success of the HR transformation: “How do we join together our permanent employees and our contingent workers to get a total view of the workforce across the organization?” said Leighton, who presented the project results at ��Ĵ�ý Sapphire Orlando. “This is a building block in our long-term ambition of being able to perform our strategic workforce planning.”

HR Transformation Wins ��Ĵ�ý Innovation Award

Standard Chartered adopted a total workforce management strategy by integrating with solutions in the cloud to help deliver a truly holistic capability across its permanent and contingent workforce. “That kind of integration – [��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors and ��Ĵ�ý Fieldglass] together – was key for this particular transformation,” Leighton said.

With the implementation of position management, a foundational capability in ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors Employee Central that helps organizations create and manage job positions to maintain a desired org structure, the organization achieved a breakthrough in its HR transformation journey as the result of its clear strategic vision.

“One of the key things that set us on a path for a future-ready workforce was really embracing the foundational architecture that position management brings,” McKinley said. “That meant immediately we had a visualization of our total workforce – our contingent and our employee base. It is leading to much stronger data-driven hiring decisions.”

Standard Chartered remediated 75 interfaces to third-party systems, including outsourced payroll solutions, and migrated 3.5 million data records from its legacy platform. It overhauled processes to achieve an 87% reduction of HR reports. With improved visibility of the entire workforce, where legally permissible, it can now capture richer data for diversity and inclusion metrics to further enable its inclusive culture.

A clear focus on employee experience has significantly contributed to the transformation’s ongoing success. Applying a “deep” experience approach, the team evaluated each phase and decision in the project for its potential impact on employee experience. Approximately 200 colleagues participated in user acceptance testing, providing valuable feedback through surveys and interviews. Collecting insights post-deployment also enabled the team to continuously innovate and improve the experience. Among the resulting innovations is a new employee portal with a modernized interface that integrates adoption nudges and chatbots to support colleagues during the hiring process.

“Position management was a key tenet of being able to facilitate this single workforce capability,” said Leighton, who shared learnings from the project, including the effort required for change management to educate and prepare stakeholders and the diligent approach to the data integration. He noted that this effort paid off by “clearly culminating in that success.”

Standard Chartered recently for its success in delivering on total workforce management with a focus on experience.

Strategic Vision for Future-Ready Workforce

“With ��Ĵ�ý, we now have a truly holistic view of our permanent and external workers,” McKinley said. “This has not only improved the employee experience and given us richer insights into our entire workforce but has also helped set the foundation for strategic corporate planning, integrated talent management, and management of regulatory requirements.”

Standard Chartered is now focused on leveraging and expanding future-ready workforce capabilities by using the ��Ĵ�ý Analytics Cloud solution for workforce planning. McKinley described how the collaboration of the HR and finance teams is building success for the organization: “We’re working closely with our finance colleagues to bring finance and HR data together a little more seamlessly through the use of ��Ĵ�ý Analytics Cloud, with a view to actually making a difference to bottom-up planning through our corporate plan.”

She noted, “The value that will create, by moving agreed workforce modelling into the position charts, I think will be a game changer for us in terms of our future workforce planning and skills planning.”

Total Workforce Management from ��Ĵ�ý

A total workforce management strategy allows businesses to keep the whole workforce in focus for increased agility, productivity, and bottom-line impact. ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors solutions combined with ��Ĵ�ý Fieldglass solutions can deliver value and efficiency by providing a single view of the entire workforce, allowing managers to onboard, oversee, and pay employees and contingent workers in one place. Organizations using ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors solutions 57% greater HR process speed, 54% reduction in time spent by managers on administrative HR, and 40% less time required to fill positions. Organizations using ��Ĵ�ý Fieldglass solutions saw 7.81% savings through competitive candidate sourcing and 16.4% lower project budgets.

Find out more about .

��Ĵ�ý Success Stories: Building Strong Communities of Compassion and Connection

Jacqueline Prause — Mon, 12 Jun 2023 11:15:28 +0000

Community is the thread that weaves us together and unites us in a common goal. The strength of that thread, or the social ties of the community, imbues a sense of belonging and trust. In a community, we feel like we are part of something bigger than ourselves.

Whether at the town hall, marketplace, or meeting house, there are people that strengthen a community’s culture through their generosity, fellowship, and compassion. Often these selfless individuals are volunteers dedicating their time and talents to ensure the betterment of the community and well-being of its members.

“Community is so important. We have to take care of each other,” says Marissa Baum, customer program manager, Customer Growth & Advisory Programs team at ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors. Based in ��’s Newtown Square office, she fulfills her passion for building strong communities through her work leading high-touch customer programs for ��Ĵ�ý and volunteering with not-for-profit organizations in the Philadelphia area. “The pandemic and the years following have taught us that your community is what can bring the most joy,” she says. “You can have all the material things in the world, but the people who surround you matter most. If they prosper, you prosper.”

��Ĵ�ý Customer Community: Where You’ll Meet the Most Incredible People

At ��Ĵ�ý, Baum oversees her team’s communications strategy and helps lead a portfolio of customer programs for ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors, including customer advisory boards – such as, the CHRO Advisory Board, Sales Performance Management Advisory Board, and Learning Advisory Board – and several user groups. “I love our customers,” she says. “They are some of the most incredible people I’ve gotten to meet, work with, and learn from. I discover something new every single day.”

“��Ĵ�ý Partner Speed Dating” is one of the innovative programs that Baum and her team launched this year. It allows ��Ĵ�ý partners to present pitches of their solutions to a set of customers, who can then decide to follow up for more information or a deal. The sessions are fun, fast-paced, and beneficial. These sessions have had a direct impact on the sales cycle, which Baum says “was extremely rewarding, because we’re adding value for our customers, our partners, and sales teams. And when they win, I win.”

The team also recently launched the Sales Performance Management Advisory Board, now preparing for its second session after its highly successful premiere, which was rated by customers at 100% “would recommend this to a colleague.” Baum is proud of having built this group up in less than one year. “All the hard work that went into making that advisory board a reality was amazing,” she says. “We had a great first session. The customers were super passionate and excited. I am looking forward to this new adventure with this great group of executives.”

Warm Clothing and Reassurance Sustain a Community in Need

When she is not engaging ��Ĵ�ý customers, Baum spends her time volunteering at not-for-profit organizations like , where she helps to collect gifts, grocery cards, and other necessities for families in the community. Located in West Philadelphia, the parish has many immigrant families who are struggling to make a better life for their children in a new country. Baum helps to distribute warm winter clothing at the holidays, which she wraps as Christmas gifts for the children to open. “Our main mission during the season is collecting and buying winter clothes, including coats and boots, because Philadelphia can get very cold and those [clothes] are expensive, especially if you have a big family” she says. “Talking to the community and learning about the kids and what is on their holiday wish lists helps us to spread joy and compassion. Seeing their faces light up when they get presents of their very own is exciting. They can’t wait to go out and play in the snow.”

Creating that personal connection is an important part of Baum’s volunteer work and flows from her belief in creating an inclusive community where people have a sense of belonging and feel supported. “I think it’s really hard for people to ask for help,” she says. “I’m an independent person and asking for help can feel like a weakness, but I’m always there to reassure our community members of how proud I am of them to seek help and that I am glad we were able to get connected.”

She offers her ongoing support as a point of contact for people who are rebuilding their lives. “I tell them that if there’s any other way in which we can help, please be open, call me. That’s all; I will be there without hesitation. I always give out my cell phone number or e-mail. Taking care of one another is the most important thing we can do as humans.”

From School to ��Ĵ�ý: Live Your Passion

Baum’s passion for community building and volunteer work stems from her upbringing. “I went to an all-girls’ school and absolutely loved it,” she explains. “It really taught me so much in terms of my independence, but also being very observant of how I can be a helper, and there were many opportunities for me to do that.” In school, she worked with younger students, assisted at partner schools in the inner city, and organized fundraising for cancer research.

Finding her passion gives her a sense of meaning and purpose, she says. “The best advice I received from my teachers and family when I was younger was to find what you’re passionate about and discover how you can help people through your passion. And so I took that with me into college and then ��Ĵ�ý.”

Baum attended Villanova University, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in communications. In her senior year, she broke down barriers to take high-level investment and management consulting courses at the business school, where she recalls what it was like being the only woman among 40 male students in the classes. She earned both the respect of classmates and top marks by offering a differentiated perspective on case studies. Today, she is an active alumnus who mentors female students and presents at professional development classes about the importance of moving beyond your comfort zone – and to always advocate for yourself because you are your biggest cheerleader.

Finding Purpose Beyond the Nine-to-Five

When Baum joined the workforce after college, she looked for an organization that valued community. “My motto is always ‘collaboration over competition,’ being able to work with others and having goals set so that everyone can succeed. Sometimes that’s hard to find, but that is always my number one priority in work,” she says.

Upon joining ��Ĵ�ý in November 2019, Baum made a point of bringing the formative experiences, attitudes, and commitments that make up her whole self to her new workplace. A firm believer in the power of mentoring, Baum signed on to be an early talent ambassador, a pro bono role that helps recent university graduates and younger employees get comfortable within ��Ĵ�ý through in-person events, executive speakers, networking opportunities, and occasionally meeting up for lunch. “It’s all-encompassing. Being a mentor brings me so much fulfillment and I loved every second of it. It is exciting to welcome new employees into the ��Ĵ�ý fold,” Baum recalls.

Though her two-year rotation as an early talent ambassador came to an end in January, Baum is thankful for the experience – and very grateful for the support of her manager to take on the additional time commitment. “It was always encouraged to go after my goals and passions,” she says, reflecting on her experience volunteering at ��Ĵ�ý, “which is why I always tell people to get involved, because new people and students coming into the workforce may think, ‘Oh well, my life is now my nine-to-five.’ I always explain to them that your nine-to-five is now a part of your life, but not your entire life. There are so many people to meet, things to do, and places to travel. The journey is just beginning.”

Paying It Forward by Keeping Memories Alive

In April 2020, tragedy struck Baum’s family when her father passed away after a long battle with cancer. His death came shortly after Baum began her job at ��Ĵ�ý. Coping with the devastating loss, Baum recalls thinking, “I’m so young. I just started my first full-time job. It’s COVID-19. Everything’s locked down. And my father just passed away. What do I do?”

“That was extremely overwhelming,” she says. “To this day, I thank my lucky stars for my team.” Her ��Ĵ�ý manager at the time, Jason Ludt, global vice president, Field Activation and Strategic Programs, ��Ĵ�ý, led with compassion, telling her to take as much time as she needed to be with her family. “I will never forget the care and compassion that I received in that time, and I will always pay that forward. I still say to this day, that experience is what made me want to invest in ��Ĵ�ý and it has led me to be a more compassionate and empathic leader, peer, and friend.”

Overcome with grief, Baum talked with social workers, hospital staff, and nurses to find a way to channel her anguish into a positive contribution, explaining, “I need something where I can use my hands and really help a community that needs it, maybe working with kids or young adults who have gone through what I did with the loss of my dad.”

That’s how she got introduced to , a volunteer-led organization that helps children to cope with the loss of a special person in their young lives, such as a parent, sibling, or best friend. Peter’s Place provides weekly group therapy sessions free of cost for families. When Baum first entered the Peter’s Place meeting house, she noticed on the wall a tree of Post-it notes, each reflecting something that a child is missing most about their loved one. “The tree keeps their memory alive, which is so important to that community because these kids don’t want to make anybody uncomfortable or upset if they want to talk about the person they love,” says Baum, who contributed for a while as a group facilitator and now supports the organization with activities and fundraising.

“For these kids, it’s really about building a community of people, including adults who help the grieving process and other kids who know that what they’re going through, and being able to relate and understand that what they are going through is really hard right now,” Baum says. “They feel like no one understands them because most people are lucky enough to not have to go through such a massive loss when they’re that young. And the volunteers get it because the volunteers have been there and are able to make them feel less alone. It is all about support.”

For Baum, being able to provide support to the children at Peter’s Place is a tribute to her father’s memory and a way of saying, “I wish I had had a program like this when I was young, to have someone to relate to, but now I’m going to be that person for someone and help pay it forward.”

Workplace Culture for the Whole Self

Building a community doesn’t happen overnight: it’s a marathon, not a sprint. Baum is satisfied that she can achieve a healthy balance with her work and volunteerism. She believes it is a benefit of a supportive workplace culture that encourages employees to be their whole selves. “I have been extremely lucky to have great leadership around me that encourages me to lead a balanced life, and I don’t think that’s unique to my team. I look around ��Ĵ�ý and I see an abundance of strong, compassionate leadership,” she says.

Learn more in the .

��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors Helps HR Solve Skills Gap with Generative AI

Jacqueline Prause — Wed, 24 May 2023 12:00:17 +0000

Excitement was in the air at as the ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors team showcased new innovations that use generative artificial intelligence (AI) to help organizations future-proof their business by unleashing the potential of their greatest asset: their people.

Watch the on-demand replay for the
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With the recent announcement of ��’s expanded partnership with , the vision for enterprise-ready generative AI able to enhance human productivity and development in the workplace is becoming reality. The integration of solutions with Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot in Viva Learning will improve how organizations recruit, retain, and upskill their workforces to address skills gaps. In fact, 75% of business leaders say attracting and retaining critical talent is the No. 1 impediment to future growth and success.

“The skills gap is one of the biggest challenges that organizations are facing today,” said ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors Chief Marketing & Solutions Officer Aaron Green, speaking to ��Ĵ�ý customers . “As we talk to our customers around the world — and it doesn’t matter the region, the industry, the size of the organization — we hear one message: How can we change the way we think about skills? How can we be better prepared for the future?”

Transforming Business at Scale

To gauge the transformative scale of the collaboration of ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors and Microsoft, it is helpful to look at the reach of both organizations. Today, more than 248 million people use ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors software. It is the largest HR suite on the market and available in more than 100 localized frameworks to drive truly global business. As one of the world’s leading brands, Microsoft supports 1 billion people who use Microsoft Office and 280 million daily active users of Microsoft Teams.

“AI is fundamental to the future of business,” said Green, who put the power of generative AI for the enterprise into context for the audience. “AI is going to enable all of us to transform business at scale.”

Innovations that Future-Proof the Workforce

��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors introduced three powerful innovations at ��Ĵ�ý Sapphire that will help businesses future-proof their workforce and address critical skills gaps.

The first innovation comes with embedding generative AI capabilities, in partnership with Microsoft, to enhance recruiting and learning processes. Customers will be able to deliver dramatically improved experiences for employees. These experiences are embedded in the flow of work, so that employees will not need to switch between interfaces or apps to complete a routine task or learning activity. Also, hiring managers and recruiters will be able to create tailored job descriptions and better prepare for interviews — both of which include built-in checks for biased language — through the hyper-personalization capabilities of generative AI. These new capabilities were presented in the demo onstage during the main stage keynote at ��Ĵ�ý Sapphire.

“We really believe in a big way in this notion of ‘in the flow of work,’” said Kirk Koenigsbauer, chief operating officer and corporate vice president of the Experiences and Devices Group at Microsoft, who shared insights during the panel discussion of the HXM keynote. “We think it’s paramount in terms of driving scale, reducing friction, and increasing the reach of HR systems into places where people are naturally working on a day-to-day basis. Our whole thesis is that if we can build these HR solutions into the flow of work, you’ll get much more adoption, you’ll get much more engagement… We’re really excited to work with ��Ĵ�ý.”

A second key innovation is the introduction of a talent intelligence hub that uses AI to build, maintain, and infer a skills portfolio for each employee in the workforce. This depth of insight, using the whole-self model, enables employees to find personalized recommendations for learning courses, mentors, and internal jobs. Organizations benefit from having an overview of employee skills and improved visibility to carry out workforce planning.

“This is a moment where we can introduce a way to value workers differently: using data to help them grow in a way that makes sense for them while also supporting the needs within the business,” said Meg Bear, president and chief product officer for ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors, in the panel discussion at the HXM keynote. “When we can create an environment where each person thrives, they’re going to be able to achieve a lot more for the business.”

The third innovation is enhanced functionality that brings together ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors, ��Ĵ�ý Fieldglass, and ��Ĵ�ý S/4HANA Cloud for increased workforce visibility across employees and external workers. A recent study found that by increasing their use of external workers. A total workforce management strategy enables leaders to bring in skilled talent to fill roles in mission-critical projects at the right time.

are planned for availability in the 2H 2023 ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors release.

Total Workforce Management for a Future-Ready Workforce

, a leading international bank with a presence in 59 markets and a focus on Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, adopted from ��Ĵ�ý to remain competitive and compliant. Melinda McKinley, global head of HR Strategy and Digital Transformation at Standard Chartered, spoke with Green onstage at ��Ĵ�ý Sapphire Orlando about what it meant for the organization to modernize its outdated, on-premise technology and how it enabled a future-ready workforce for its 83,000 employees and almost 14,000 external workers.

McKinley described how Standard Chartered applied a total workforce management strategy by integrating with in the cloud to deliver a truly holistic capability across its permanent and contingent workforce. She shared that with the introduction of position management in October 2022, the bank achieved a breakthrough in its HR transformation journey. “One of the key things that set us on a path for a future-ready workforce was really embracing the foundational architecture that position management brings. That meant immediately we had a visualization of our total workforce — our contingent and our employee base, which is leading to more robust, data-driven hiring decisions.”

Standard Chartered remediated 75 interfaces to third-party systems and migrated 3.5 million data records from its legacy platform. It achieved an 87% reduction of reports and improved colleague experience with a new employee portal.

By taking a holistic view of its permanent and external workforce with total workforce management, the HR team at Standard Chartered set a foundation for integrated talent management, management of regulatory requirements, and strategic corporate planning in partnership with the finance team. “We’re working really closely with our finance colleagues to bring finance and HR data together a little more seamlessly through the use of ��Ĵ�ý Analytics Cloud with the aim of making a real difference to bottom-up planning through our corporate plan,” McKinley said.

Standard Chartered transformed its HR processes with total workforce management and .

Developing a Growth Mindset

��Ĵ�ý is committed to a responsible approach to AI and was one of the first companies to define guiding principles for using AI in its software. In this framework, ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors solutions use AI to streamline HR processes, enhance workforce planning, and help employees better navigate their careers. While many people are still trying to understand the scope and potential of AI technology, the experts in the panel discussion, each with decades of experience in the tech industry, offered their perspectives on how AI will shape the future of work.

“We think there is a big opportunity for AI, generally, to eliminate a lot of that mundane work,” said Koenigsbauer, who cited the potential for AI to help people access information differently and be more creative.

Bear agreed: “Work will change. We have to adapt as organizations and equip our workers with an understanding that this is an opportunity. Companies that embrace these shifting dynamics, that develop ways to improve because of them — those are the organizations that will grow and thrive.”

.

Sales Performance Management for Better Customer Outcomes

Jacqueline Prause — Wed, 29 Mar 2023 12:15:09 +0000

Organizations depend on highly motivated sales teams to generate revenue and stay ahead of the competition. As the all-important link between an organization’s products and services and the customer, the sales team is a principal driver of bottom-line growth for the success of the whole organization.

For organization leaders, incentivizing and correctly compensating these employees requires a firm grasp of based on proven strategies and solutions aligned with organizational goals. In a climate of economic uncertainty, they are looking to trusted advisors to demystify sales performance and ensure business outcomes.

“Right before the fiscal year, companies start to ask the question, ‘How should we be compensating our salespeople?’” said David Cichelli, revenue growth advisor at and nationally recognized for his work linking sales performance to organizational objectives. “This year, there were some special questions people were asking: ‘Are wages going up? What about virtual selling? How is that going to impact our sales organization? […] And what about turnover?’”

Cichelli shared his insights with ��Ĵ�ý customers at the , held February 21-22, 2023, at the ��Ĵ�ý office in Tempe, Arizona. While sales compensation is often based on projections that are not very exact, it should not be overly complex either, according to Cichelli, who said, “The connection between quotas and sales projections has to be accurate. If you can’t get that right, you have the risk of either underfunding your salespeople or overpaying.” Watch an with Cichelli.

Hosted under the banner “Better Customer Outcomes,” the global summit attracted ��Ĵ�ý customers from a wide array of the 25 industries that use ��Ĵ�ý Sales Performance Management. They came to learn about the latest innovations and features across the full product portfolio, which includes , , and . Product experts and ��Ĵ�ý partners were on hand to meet on an individual basis to answer questions and lead breakout sessions. The event showcased the ��Ĵ�ý ecosystem with sponsorships from , , , , and . Watch an with Accenture about ��Ĵ�ý Sales Performance Management.

“The power of ��Ĵ�ý is really in the success of our customers,” said Maryann Abbajay, chief revenue officer, ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors. “The innovation of ��Ĵ�ý Sales Performance Management helps our customers win with compelling sales experiences. Hosting these customer summits is integral to maintaining a vibrant ��Ĵ�ý community. Here, customers can talk to product experts and give their feedback on operational efficiency, user experience, and other areas that are essential to future-proofing their business.”

Commitment to Innovate, Empower, and Connect Customers

In 2022, more than 650 customers processed commissions for over 12 million payees with ��Ĵ�ý Sales Performance Management, said Rahul Iyer, general manager, ��Ĵ�ý Sales Performance Management, ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors, who presented a state of the portfolio during his keynote. He noted an increase in adoption by global customers keen to take advantage of ��’s capabilities. ��Ĵ�ý Sales Performance Management is used by 25% of Fortune 100 companies, which rely on it to help reduce errors and payout time, provide an engaging user experience, and present a unified view of variable compensation. Iyer said that customers are increasingly taking a holistic approach to total compensation that includes various elements of pay, such as incentives, management by objectives, commissions, restricted stock units, and recognition programs.

��’s vision for the portfolio is organized on three pillars: to innovate by leading with insight, accelerating outcomes, and supporting sustainable innovation; to empower organizations with improved agility and enhanced expertise; and to connect with users on multiple feedback channels, including a new customer advisory board.

Iyer underscored ��’s strategy and commitment to delivering greater customer value with the ��Ĵ�ý Sales Performance Management portfolio of enterprise resource planning (ERP)-agnostic, cloud-based solutions through integration with powerful solutions like ��Ĵ�ý Business Technology Platform (��Ĵ�ý BTP), ��Ĵ�ý S/4HANA, ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors Compensation, and offerings from ��Ĵ�ý partners.

Discussing the product road map, Barbara Rubis Linning, global VP, Product & Engineering, ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors, noted that customers are driving innovation in the portfolio. Her team is working on new features for pipeline redesign, which she said will bring an improvement in the user experience. “We also are continuing our journey forward with modeling,” she said. “That is exciting because it allows other people to really start engaging with this data, gaining intelligence from it, and using it for business purposes.” Watch the .

Efficiency and Increased Visibility Improve Employee Experience

As a highlight at the summit, customers shared their experiences deploying ��Ĵ�ý Sales Performance Management to drive better business outcomes. Sessions from ��Ĵ�ý customers provided valuable insights and real-world examples of how businesses are gaining operational efficiency.

PetSmart achieved a savings of US$1.5 million in labor reallocation when it replaced a patchwork of spreadsheets and legacy systems with ��Ĵ�ý Sales Performance Management to figure compensation for its 1,700 store managers. The reduction in manual work and correcting errors meant that store managers could focus more on helping customers. “Store leaders, salon leaders, our distribution center team: they’re on the floor. They’re not behind a desktop. Now, they can open [the app] on whatever device they choose,” said Sam Boyer, senior manager, Human Capital Solutions, PetSmart, during an interview.

PetSmart has had a very positive response from sales associates, who like the dashboards in ��Ĵ�ý Sales Performance Management. “They love the increased visibility. Now they can go into one system and see what their payout is,” said Boyer. “I just love the dashboards. It kind of pulls that curtain back and allows our associates to see how corporate is calculating their bonus.”

The dashboards are managed by PetSmart’s HR team in partnership with the HRIS team. Boyer’s team of business users has already successfully modified a widget with the low-code/no-code capabilities in ��Ĵ�ý Sales Performance Management. “[HR] owns the compensation plan. We ultimately want to provide the best incentive for our associates,” she noted. “It’s been critical that we really own sales performance management.”

Watch interviews with these ��Ĵ�ý customers: , , and . Learn more about sales performance management .

Vodafone Builds Its Future-Ready Workforce on Cloud HR Foundations

Jacqueline Prause — Tue, 14 Mar 2023 12:15:52 +0000

For as long as there have been customers for mobile phones, has been powering the networks and services that bring them together. It introduced the cellular network to support the UK’s first mobile phone call in 1985, built Africa’s largest mobile fintech platform to connect 54 million users, and launched Europe’s largest 5G network to power a new era of digital services.

A leader in technology communications, Vodafone Group Plc digitally connects more than 350 million customers with voice and data services for mobile, fixed line, the Internet of Things (IoT), and television throughout Europe and Africa. Vodafone lives its purpose to connect technology and humanity for a better future. Its motto: “Together we can.”

This vision drives Vodafone’s global transformation into a next-generation connectivity and digital services provider that delivers sustainable growth. As innovation is fundamental to its business strategy, Vodafone is investing in cloud HR to transform its culture and elevate the employee experience as it reinvents the workplace to “build the human spirit of technology.”

“We relied on ,” says Marc Starfield, group head of HR Systems and Programs, Vodafone Group, who is leading the project to provide value-driven HR capabilities throughout the organization. “We’ve implemented all the HR processes and functions on one global environment supporting around 100,000 employees in 24 key markets.”

By putting employee experience at the heart of digital transformation, Vodafone ensures that HR is integrated in strategic decision-making that impacts the entire organization. “This for me speaks to ensuring that any HR intervention, or all HR interventions, should directly contribute to new organizational outcomes,” says Starfield, who has an established track record for success in managing HR transformations at leading global organizations. “[It] also speaks to how we think about people. Every person in our organization needs to believe and feel that they are part of a growth environment where everybody has opportunity to thrive.”

Building a High-Performance Learning Culture

Vodafone identified that one of its most pressing HR business needs required investment for critical digital and technical skills. The company wants to add 7,000 software engineers to its technology capability by 2025. To set itself up for success, it is giving top priority to building an equitable and representative workforce that is supported by a strong employer brand.

To leverage the brilliant potential in the organization, the company is doubling down on upskilling and reskilling its workforce for improved employee engagement. Vodafone aims to make learning an integral part of every person’s day and, as Starfield says, “to ensure people feel empowered to own their development in easy-to-find tools and to drive their growth.”

Integrating Cloud HR for Actionable Insights

Vodafone began its HR transformation journey by implementing cloud-based ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors solutions to help integrate all functions, processes, and data. The team worked with ��Ĵ�ý partner for AI-driven talent attraction and processes, to help ensure end-to-end process enablement. The flexibility of (��Ĵ�ý BTP) has enabled Vodafone to address any unique requirements.

With the pilot rollout of ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors solutions for , integrated with , Vodafone is enabling real-time exploration of roles, costs, and environments. The company aims to gain visibility into sourcing and attracting the skills it needs for its future success. Starfield explains, “The ultimate objective is to inform the resourcing operational plans in each market and the talent and learning interventions globally but also at a market level.”

Vodafone also needed to consolidate multiple sources of data for better insight and intelligence. Building a unified foundation for analytics is helping the company achieve “total workforce understanding” that includes data from solutions. Starfield describes this integration as “counting and understanding every heartbeat working, irrespective of the legal relationship to our organization.”

Employee Experience: Simple, Accessible, Personalized

Vodafone has already achieved impressive results with its HR transformation. The project has generated greater efficiency and introduced hyper-automation from AI-powered tools. Vodafone has increased the number of new hires (+26%), improved diversity in hiring (+19%), and reduced candidate cycle times from 24 to 12 days. Its overall net promoter scores have jumped from -15 to +47.8.

The new mobile-enabled employee experience, using ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors solutions for employee self-service, ensures that employees can access Vodafone’s HR system from anywhere and at any time. “It’s really critical that we provide access to information and processes at a time and in a way which best suits employees,” says Starfield. “Really central to this is making sure that the information we present to employees is personal and purposeful.”

Furthermore, to advance its vision for a high-performance learning culture, Vodafone has adopted a “whole person” view of each employee to accelerate learning and talent development at all levels of the organization. It also uses (LXP), built for ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors customers, to blend ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors Learning and ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors Work Zone for a personalized, captivating experience that offers unlimited learning resources. The engagement on the learning platform has been outstanding, as employees have completed more than 555,000 hours of learning within six months of the launch date and created more than 32,000 skills profiles in the system.

Starfield attributes this success to making it easy for employees to find learning and development aligned with their goals. “It’s all about making it really simple for people to understand where they are in their development journey,” he says, “but also understand how they can address anything they are interested in and any potential skills gaps they have.”

To learn more about Vodafone’s amazing HR transformation, including lessons learned and advice, watch the .

��Ĵ�ý Success Stories: Empathy Bridges a Path to Safety

Jacqueline Prause — Mon, 06 Mar 2023 12:15:04 +0000

Smartly dressed in her British school uniform, the small girl bounds contentedly through the door of her roomy new home in the Somerset countryside. Two cheerful little dogs named Muffin and Biscuit are the first to greet her. Later, there will be ballet class and time to play in the house’s idyllic English garden.

But one year ago, things were very different. Only six years old, Ksusha, her mother Nadiia, and older sister Yaroslava were displaced and living as refugees in Poland after fleeing their home in , Ukraine, to escape the escalating war. Now safe as a result of the UK government’s visa sponsorship program, their lives have begun to stabilize with new friendships, language lessons, and cultural support as they integrate into British daily life.

Gilly Smith, the woman who compassionately opened her home for Nadiia and her daughters, says she is grateful to have the space available to be able to host the family, who in turn have added a new dimension to her life. “It’s lovely when the girls come home,” says Smith, who works for ��Ĵ�ý as a partner delivery manager for solutions from . “They see immediately if I’ve got my headset on as to whether or not they can be noisy or come in and give me a big hug and tell me about their day.”

“I had a really quiet life before,” says Smith, thinking back to when it was just her, her husband, and the two dogs at home. “Now there’s a lot of activity.” She pauses to lean in, tilts her head, and shares a gem of insight gleaned from her experience: “In the same way that working within a team you need diversity and different ideas, it’s the same in a home life. It’s great having different ages in the same house. It’s energizing.”

“We Need to Do This”

In her ��Ĵ�ý role, Smith works with ��Ĵ�ý partners in many countries to deliver success to customers. In her global team, where she is the regional lead for Europe, colleagues work from locations as varied as Australia, Ireland, and Fair Isle in Shetland. She values the open, direct communication that she has with ��Ĵ�ý partners, which she says makes her work very enriching. “This is the best job at ��Ĵ�ý. It’s a fabulous job because I’m working with partners.”

Born in New Zealand, Smith says her intercultural experiences have mostly centered on Western Europe. So, it was a feeling of profound empathy that prompted her to help displaced families from Ukraine. “What motivated me was hearing on the news about this, particularly women and children fleeing, and I just thought if I had a daughter, I would want somebody to look after them, to at least house them and make sure they had food.”

Her husband felt the same. During the pandemic, the couple had made the decision to move to the countryside in preparation for eventual retirement. A tax incentive from the government sweetened the deal and they felt very fortunate to find a spacious, bright house in rural Somerset – which they now wanted to share with a displaced family. “There was really no discussion about it. We just looked at each other and said, ‘We need to do this. We’ve got the space.’”

Bureaucracy and Hugs

The initial step to enroll as a sponsor in Homes for Ukraine was as easy as ticking a box. But Smith and her husband almost abandoned the process many times due to cumbersome bureaucratic forms with no support. For example, Smith had to find someone from Ukraine to sponsor, which meant combing endless social media profiles for a faint connection. “You’re reading these absolutely tragic stories. It was really depressing,” recalls Smith. She finally found a young woman named Nadiia with two daughters, ages five and eleven, who wanted to be near Yeovil, a town near Smith. “I think I’ve found somebody,” Smith told her husband.

However, government forms that required documents in Ukrainian nearly jeopardized the match. “It was just the most terrible form I’ve ever tried to fill in. It was so stressful, I burst into tears.” On March 27, 2022, they submitted the required information.

And then they waited…and waited. There were no updates from the authorities for three months. She and her husband began to lose hope of bringing Nadiia and her daughters to the UK. “In early June, we were saying, ‘It’s not happening. She’s not going to come,’ because this process was just so painful.”

When the UK government finally issued their visas, the family hastily boarded a cheap flight to the UK, arriving on June 9.

Smith recalls the joy of greeting the family in person when they arrived at her home. “The eldest girl ran out and just came and gave me a great big bear hug, which was lovely. The little girl was hiding behind her mother. She was very shy.” Muffin and Biscuit came to the rescue with love and affection. “The little girls absolutely adore the dogs. We were like, ‘Hey, we’ve got a family.’”

Ballet, Birthdays, and Rainbows

Smith enrolled the girls in local schools and helped them with school uniforms. “The little one, I especially felt sorry for her because she didn’t know anybody and initially had no English. She just stood in the middle of the playground and would say, ‘Hello, I’m Ksusha.’” To help her integrate with local children, Smith helped Nadiia enroll Ksusha in ballet class and Rainbows, part of . “Now she comes home and I ask, ‘How was your day at school?’ And she says, ‘It was very good, thank you.’”

As Yaroslava’s twelfth birthday neared, the adults were unsure how to celebrate. She was making new friends, but the thought of her birthday without her long-time friends from Ukraine made Yaroslava not want to celebrate. Eventually, she was persuaded to invite her new friends and her birthday party was a memorable success.

Building Independence

Aside from the challenges of the application process, Smith is very positive about how the UK government has supported the integration of Ukrainian families into communities and schools. Nadiia is studying English and has made tremendous progress. She re-established contact with a friend from the Ukraine who is now in the UK. A long-time family friend, Oleksii, joined her in December and together they are trying to build a new life with jobs and independent housing.

“I really want to see them both get jobs because that will enable them in due course to have their own place for their lives,” says Smith, who in her spare time enjoys helping them learn English. “We get on very well, but it’s never quite the same as having your own place.”

Empathy Is Our Superpower to Embrace Equity

Jacqueline Prause — Tue, 28 Feb 2023 12:15:54 +0000

Human beings are hardwired for and ; we rely on our skills of observation and communication to perceive what is or is not fair. Our senses, primed for survival since the beginnings of humankind, are so well attuned that we notice the smallest sleights affecting resources or status of ourselves and the people around us.

We are, in effect, hardwired for , a word that originated in Latin to mean fairness or equalness, with the element of justice. Deeply embedded in our conscious, equity is a must-have for survival.

How we respond to inequity, or injustice and unfairness, is a matter of power: our personal power, the power of authority, and the power of our organizations to affect change.

Equity Is Complex

The words “equity” and “equality” are sometimes used interchangeably. There is a distinctive difference, however. In the workplace, equality can mean giving everyone the same tools and resources for their work; for example, inviting all employees to join the annual strategy call. Equity digs deeper to address systemic barriers, so that everyone has access to the tools and resources matched to what they need to succeed; for example, inviting employees to the strategy call, plus choosing a meeting time that is reasonable for working parents and making the content accessible.

To build a foundation for a better future, some say we need to ensure equity before we can reach equality.

Equality is giving everyone a shoe.
Equity is giving everyone a shoe that fits.

– Dr. Naheed Dosani, founder of
Palliative Education and Care for the Homeless

Equity is complex. For leaders who want to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) in their organizations, moving the needle on equity can be challenging. It requires hard work, careful listening, and authentic empathy that goes beyond the hiring algorithms and talent metrics that help to create more diverse organizations.

Diversity is inviting everyone to a party.
Equity is how you treat them when they get there.

– , speaker and
leadership coach

Embrace Equity

Observed on March 8, International Women’s Day 2023 is an opportunity to look more closely at how to positively impact equity in the workplace. Empathy is our human superpower to embrace equity. To understand the viewpoints of others requires that we “put on the glasses” of another person to see the world as they do. Read on to hear ��Ĵ�ý employees share the stories of their lived experiences and how they foster empathy to increase equity during key phases of a woman’s career.

On International Women’s Day 2023, join ��Ĵ�ý for
“DigitALL: Innovation and Technology for Gender Equality”
and hear inspirational stories from incredible people on digital equality in tech and innovation.

Entering the Workforce

The economic benefits of gender parity for paid work are irrefutable. A study by found that countries would increase their GDP by 5-20% if women participated in the workforce at a similar rate as men. What’s more, increases in GDP reduce societal inequality and deliver improvements at an individual level in of well-being: better health, reduced infant mortality, education, upward mobility, and quality of life.

Many women, however, encounter barriers when they try to find a job. show that gender-related biases and stereotypes can impact the hiring process and limit diversity. By ensuring diversity in the talent pool, however, hiring managers can mitigate even their own biases. Researchers at the University of Colorado found that women are more likely to be hired when there are at least two female candidates in the finalist pool, compared to a zero percent likelihood when there is just one female candidate.

“Don’t forget we all have : it is the enemy behind our own lines,” says Eduard Vilar, cloud technology manager for Cloud Technology EMEA South at ��Ĵ�ý, who supports greater awareness of the hidden influence of bias in employment decisions. “Every person tends to inadvertently favor others, from hiring to simply accepting their opinion, when they share interests, abilities, age, gender, color of skin, or any other factor.”

Hiring and Development for More Equality

Bias can continue to impact a woman’s career, limiting her chances for advancement. Daniela Paula Dumitru, a senior specialists for sales ops business enablement for RISE with ��Ĵ�ý and lead of the Business Women’s Network at ��Ĵ�ý in Barcelona, recalls the frustration of encountering bias as she worked to build her career.

“In a previous company, I was blocked at every step of the way when pursuing a promotion by a former manager, coincidentally a man, who ‘did not want to lose a valuable employee.’” She finally left the company. In 2019 she joined ��Ĵ�ý where she found a supportive manager who encouraged her to develop her talents through learning and growth opportunities. “Having this manager helped me rebuild my confidence as a professional and grow into a better person. Now I give back to people and enable others to do the same.”

In her 25 years in the tech industry, Leticia Cavagna, regional vice president of ��Ĵ�ý Experience Management for ��Ĵ�ý EMEA South, says she has seen progress in gender parity because of DE&I initiatives. She believes that increasing the number of women role models in leadership positions improves retention of female talent.

“In the end, it all sums up to answering two questions: Who do I hire? And who do I develop?” Cavagna says. “This is why gender parity programs are vital to achieving long-term parity in leadership positions. The investments companies are doing in this direction are the seed to a more equal future.”

Gender equity is also a powerful catalyst for high-performing teams, says Peter Roberts, vice president of Global Strategic Partners for ��Ĵ�ý EMEA South. “Gender equity in ��Ĵ�ý has produced high-caliber females who we have been able to bring into the team,” he says. On a recent employee survey, his team scored full marks for equal opportunities. “The female/male ratio is consistently 55% or more and this team overperforms, year after year.”

Inclusive Leadership Makes the Difference

People managers have a powerful influence on an employee’s sense of , and that can make the difference in an employee’s decision to remain with an organization. A by Qualtrics found a strong correlation between belonging and employee engagement. Most employees (73%) feel that they belong at their organization, according to the survey. Of those, 91% say they feel engaged in their work, compared to just 20% of employees who do not feel a sense of belonging at work.

María Fernández-Blanco, customer success partner at ��Ĵ�ý EMEA South for ��Ĵ�ý Customer Experience, understands the importance of belonging. Based on her experience as a mother balancing career and family, she tries to pay attention to colleagues who are going through special moments in their lives, like pregnancy or maternity leave. “I know that these are still taboo subjects for women in the workplace,” she says. “I really believe that small details can make big differences and there is so much opportunity to be more inclusive.”

Creating a safe environment is the key to an inclusive workplace, according to Rich Phillips, vice president of EMEA South Partner Ecosystem Success at ��Ĵ�ý. This means bad behavior, whether masquerading as playful banter or outright sexist, must be addressed immediately.

“We all have the right to a safe workspace and leaders must stand up for that,” Phillips says. “As a leader you should proactively educate your team but never accept such behavior, irrespective of the excuse, and exit individuals guilty of it immediately. You must set the tone for your team and your leadership culture. Make sure everybody truly believes your team is a safe space.”

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for Shared Success

��Ĵ�ý is committed to becoming the most inclusive workplace in the world, a business where everyone belongs, where human differences are celebrated, and where all people thrive in a culture that empowers each one to help run the world better and improve people’s lives.

In the last five years, ��Ĵ�ý has made great strides in workforce diversity. We hit our goal of 35% women in the workplace and moved from 25.5% women in management in 2017 to 29.4% at the close of the fourth quarter of 2022, despite the changed socio-political conditions, most drastically seen during the pandemic. We are proud of these achievements and we will continue to thrive in our commitment to achieving gender parity.

“I dream a world without borders and any special characteristic definition for individuals, where everyone is only human and respectfully communicates with each other,” says Ozlem Karapanli, Business Transformation Services at ��Ĵ�ý. “The result is freedom and shared success.”

Unlocking Value from HCM Transformations

Jacqueline Prause — Wed, 18 Jan 2023 13:15:21 +0000

After a turbulent year in which people management issues repeatedly made headlines, the message is clear for organizations that are forced to reimagine their business for the future. For a healthy, skilled workforce and an agile business, it is time to rethink how we manage and develop people.

“Companies are transforming,” says , a global analyst with deep experience helping organizations implement (HCM) systems to bring strategic value and success to their performance. The Josh Bersin Company’s research shows that there is a shift underway as companies attempt to cross over industries to tap into new markets.

“HCM has to fulfill and support this transformation in the company. These days you cannot run a company effectively without a strategic HCM system,” says Kathi Enderes, senior vice president of Research at The Josh Bersin Company and lead analyst for the study. She cites the evolving requirements at companies to support hybrid work, gig and contract workers, internal talent mobility, sourcing and assessing job candidates, and reskilling employees. “The big change is that we have to design HCM systems with and for employees, not just for HR.”

For most organizations, that requires implementing a cloud-based solution for HCM that integrates with other strategic systems, such as cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP), to deliver an improved employee experience, while also providing better data and insights in real time.

HCM: A Transformative Journey

A surprising number of companies, however, struggle to achieve the expected value from their cloud HCM projects. Nearly two-thirds of respondents said that they only partially achieved the business case at the center of their HCM project, according to a recent webinar poll by The Josh Bersin Company. The lackluster outcomes identified by these respondents are in line with analyses by Bersin’s team, which set out to understand why some HCM projects fall short on value achieved in comparison to value expected and identify key lessons learned from successful transformations.

Implementing a cloud-based HCM system is often a “multiyear, complex, cross-functional project,” according to Enderes. HR leaders are advised to prepare their organizations for a transformative journey. “You have to think of an HCM project as a business transformation,” she says. “It is not a technology implementation because no matter how you look at it, you’re going to be changing the way people work, changing what managers do, and changing the role of some people in HR. All of that is an opportunity to make your company operate better.”

Resources for HCM Excellence

, available for viewing on demand, is the third in a series of solution-focused webinars organized by Tata Consultancy Services to support companies during their HCM journeys. In the webinar, Josh Bersin, Enderes, and Bill Pelster deliver key insights and lessons learned based on their interviews with organizations that are running .

Joining them are Ram Subramanian, global head of the Human Capital Practice at as well as a collaborator on this research, and Rajamma Krishnamurthy, senior director of MS Digital Employee Experience at . They share their HCM experiences during an engaging panel discussion about best practices for project preparation and change management. The three keys that matter most for a successful HCM project are identified in the research and explained in the conversation: improving the employee experience, powering HR transformation, and enabling people analytics and talent intelligence.

Also available is , an in-depth research guide for download from The Josh Bersin Company in collaboration with Tata Consultancy Services. It provides an overview of ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors, the human experience management (HXM) suite, and a deep dive into six key lessons from successful ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors transformations, based on stories from companies in various industries around the globe. The accompanying deep-dive case studies from and provide valuable organizational perspectives on how to maximize outcomes from ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors projects to power business transformation and enable a much improved employee experience.

Building a Future-Ready Workforce with ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors

In the first half of 2022, ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors launched 825 new go-lives. With more than 9,400 customers and over 220 million users worldwide, it is the most widely used cloud HCM platform in the world. ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors serves customers across a broad mix of organization sizes, industries, and geographies.

“��Ĵ�ý in particular — because the company is a big user of HCM systems and is a very complex, multifaceted, multidomain company — understands the complexity of a larger organization,” says Bersin. “��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors over the years has advanced this technology, integrated with the back-office of ��Ĵ�ý, and just introduced what I believe is probably the most significant release they’ve ever done.”

The strategic innovations introduced in ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors second half 2022 release, now available to customers, give companies greater agility to meet the ever-changing demands of business. These foundational developments include skills ontology, growth portfolio, and dynamic teams to help organizations upskill, reskill, and redeploy employees to roles that match their interests and capabilities, as well as advancements to offer a more individualized experience to employees. For more information, watch the .

As Bersin notes, “Over the years, ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors has been redesigned to be a single point of contact for employees. That’s what really every company wants.”

Building a Future-Ready Workforce

Jacqueline Prause — Thu, 10 Nov 2022 12:15:24 +0000

Organizations are under constant pressure to keep up with the pace of change and ongoing challenges in the macro-economic environment. The only way they can adapt to industry-wide disruption and evolving work models, according to new , is to rely on their most important asset: their people.

As many organizations are discovering, however, traditional approaches to human resources (HR) management aren’t working in today’s business world. Faced with inflation, supply chain disruption, labor crises, skills gaps, and a silent mental health epidemic, employers are looking for a new style of HR.

Savvy organizations are moving swiftly to implement long-term strategies that support an agile, skilled, and healthy workforce. Offering employees new opportunities for skills development and learning is one of the ways they are building organizational agility. They are making people sustainability their leading priority for the future of work.

“We’ve been staring down the learning problem for a long time,” said Meg Bear, president and chief product officer for ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors, at . “I’m so excited to get past number of hours of training as the metric we look at and start talking about outcomes. How are people growing? What is it meaning to the business? How is it helping them to thrive in their careers?”

Dynamic Time for HR

During the keynote session at SuccessConnect 2022, Bear and global industry analyst discussed why now is the right time for organizations to build a future-ready workforce through skills and learning – and why the talent supply pipeline is now the top priority for chief executives.

��Ĵ�ý SuccessConnect 2022, Las Vegas, USA

Bersin has talked to thousands of organizations to understand their workforce challenges during this time of industry transformation. “What we basically found is that every company is turning into a different company,” he said. “Industries are converging. Retailers are getting into health care. Communication companies are getting into media. Car companies are getting into electric vehicles and batteries. It goes on industry after industry. As a result of that there is this huge demand for talent.”

Bersin said this is a dynamic time in HR, citing a massive need for reskilling and deployment of people. Despite the pre-pandemic belief that automation would eliminate jobs, today there are not enough people available to fill open roles as companies grow and adapt to macro-economic conditions.

Chief human resource officers (CHROs) are taking their seat at the table to weigh in on some of the biggest opportunities for organizations. “We’re sitting on the most important issues in the entire economy,” said Bersin, who has deep experience advising organizations on corporate learning, HR, and talent management. “Most CEOs have their CHRO’s sitting right next to them for all these issues. I think it is a big upskill and demand for us in HR. It’s a very, very exciting time to be in HR.”

Bersin recalled the “4 Rs” for adding talent: recruiting, reskilling, retention, and redesign. The challenge is that these HR functions are still siloed in most organizations. Addressing the audience, he said, “The real solution to this is for you as an HR group/team/organization to come together and make sure you’re working in an integrated way, because the old model of HR was a service delivery model.” He listed several siloed HR jobs and roles that have gone by the wayside, such as narrowly defined roles for specialists and business partners. “It doesn’t work that way anymore. Everything is connected together. […] It’s a big, big change in the way HR organizations operate.”

Putting People at the Heart of Business

��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors customers joined Bear and Bersin on stage to talk about their journeys. and & Sun Outdoors have relied on ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors to thrive through the pandemic and labor shortage, managing changing workforces by making transformative investments in their people. Communication and listening are how they put people at the heart of their businesses.

“I felt that we always did a good job listening to our team, but the pandemic really gave us the opportunity to show that we were listening more than ever before,” said Marc Farrugia, executive vice president and chief administrative officer at Sun Communities & Sun Outdoors, which uses ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors to maintain constant communication with employees, provide tools and resources, identify skills gaps, and provide opportunities for additional training.

Farrugia is interested in expanding the skills and development possibilities for employees with new innovations featured at SuccessConnect 2022, such as the . “People’s choices and aspirations change so rapidly nowadays that giving them tools to communicate effectively and ultimately take charge of their own journey is what I think will help us continue to succeed,” he said.

As the largest rural lifestyle retailer in the U.S., Tractor Supply Company is a “demand-driven, needs-based company,” said Hollie Cummings, the company’s senior director HR Strategy and Team Member Experience. So, when it came time to choose a new software solution for HR, the project team gathered feedback and ideas from the employees. “We were really able to take a step back and listen to our team members. It’s really important for us to listen to them first,” she said. “��Ĵ�ý was a top choice. [It] really matched up with our values and culture.”

Skills and development are top of mind at Tractor Supply Company heading into 2023. “As we look forward to 2023, our key priority will be career pathing, reskilling and upskilling our workforce,” Cummings said. “As we know, sourcing and attracting talent are more difficult today. We want to make sure we’re setting up our teams for success, and they also see a long-term journey with Tractor Supply. That’s really important for us.”

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��Ĵ�ý Success Stories: Teeing Up with Tracy Martin, Golfer and HXM Ace

Jacqueline Prause — Tue, 08 Nov 2022 12:15:19 +0000

A hurricane could not stop Tracy Martin from achieving her dream to compete in the esteemed . As Martin shot her first round at Fiddlesticks Country Club in Fort Myers, Florida, Hurricane Ian* was little more than a Caribbean breeze. There was no foretelling of the dangerous Category 4 storm that would bring an 18-foot storm surge to Southwest Florida just 10 days later.

Martin however had more than a dream to compete. She had a mindset.

Focus on Outcomes

One shot at a time: This is the mindset that has enabled Martin to maintain resilience and stamina during the most demanding moments on the golf course and in her career. She says the key is “focusing in on what you want that next shot to be.” It’s a technique she learned from legendary sports psychologist , who explained how to channel adrenaline to stay focused in the present and not get distracted by missed shots.

“It all comes down to knowing what you can control,” Martin says. “And really focusing in on what you want that outcome to be. Then ultimately getting to that end result or that goal you want to achieve.”

Martin carries this mindset over to her career as an account executive at ��Ĵ�ý, where she is responsible for managing customer relationships. “I really enjoy talking with customers to understand their needs and how we can help provide the best solution,” says Martin, who joined ��Ĵ�ý in March 2020 as a presales solution advisor. “I love working with my manager and the team to solve complex business problems. Ultimately, it’s just a great company.”

That Ping Golf Ball

Growing up in New Hampshire, Martin regularly joined her father, an avid golfer and retired manufacturer’s representative, for rounds on the golf course. While she enjoyed many other sports, something about golf really inspired her. “It’s just a great environment,” she says. “It’s a great thing to do. It keeps me active. It keeps me social and, yeah, it’s a lot fun.”

To this day, she carries the first golf ball ever given to her: a yellow and orange Ping golf ball. Though the company long ago ceased production of its popular golf balls, Martin says, “That’s always in my golf bag, just as a reminder of when I started.”

You Only Get One Shot

In high school, Martin earned the distinction of becoming the first female player on the school’s varsity golf team. “I wanted to be a member of a team in high school,” she recalls. “I loved being able to lead the path to be the first.”

Though she acknowledges that there can be a stigma attached to female golfers, she says she was fortunate in having the support of the other team members. “Again, I think it goes back to what you can control. I really focused in on being able to play well and show that I belonged there. I think the guys on my team rallied around that. It was a lot of fun,” she says. During her junior and senior years, she was chosen as team captain. “They knew I could represent and really focus in on what we needed to do to perform and be that piece of the puzzle to help the team overall.” With her leadership, they won the New Hampshire state high school championship for boys, girls, and team in 2007.

Martin was recruited to play on the golf team at the , where she maintained the lowest-scoring for the women’s golf team until 2022. The highlight of her senior year was playing in the Wendy’s Invitational in Charleston, South Carolina, in October 2012. Arriving a few days early for the tournament, she played on the iconic Ocean Course on Kiawah Island, ranked #4 among U.S. public golf courses and known for its stunning ocean views and unsparing wind conditions.

“I always wanted to play the Ocean Course. Everybody knew it was something I wanted to do.” She was grateful for that extraordinary opportunity. Her team went on to win the tournament and Martin won the individual competition. “It was a very special few days,” she says.

In college, Martin refined her warm-up routine to get into a focused “you only get one shot” mindset for tournament play. She still applies these methods. She hits the same irons for 20-30 minutes, then a few with a fairway wood, and ends with the driver. She then wraps up her preparation on the putting green. Her secret: “I typically only use one ball when practicing putting,” she says. “My college coach said, you only get one shot on the golf course. So, why would you bring three different golf balls to practice with on the putting green?”

Firing a 68 for Women’s Sports

As a professional with a full-time job at ��Ĵ�ý, Martin makes it to the golf course three to four times a week, whether for nine holes, 18 holes, or practice. She optimizes the short New England golf season by playing 60-75 rounds a year, including off-season trips to sunnier locations. In the 2020 season, she set a new women’s course record at the , where she is a member, from the red tees.

She says she’s excited about the technologies that are gaining popularity in the sport, like yardage range finders and GPS. “The control that you can get over the ball has really changed exponentially,” she says, citing new analytics software programs that are vastly helping players improve their play in ways that were not possible in the past. “That’s really changed the game.”

In July 2021, Martin won the , in Lowell, Massachusetts. The annual charity event raises money for women’s sports and high school girls to receive scholarships for college. As announced on , Martin “fired a smooth 68” with 3-under to win the event on her first attempt. In her , she thanks the crowd’s enthusiasm and excellent course conditions, saying, “It was an awesome experience!”

��’s Support for Bringing Her Whole Self to Work

Many golf events and tournaments take place during the week, which is a challenge for Martin, who says she needs to be very selective about which events she will dedicate time to as a player. The annual USGA Mid-Amateur Championship topped her list. “This was something I set as a goal with my manager at the beginning of the year: to make the Mid-Amateur. I wanted to get back into that highest level of competition, which I hadn’t been able to really do since college,” Martin says.

Her manager, Billy Baker, ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors vice president, East, understood that Martin’s passion for golf is an important part of her whole self as an ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors employee. To require her to suppress that part of herself on the job would result in unhappiness and frustration for Martin – and a likely loss of valuable productivity for ��Ĵ�ý. Martin is very grateful for Baker’s encouragement. “He was extremely supportive and very adamant that we need to follow our passions so that we can succeed not only at work but also in our personal lives.”

“Tracy’s passion for competitive golf is an important part of her life,” says Baker. “It is beneficial for employees to have outlets outside of the workplace to provide additional fulfillment and happiness. Tracy applies the energy and mindset she gains on the course to her work life. I believe that fulfilled employees will bring their best selves to work.”

Support for Martin’s dream to play in the USGA Mid-Amateur Championship did not end with Baker. Greg Healy, ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors regional vice president, East, also extended his backing for Martin to achieve her personal goal while managing her ��Ĵ�ý career. In fact, Martin’s entire team has been enthusiastically following the developments of her tournament play and qualification matches.

“Bringing one’s whole self to work is not just a tag line for our team. It is something we embrace and encourage,” says Healy. “Tracy’s leadership, execution, and attention to detail help her excel in her job and create raving fans with her customers. These traits also allow her to execute at a high level in one of the world’s most difficult sports. To say I am proud of Tracy is an understatement and we are lucky to have her as a part of our team.”

“I have an amazing support system from family, work, and friends and they just really inspire me to make sure I can play the best golf I can,” Martin says. “I feel like I can be myself at work and on the golf course. It’s been an amazing couple of years being at ��Ĵ�ý and just receiving that support throughout the entire time I’ve been here.”

One Shot at a Time

As Martin leans in to 2023, she looks forward to helping ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors customers achieve their business goals with the right support and resources. “I love the part of my job that allows me to really help people and identifying what their needs are. I’ve had nothing but great experiences with my customers,” she says.

Martin says that golf has taught her a great deal about human potential and resilience. “Golf is very difficult because you never know what you’re going to get on any given day,” she says, noting that you never really have the same shot twice. “You have to have the tenacity and the ability to put a round behind you and come out the next day and really just focus on that round. I think it’s something that people who play golf can understand.”

Having relished the honor to compete this year at the USGA Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship, Martin was through her rounds and returned safely back home to New England well before the arrival of Hurricane Ian. Next year, she will attempt to qualify again. True to form, she’ll take it one shot at a time.

*Editor’s note: Hurricane Ian was an historic storm that impacted Florida and Southeast U.S. ��Ĵ�ý responded by ensuring the safety of its employees in the region and making a donation to the Red Cross to support relief efforts.

To Change Work for Good, We Must Acknowledge the Power of Belonging

Jacqueline Prause — Wed, 02 Nov 2022 12:15:29 +0000

A wave of racial justice protests in the U.S. in 2020 — sparked by the tragic murder of George Floyd — triggered nationwide discourse on the role of power and race in society. “2020 was a hard year,” recalled Baratunde Thurston, a writer, producer, and TV host.

He remembered how his phone lit up with messages of outreach from people who wanted to express their lament — in a personal way — to Thurston, who is Black, for four centuries of racial injustice. “It was real. It was awkward. And it was beautiful all at once.”

The events of 2020 inspired Thurston to channel that energy into activating societal change for liberty, justice, and belonging. He said, “I’ve learned a lot since then and I feel that I claim to teach, which is the best form of teaching, to learn at the same time.”

Thurston recently took his message of empowerment and inclusion to people and culture leaders at in Las Vegas. He appealed to them to embrace the challenges and opportunities of their leadership roles as they endeavor to change work for good through policies and programs. This message resonated with the audience, who were attending the keynote to learn how leaders and employees can co-create a future of work that cultivates productivity, well-being, and innovation by building a culture of belonging.

“Belonging is something that organizations still struggle with,” said Aaron Green, chief marketing and solutions officer of , which hosted SuccessConnect 2022. “When we talk about things like internal mobility, reskilling, and truly unleashing human potential at work, none of this is possible if people don’t actually feel like they belong. Creating a culture of belonging is the first step in creating a truly sustainable workforce.”

Citizen Is an Active Verb

In the podcast “,” Thurston explores how societal themes of equity and fairness influence government and how people can reclaim their collective power to bring about change. “To citizen” is an active verb that mandates participation, said Thurston, who emphasized that every person should have the feeling of liberation, justice, and belonging. “Inclusion means everybody.”

“To citizen,” he said, we must do four things: show up and participate; invest in relationships with ourselves, others, and the planet; understand power and the ways we have access to it; and value the collective self, not just the individual self.

Three Lessons for Liberty, Justice, and Belonging

As an activist with a message of hope for sociopolitical empowerment, Thurston said experience has already taught him some lessons about the dynamics of power. “One of the first things I learned in this is to adjust our expectations,” he said, noting that systems in place for hundreds or thousands of years cannot be changed in one election cycle. “We’ve got to set a different type of goal, maybe not instant completion, instant gratification; maybe gratitude to participate in a journey that began well before us and will continue after us.”

He has gained an understanding for how various groups cling to power. “As we engage in this epic quest to level up and extend liberty and justice to all, I’ve also learned to be sensitive to the real feelings of dispossession, of loss, of fear for those who are positioned as the insiders,” he said, identifying a false charitable mindset, grounded in assumptions of superiority, as just one of the pitfalls that can arise when people are not authentic in their commitment to inclusion.

Thurston asked audience members to do their part to distribute the power of technology for societal good, saying “We’re too long in the game to pretend that we can make all of this better by just adding technology.” He expressed his thoughts about how technology is used and for what purpose. “I think about crypto and blockchain and I get very excited – and very skeptical – because we use the same language: minting, mining, even chains. We want to financialize everything. But what if we could use those tools to actually help build stronger bonds?”

Enriching the Journey Through Human Connection

Joining Thurston on stage at SuccessConnect 2022 were executive leaders who are advancing diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEI&B) initiatives at global organizations. Their goal is to create a more sustainable workforce by putting in place policies and initiatives that support the workforce. Shelley Zalis, CEO, , said that more needs to be done, especially to protect employee retention. “We need to get smart about this and just ask our employees, what do you need to stay?” Speaking to the senselessness of , as called out by Arianna Huffington of , Zalis said, “We pay more attention to the people that are leaving than the people that are here.”

A lack of belonging is among the frequently cited reasons for employees to leave an organization. Leaders can take steps to bolster employee retention by providing an environment of psychological safety that allows employees to bring their whole selves to work. Supriya Jha, chief diversity and inclusion officer, , noted, “The beauty of psychological safety is that you don’t necessarily understand it unless you’ve gone through that feeling of being the only one, that feeling of not being able to speak up, that feeling of needing to blend into the background so you’re not seen. If you’ve gone through it, you start realizing the true value of psychological safety.”

“Just watch and observe,” advised Prerna Ajmera, general manager, HR Digital, Transformation Programs, . “If you’re in a meeting and you find two people sitting quiet, why are they quiet? Is it because their superiors are in the meeting and culturally, they won’t speak? Or is it something else? Are they not feeling like they’re the in-crowd? Encourage them – be their ally.”

Jha shared with the people and culture leaders in the audience her perspective on the value of the difficult and enriching work required to create a workplace that fosters authentic connection and belonging. “When we talk about diversity and inclusion being a journey, and being a long journey, please also look at it in another way,” she said. “You are travelers on this journey. You are enriching yourselves with the entire experience.”

Watch a recording of the SuccessConnect 2022 keynote:
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NTT DATA: “It Takes Your Entire Team to Win the Race”

Jacqueline Prause — Fri, 30 Sep 2022 13:15:50 +0000

We live in a culture of speed: a digitalized environment where results are expected at the push of a button and innovations are rolled out in increasingly shorter cycles to meet spiraling demand. has harnessed this mindset in a powerful way to drive performance of its data and technology services with – a fast-track initiative that enables NTT DATA Services to maintain a hyper-focus on the finish line. At parent company , title sponsor and technology partner of the , it’s no secret that in business as well as sport.

“In racing, as in business, speed is the name of the game,” said Vicki Furnish, vice president of Global People Solutions Operations and Analytics, NTT DATA Services, a part of NTT DATA, a $22B, top-10 provider of global business and IT services, headquartered in Tokyo. NTT DATA Services is based in Plano, Texas, with 50,000 workers and revenue of $4B. In recent years the company has been growing rapidly through acquisitions.

“Companies can no longer wait to implement newer technologies or we’re going to be left behind by our competitors,” Furnish told an audience at , where she presented NTT DATA Services’ cloud journey. “We’re in a constant state of acceleration. We’re using technology to change the game.”

Rapid Ascent to the Cloud

NTT DATA Services’ journey to the cloud started with its established ��Ĵ�ý footprint in 2012, when the division ran to help meet the needs of its then-20,000 employees in five countries. When ��Ĵ�ý bought SuccessFactors that same year, NTT DATA Services quickly pivoted to implement the new cloud-based software suite for human resources.

Furnish says that her team started with ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors Performance & Goals and ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors Compensation and later migrated to ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors Employee Central. “We were able to get our ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors Employee Central module implemented globally across five countries in six and a half months,” she said.

In 2016, NTT DATA Services in an acquisition that expanded its offerings to become a comprehensive portfolio of business and IT services. The team at NTT DATA Services was able to get the core functions of ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors Employee Central running in six months from the time the deal was signed. “We’re very excited about that,” Furnish said.

Two questions come up whenever Furnish shares the success story of NTT DATA Services’ migration to the cloud: How did you do it? How big is your team?

Lots of pre-work and preparation went into the project, according to Furnish, and executive buy-in was an important factor in seeing the project through to completion. With NTT Group leadership on board, the project was set for success. As for the team size, it’s remarkably similar to the six-person pit crews of IndyCar fame. “I’m very honored to manage a large team today, but the ones who manage our global ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors configuration and maintenance are six very smart and talented people who are deployed across the globe,” said Furnish.

Lessons from the Speedway

Lessons learned at NTT DATA Services come straight off the speedway. Furnish said, “To compete in this culture of speed, there are two things we can learn from the world of motorsports. First: reduce resistance. Second: keep the pedal down.”

One of the biggest barriers to speed in organizations today is outdated legacy software, tools, and technologies, which act as digital drag on efficiency. “While it’s easier said than done, updating those technologies and systems will unleash a powerful set of capacity and capabilities,” said Furnish, who noted that sometimes the problem is that there can be too much great technology to choose from. She recommended honing in on technologies that offer clear value, allow easy collaboration and quick implementation, and meet the strategic needs of the business.

Talent was identified as an area of investment at NTT DATA Services. “We are a professional services company, so people are core to what we do,” Furnish said. By looking at the whole person throughout the employee life cycle, the organization has advanced its people agenda. “Our approach is, if we put the right foundation in for our team and people, our team members will be successful. If they are successful, we will then be successful in our business.”

Keeping pace with customer demand and the competition will always be a challenge, but Furnish is optimistic. “I think moving to the cloud has kind of leveled the playing field. The companies that are nimble and address updating their technology quicker and faster are the ones that are going to take charge.”

The Checkered Flag

At the closing of her presentation, Furnish waved the metaphorical checkered flag for the takeaway: “Change is constant, but what we’re seeing is coming at us historically faster,” she said. “I would encourage all of you to remember the strategic objectives that you are focused on with your team, leverage all of your resources, and ask for help when you can – because in this environment of speed, it takes your entire team to win the race.”

The Smart Factory @ Wichita: Experience the Future of Manufacturing

Jacqueline Prause — Thu, 29 Sep 2022 11:15:19 +0000

Innovation thrives when talented people with passion and skills have the physical space to exchange ideas and build and test their concepts. For example, the flat, grassy fields surrounding Wichita, Kansas, provided the fledgling aviation industry of the 1920s ample space for runways and hangars to foster innovation of the aircraft that would define a new era of transportation.

As this industry grew, the city attracted entrepreneurs, investors, and engineers to become the “.” Wichita now nationally at No. 1 in manufacturing jobs as a percentage of all jobs and No. 3 in percentage of jobs classified as “very high-tech.”

The recent launch of The Smart Factory @ Wichita, a new, immersive across a variety of use cases, is the latest milestone in the city’s proud history of innovation. The project, led by Deloitte, aims to accelerate digital transformation in manufacturing and address the challenges organizations are facing, including a volatile global economy, supply chain issues, labor shortages, and more, to help navigate today and build competitive advantage for the future. For visitors, it’s an opportunity to see first-hand how Industry 4.0 solutions bring connectivity, intelligence, and transparency to the supply chain within a fully operational, smart manufacturing environment.

The Smart Factory @ Wichita is expected to host more than 5,000 visitors over the next year. The 60,000 square-foot facility is housed on the Innovation Campus at Wichita State University, where it is connected to the university-managed smart grid and has renewable energy generation on-site. As a showcase for the future of manufacturing, The Smart Factory @ Wichita operates sustainably at net-zero energy consumption and is outfitted with wind trees, solar assets, and smart lighting.

The Smart Factory @ Wichita recently celebrated its opening with a summit in June. ��Ĵ�ý is proud to be a founding sponsor – along with Deloitte, Dragos, Infor, Siemens, and Wichita State University – within an extended ecosystem that includes stakeholders from software, hardware, robotics, consulting, academia, and others.

Darcy MacClaren, senior vice president of Digital Supply Chain and Industry 4.0 for ��Ĵ�ý North America, . She believes the facility is a must-see experience for customers.

“The Smart Factory @ Wichita is a truly unique experience for visitors to envision how Industry 4.0 can drive value for their business,” she says. “I cannot emphasize the value of the real-life experience strongly enough. The immersion in the live production environment allows visitors to experience smart manufacturing concepts in a way that’s not possible through standard conversations or presentations.”

De-Globalization Opens the Way for Innovation

The launch of The Smart Factory @ Wichita comes at a critical time as businesses search for solutions to overcome manufacturing challenges. As a result of the pandemic and supply chain pressures, deglobalization is leading businesses to diversify their supply chains away from dependence on one supplier or region. As recently reported in , many businesses are looking for ways to move their manufacturing capabilities closer to home and improve automation.

“While there’s recognition in the industry that the evolution to true end-to-end smart manufacturing is a must-have in today’s ever-shifting environment, at the same time, it is challenging for an organization to put the necessary complex architecture in place on its own,” says Stephen Laaper, principal and smart factory leader, Deloitte Consulting LLP. “In response, we saw a huge opportunity to convene an ecosystem of world-class solution and technology providers and bring together the Internet of Things, cloud, artificial intelligence, computer vision, and more under one roof at The Smart Factory @ Wichita.”

Showcasing ��Ĵ�ý Solutions for Industry 4.0

The Smart Factory @ Wichita brings the to life, providing organizations an under-the-hood view of how ��Ĵ�ý solutions support digital transformation and intelligent automation, the underlying concepts of Industry 4.0. More than 50 use cases for smart manufacturing are available on-site, ensuring that both supply chain experts and newcomers will find the content accessible and informative.

“The Smart Factory @ Wichita is a terrific showcase of the digital supply chain technology that helps our customers unlock the value of Industry 4.0,” says MacClaren. Visitors will see an impressive array of advanced robotics and automation that power everything from the shop floor to the robot coffee baristas. At the core is ��Ĵ�ý S/4HANA, the intelligent enterprise cloud solution that runs mission-critical operations with integrated supply chain solutions for manufacturing and asset management. These and other digital solutions enable the physical production line on the shop floor.

The next step, according to MacClaren, is to enable the full end-to-end supply chain scenario, including ��Ĵ�ý technology supporting product innovation for R&D and engineering, logistics for warehousing and transportation, and supply chain planning.

For customers during their innovation journey, the solution offers business transformation-as-a-service to smooth the evolution to a cloud-based, intelligent enterprise that runs smart manufacturing solutions. Find out about .

STEM Education Kits to Empower Students

Core to the purpose of The Smart Factory @ Wichita is its mission as a factory that helps produce and distribute a product with a purpose. In partnership with , The Smart Factory @ Wichita turns out components for Smart Rover Kits, all of which use 100% recycled polyethylene terephthalate (rPET) collected from the local recycling stream as the primary raw material, bringing the circular economy to life.

The kits are then assembled and shipped to schools with initial donations impacting 1,000 middle school students in Metro Detroit, Philadelphia, and Wichita. The program aims to reach 800,000 students in the U.S. over the next four years. The mission of Deloitte’s Smart Factory Believers Program is to empower the traditionally underrepresented students of today to become the diverse STEM innovators of tomorrow.

Closing the Skills Gap in Partnership with Industry

The Smart Factory @ Wichita also serves Wichita State University students as an applied learning environment for smart manufacturing and its impact on sustainability outcomes. The need is critical, according to a from Deloitte: “The manufacturing industry is facing a skills and talent gap that will leave 2 million of nearly 3.5 million manufacturing jobs unfilled.”

“We’re building traction as an emerging leader in the field of digital transformation; and trailblazers — like Deloitte — are taking notice that Wichita State’s research and expertise give them a competitive edge,” said Dr. Rick Muma, president of Wichita State University. “And our students benefit from the applied learning opportunities that they’ll gain at The Smart Factory @ Wichita. As Deloitte professionals educate the workforce of tomorrow, Shocker students train side-by-side with experts in the fields of smart manufacturing, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, and robotics.”

For more information, visit . And to learn about ��Ĵ�ý solutions for smart manufacturing, industry 4.0, or supply chain, visit .

Setting a Vision for People Sustainability

Jacqueline Prause — Mon, 26 Sep 2022 12:15:19 +0000

Human experience in the workplace has never been more important than it is right now. As the new chief marketing and solutions officer (CMSO) of , Aaron Green believes that it is a critical moment for organizations to shift to a new kind of business, where people and culture leaders have a permanent seat at the table and every decision is a “people” decision.

��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors’ vision for the future of work brings together cloud technology, data, and analytics to put people at the center of business. “It’s something we put into our product: the capability for organizations to change work for good,” Green says.

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In the post-pandemic workplace, ��Ĵ�ý has identified people sustainability as a business imperative that is the foundation for all other organizational sustainability goals. Green steps into his new role at ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors at a time when traditional HR tenets are coming under scrutiny and employees are voicing their requirements for flexibility, equitable pay, and purpose.

As organizations cope with market dynamics and a changing workforce, Green sees the opportunity for ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors’ comprehensive global HR platform to drive value for customers by strengthening the connection between HR and business operations, creating both a sustainable workforce and profitable organization.

Closing the Skills Gap to Meet Business Challenges

The skills gap crisis continues to intensify in the post-pandemic world, driven by the unrelenting pace of innovation and the new technologies in the workplace. For stable business operations amid the global turmoil, it is essential that organizations have a sustainable, healthy, and skilled workforce that can readily adapt to change. Helping organizations build new skills and uncover hidden skills in their existing workforce are among the strengths of ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors.

“Organizations are talking about how they skill and reskill people to build that resiliency and redundancy into the workforce, so that they are able to meet the challenges of the future,” Green says. “That’s really where ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors plays a huge role in helping organizations understand what skills they have, what skills they need, and how to close that skill and experience gap.”

Building High-Performing Teams with the Whole Self Model

The right skills alone will not create a sustainable, empowered workforce, as the lessons of post-pandemic work has shown. Employees are demanding to be valued as individuals with consideration for their holistic lived experiences, passions, and characteristics that make up who they are. Without this deep, powerful connection of the employee’s authentic self to the workplace culture, some may say, it’s just a job.

The whole self model is guiding how ��Ĵ�ý advances the ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors HXM Suite. By creating a way for organizations to identify people’s individual traits, like team strengths and work styles, as well as their passions and motivations, they can improve DE&I, create better work experiences and build high-performing teams. Green says that the benefit to business is “being able to not just capture that data but being able to, at an organizational level, use that data to understand how to construct the best-running teams.”

“What are the psychological, the purposeful attributes, of people that make up a high-performing team? To be able to identify those people inside your current workforce and bring that forward – that’s the [power of the] whole self model,” he says.

Understanding How Cultural Diversity Impacts Global Business

Green’s most recent role at ��Ĵ�ý was senior vice president and head of ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors, Asia Pacific and Japan. He has spent the last 10 years working and living across the Asia Pacific region, with six of those years at ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors. At the mention of Asia Pacific and Japan, Green beams a smile. “I would say it’s probably one of the proudest moments of my career,” he says, referring to his time spent at ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors in the region. One of the things he found unique about Asia is its cultural diversity. He learned “with that cultural diversity comes different challenges in how you really run an organization and get the best out of your people and also make them feel included.”

Building a diverse and inclusive team was one of Green’s greatest achievements. “I’m really proud that as a leadership team in Asia Pacific and Japan over 46% of the workforce are female,” he says, noting that the global average for female talent in tech organizations is 26%. “That’s not just a reflection of the inclusivity of Asia Pacific, but it’s also the way we as a leadership team make sure our workforce reflects the communities that we operate in and serve.”

Green intends to carry this valuable intercultural experience into how he manages and prioritizes to best serve the 9,000+ global customers of ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors. As he says, “In order to serve those organizations, we have to have localization, that deep understanding of how to operate and how business needs to operate in that global but also very local context.”

Why People Win with Connected Cloud ERP and HXM

Jacqueline Prause — Thu, 22 Sep 2022 12:15:55 +0000

Organizations that connect and accelerate business performance and gain key benefits through improved insights, efficiencies, and experiences across all business areas.

However, some organizations put off integrating HR software with other areas of the business. To better understand the challenges that organizations face with enterprise technology, ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors interviewed leaders in HR, finance, IT, and other operations at large and midmarket companies. Some of the comments that stood out include: “It’s a complicated dance to integrate the data.” “It’s hard to know how many people we have – let alone what they’re working on.” “How do we use data to tell our people story?”

These business leaders were aware of the benefits of connected cloud ERP and HXM. What was the barrier to investment? It was their organization’s technology strategy. As one member of the group summarized, “Ownership or what’s on fire – it’s impacting our ability to make strategic investment decisions.”

Carrie Klauss from Solution Marketing for ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors presented these findings at SuccessConnect 2022 in the session “Improving Business Performance by Connecting Cloud ERP and HXM,” .

“One of the key things we identified is that while there’s a desire for a much more integrated approach between HR and other business operations – and a strong acknowledgement of the associated value – for many, this remains a challenge,” Klauss said. “To no surprise, the overarching challenge theme was complexity due to silos.”

Thinking Beyond Walls to Connected Business

In the former model of enterprise technology, HR systems were separate from business systems. As a result, there was an inordinate amount of latency, inaccuracy, and complexity in the relationships between the business and the HR organization. Business and HR leaders struggled to understand the connection among management practices, employee engagement levels, and customer outcomes, Klauss noted.

This outdated model continues in some organizations, with business areas operating independent of one another. In these instances, HR is inefficiently connected to the rest of the organization through manual, offline, or similarly inefficient processes that reinforce inaccuracy and complexity.

Alternatively, when organizations take an advanced, connected approach with ��Ĵ�ý S/4HANA and ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors running on a common cloud platform, they succeed in breaking down silos and enable enterprise-wide insights, processes, and experiences.

“It was really interesting to hear the feedback from our research participants,” Klauss said. “While many of them started with a fairly narrow view, specific to their respective area and the associated challenges, the majority quickly pivoted to begin thinking beyond their HR or finance walls.”

Unified Data Leads to Expanded Mission in Healthcare

One ��Ĵ�ý customer that is seeing the benefits of a connected approach is (HHC), a U.S.-based organization with 5,000 employees. A key pillar of HHC’s vision is to lead with innovation in clinical care, research, education, and service excellence. However, its four business units – healthcare, government, public health, and public safety – previously operated in silos. This business structure led to operational inefficiencies and a frustrating user experience for employees that could also carry over to the patient experience.

HHC deployed ��Ĵ�ý S/4HANA for finance and the supply chain and ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors software on a common platform. As a result, the organization improved its supply chain efficiency, with an 85% reduction in purchase order processing time. It has also seen vast improvements in employee productivity and satisfaction, with a 94% improvement in benefits admin for new and existing employees and an 80% improvement in ad hoc reporting capabilities.

With enterprise-wide data now available, HHC has set new targets to roll out strategic analytics across the enterprise to tackle larger public health issues, such as food insecurity, homelessness, and vector-borne illness.

Putting People at the Center of Business

��Ĵ�ý helps customers advance to a connected cloud approach with ��Ĵ�ý S/4HANA and ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors solutions so they can run as intelligent, sustainable enterprises.

The benefits of ��’s intelligent suite are manifold. Having data connected on a common data foundation improves speed, accuracy, and insights. The unified integration extends beyond the data to connect processes and employee experiences. In addition, a connected approach opens the opportunity for enterprise-wide adoption of intelligent technologies by removing the limitations of specific business silos or use cases and enabling automation.

Learn more about how connected cloud ERP and HXM can provide and .

SuccessConnect 2022: Together, We Can Change Work for Good

Jacqueline Prause — Fri, 16 Sep 2022 14:15:18 +0000

“The future is people-led,” said Aaron Green, chief marketing and solutions officer of ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors, at the of SuccessConnect 2022, where the excitement for ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors’ vision of the future of work brought human resources (HR) leaders together under the banner “unleash the power of human potential and change work for good.”

Green spoke of the need for a new kind of business that elevates people and culture. He said it is now clearer than ever that “putting individuals at the center of business is no longer just the right thing to do; it’s the necessary thing to do to create a workforce for the future.”

The message comes during a turbulent year for HR leaders, who have stepped up as unsung heroes supporting their organizations and driving resilience through an array of unprecedented challenges, such as inflation, labor crises, skills gaps, and a silent mental health epidemic. Many are looking to ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors’ vision for (HXM) to help them innovate faster, increase agility, and deliver better employee experiences that deepen workforce engagement and improve profitability.

A Vast and Diverse Customer Community Comes Together

SuccessConnect 2022 officially got underway September 13-14 in Las Vegas. This was the first year it has returned as an in-person event since the beginning of the pandemic and attendance was phenomenal, with full sessions and standing room only at the keynotes. The event was co-located with , also held this week in Las Vegas. SuccessConnect 2022 is also offered as a , available on demand with access to keynotes, demos, and select sessions that include informative customer-led sessions from brewing company and telecommunications company

During one insightful keynote session, leaders from shared the story of their talent experience transformation in the U.S., a project that is bringing their IT and HR teams together to advance organizational efficiencies and create better employee experiences.

Offering the most comprehensive global HR software portfolio, ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors continues its impressive growth trajectory, topping 220 million users globally, 300 partner apps, and 850 go-lives in the first half of 2022. Customer migration to the cloud shows steady momentum, with the announcement that more than 5,000 customers are now using ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors Employee Central – a flexible, cloud-based human resources information system (HRIS) solution – to transform their people and culture strategies.

Maryann Abbajay, chief revenue officer for ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors, called the milestone a “celebration of our vast and diverse customer community of people and culture leaders.” Find out more about how ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors customers are transforming the experience for their employees in this from the SuccessConnect show floor:

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People Sustainability Becomes a Business Imperative

People sustainability was a focus topic at SuccessConnect 2022 and the subject of Green’s keynote, where he underscored the business imperative to support people and human potential to create a more sustainable future and drive resilience and agility.

��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors defines people sustainability to mean treating people – across organizations, supply chains, and communities – ethically and fairly. In fact, 86% of organizations worldwide believe that investing in people sustainability can drive positive environmental and economic sustainability, according to a global study by ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors conducted in partnership with IDC. However, 79% of organizations surveyed said they would find it valuable to have more tools and technology available to support key people sustainability use cases. Find out more in this , chief scientist for Growth and Insights at ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors:

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��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors technology supports customers’ people sustainability strategies, helping them gain a better understanding of the individual worker to create a better employee experience. “Our software is built with inclusivity at its core,” Green said. “The first part of creating a sustainable workforce is creating a culture of belonging and allowing every person to be seen.”

As announced to the media at SuccessConnect 2022, ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors is delivering advancements that will support organizations as they build a diverse and sustainable workforce. With the 2H2022 release, any user of ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors will be able to indicate their chosen name and personal pronouns. Also, there will be a foundational update on the whole self model to provide deeper insight into individual employees holistically through their identity, skills, traits, work styles, passions, and aspirations.

“This is what it looks like to create a culture where employees feel valued for who they are today and who they are becoming,” said Green. “This is what it means to be a resilient, results-driven, and people-first organization — one that’s not only equipped to meet the business needs of today, but one that adapts to the business needs of tomorrow. This is what people sustainability looks like.”

Watch this for a recap of the SuccessConnect 2022 vision keynote:

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Building a Future-Ready Workforce

It’s no secret that organizations today are under constant pressure to keep up with the pace of change. The only way they can adapt to industry-wide disruption and changing work models is to implement people sustainability strategies that support an agile, skilled, and healthy workforce. In a keynote conversation, global industry analyst and Meg Bear, president and chief product officer for ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors, discussed why now is the right time to build a future-ready workforce through skills and learning – as well as why the talent supply pipeline is now the top priority for chief executives.

Bersin said this is a dynamic time in HR, citing a massive need for talent and reskilling. Despite the pre-pandemic belief that automation would eliminate jobs, today we simply do not have enough people to fill available roles as companies grow and adapt to macro-economic conditions. CHROs are taking their seat at the table to weigh in on some of the biggest opportunities for organizations.

Joining them on stage to share their journeys were ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors customers along with & . Both organizations have relied on ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors solutions to survive and thrive through the pandemic and labor shortage, managing changing workforces by making transformative investments in their people. They said communication and listening are how they put people at the heart of their businesses.

Innovation to Power a Skilled, Agile, Equitable Workforce

Making headlines at SuccessConnect was the unveiling of new innovations in the that will help HR organizations strengthen the connection to business operations and create the kind of amazing employee experiences that attract and retain talent as an employer of choice.

The new skills ontology uses machine learning and automation to identify an employee’s skills, responsibilities, experiences, and accomplishments. The new growth portfolio is a dynamic library of employee attributes, including skills, strengths, work styles, passions, and aspirations. Both will be available in the 2H2022 release for early adoption.

These foundational advancements bring the whole self model to life in dynamic teams – an exciting innovation that enables organizations to create, track, measure, and optimize the outcomes of teams that exist beyond traditional hierarchies – and the , which was introduced in 2021 to give employees the agency to find personalized growth and development opportunities . To learn how these innovations deliver the intelligence and adaptability to help build workforces that are skilled, agile, and equitable, read the press release: “��Ĵ�ý Delivers New Innovations to Build Future-Ready, Sustainable Workforces.”

“Building on our heritage in talent management, we are reimagining how organizations manage and develop their people to meet the emerging demands of the future of work,” said Bear. “When people have the opportunity to work on what they’re passionate about, they are more engaged, perform at a higher level, and push the organization to deliver outsized business results.”

With news that pleased many customers, Amy Wilson, senior vice president of Products and Design for ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors, took to the main stage to announce a milestone investment in ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors’ infrastructure to upgrade every tenant to public cloud-grade data centers by year end, dramatically reducing load times.

Wilson said the 2H2022 release will include new onboarding guided processes for ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors Work Zone that integrate seamlessly with ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors, ��Ĵ�ý applications like ��Ĵ�ý Ariba, and third-party apps like Qualtrics. She gave the audience a preview of what’s coming in 2023 with a demonstration of how HR team members can soon use ��Ĵ�ý AppGyver’s low-code/no-code capability in ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors Work Zone to build and modify guided processes quickly and easily – no coding experience required.

Wilson also introduced the first talent system built for a future-ready workforce, with a new growth portfolio and skills ontology coming together in a unified talent intelligence hub that provides inferred skills recommendations for employee development and optimizes opportunities on the ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors Opportunity Marketplace. Find out more in this :

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“��Ĵ�ý has created a system for managing the organization of the future, today,” said Bersin, who shared the news about . “The new architecture and capabilities in ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors represent a quantum leap forward in delivering what organizations need to manage, grow, and enable their people and teams.”

Changing Work for Good

Why People Managers May Be the New Employee Experience Heroes

Jacqueline Prause — Mon, 12 Sep 2022 12:15:36 +0000

We are living in a time when the fundamentals of work are being boldly questioned and tested. Our present-day conversations about changes in the workplace would have been unimaginable just 20 years ago. Recent headlines chronicle the return to office, “quiet quitting,” the labor shortage, gig economy, employee expectations, employee mental health, and even the .

But there is one organizational role that continues to be the mainstay of the employee experience: the people manager. In today’s rapidly evolving workplace, job satisfaction and employee engagement are strongly linked to the quality of the relationship an employee has with their direct manager. As it’s often been : people leave managers, not companies. A study found that “70% of the variance in team engagement is determined solely by the manager.”

“The manager is the employee’s first line to experiencing work and the organization,” says Dr. Lauren Park, human resources (HR) research scientist on the ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors Growth and Insights Team. The team conducted a study of 31 HR leaders across multiple regions and industries to find out how the role of the people manager is transforming to improve the employee experience. “With recent shifts in the social and economic space, we see this [role] becoming even more important.”

Drivers of Change in People Management

The team’s research identified three driving forces behind the transformation of people management. For the roles and industries in which it is relevant, the biggest change is the shift to hybrid work. Managers and employees no longer share the same workspace, which means that communication has to be more intentional to overcome the lack of nuanced information from in-person interactions. Also, managers now need to focus on managing outcomes rather than processes.

Changing employee expectations are also transforming people management. Employees are rethinking how work fits into their lives and have become more vocal in demanding better experiences. “We see a power dynamic shift from some managers looking at their team to make them successful to managers really being there to make those individuals successful and to help improve their work and non-work experiences,” Park says.

Technology is also shaping the role of the people manager to be much more human-centric. As administrative tasks become automated, people managers will be able to spend more time on people-focused work, like fostering growth and development, improving team culture, and demonstrating caring.

People-Oriented Competencies for the Future

People managers in the future of work will need very different competencies from the task overseers and administrators that characterized some people management practices in the past. ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors researchers have given considerable thought to which competencies people managers will need to be successful in building employee engagement.

“With the input of our customer research participants, we developed a competency model of what people management looks like in this new world of work,” says Park, who will present these research insights in the session “” at on September 14.

“The foundational competency required for people management is and has always been the ability to communicate and to influence others. But what is becoming more and more central to a manager’s role is demonstrating concern and care, not only for their team but for themselves. This is where we see a shift – people managers are expected to do this more than ever before, and many don’t feel prepared to take on this role.”

Other competencies include fostering growth and development, including continuously upskilling themselves and their team. It is also up to the people manager to build a positive team culture that fosters psychological safety and encourages growth. The traditional competency of specifying and evaluating work remains important for the role of the people manager, including knowing when and how to give employees autonomy to complete their work in balance with organizational needs.

Developing the Next Generation of People Managers

Organizations will need to take care to identify and develop employees to be people managers. Some of the personal traits that are surfacing in feedback from HR leaders include adaptability, empathy, resilience, conscientiousness, honesty, humility, and a tolerance for ambiguity and uncertainty.

With consideration to these competencies and traits, it becomes clear that not everyone is meant to be a people manager. “Traditionally, organizations chose the best high-performing individual contributors to become people managers,” Park says. She notes that this approach has been controversial in the past and says, “The consensus is that is not going to be successful in the future.”

As an alternative, those high-performing individual contributors may soon get a progression track through the organization of their own that precludes taking on people management responsibilities. However, talented employees who are tapped for the role of people manager can further develop their skills through coaching, job shadowing, and mentoring. Deliberate succession planning needs to be in place to ensure that those employees with recognized people management skills are effectively placed in new roles.

Each organization will differ in its approach, but Park believes there is an urgent need to identify and develop new people managers who can improve employee experiences. “We saw varying levels of maturity in the customers we spoke to,” says Park, who recently talked with an HR leader who had implemented a parallel progression path for individual contributors and people managers.

“I’d say it’s becoming increasingly more important, perhaps exponentially so, as we see that changing employee expectations continue to shape the way organizations are developing their policies and strategies.”

How ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors Innovation Can Help You Tackle Your Toughest Challenges

Next in the Future of Work: Unleashing Human Potential

Jacqueline Prause — Thu, 25 Aug 2022 12:15:15 +0000

All around us we are seeing the effects of transformative technologies in our daily lives – changing how we work, shop, communicate, and care. Every industry has been vastly revolutionized by advancements in automation, IT, and globalization to the extent that many only passingly resemble what they were four decades ago at the dawn of the Digital Revolution.

Tellingly, of the businesses on the S&P 500 in 1980, only remain, while many fell off to acquisition or bankruptcy from declining profits and inertia.

One of the effects of the pandemic has been an acceleration in the uptake of digital technology. Organizations that were already on the path to digital transformation have emerged as best positioned to adapt and thrive in an era of uncertainty.

“We are living in times of exponential change,” says , best-selling author of the : The Mindset, Skillset, and Toolset to Lead Your Organization Through Uncertainty and chair for the Future of Work at .

“Enterprises need to be able to adapt quickly to the pace and scale of change,” says Bolles, noting that the ideal “Next Organization” of the future is one that can continually reinvent itself. “Today’s poster child for a Next Organization may be tomorrow’s less successful organization if they don’t continue to adapt.”

Bolles, a longtime resident, teacher, and writer in the San Francisco Bay Area, says he wrote the Next Rules of Work as a “guide to work for the post-pandemic era.” The future of work is a domain of expertise he began in the 1970s while working with his father Richard Nelson Bolles, author of the popular job-seekers’ guide and career advice book Today, he also continues the family business as co-founder of , an online career exploration platform.

Decades of work in Silicon Valley as an executive and entrepreneur have given Bolles unique insight on the provocative subject of humans and technology in the future of work. Bolles’ position is unequivocally human-centered.

The key to unlocking business agility is not to develop more automation or faster technology, according to Bolles, who is known to say, “Robots and software don’t take jobs away; humans give them away.” Rather, the real key, he says, is to unleash human potential.

“The Next Organization is focused on creating a next mindset, skill set, and toolset,” says Bolles, highlighting what he terms the three pillars of the Next Rules of Work. “The way it is doing that is to get its workers to shift that mindset to a process of co-creation, collaboration, and changing the roles and contexts for work so that it is more human-centric.”

Mindset Eats Skill Set for Lunch

From artificial intelligence (AI)-filtered job descriptions to narrow corporate learning tools, workers are boxed and categorized by their known skills and legal employment status, whether full-time employee, part-timer, gig worker, or contractor. In the “Old Rules” organization, where a “know” skill set of technical expertise is paramount, there is often little flexibility and limited recognition of the worker’s whole self. As seen in the Great Resignation, workers are rebelling against a lack of agency to combine their whole selves, personal needs, and private ambitions, with workplace constructs.

“The totality of the whole self is extremely unique to an individual,” says Amy Wilson, senior vice president of Products and Design at ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors, the leader in human capital management (HCM) software and home to a new cloud-based technology category called (HXM).

Earlier this year, Wilson attended Bolles’ thought leadership presentation to ��Ĵ�ý employees. She affirmed how today’s digital technologies are opening the way for the future of work. The Whole Self Model, for example, has transformed the way ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors innovates to put people at the center of business.

“We’re thinking much more about the individual as being a unique person, who needs a completely unique experience,” says Wilson. “They need to feel valued as individuals and to have a sense of belonging as unique individuals. That ties to DEI&B [diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging], as well, because the more we understand that each person is truly unique, the more you can feel comfortable being your whole self.”

The Whole Self Model is one example of why mindset, more so than skill set, is fundamental to creating a culture that drives business agility – or “mindset eats skill set for lunch,” Bolles’ preferred spin on the popular Peter Drucker axiom “culture eats strategy for breakfast.” He says, “It’s a tremendous opportunity for organizations to help people understand the range of mindsets the organization has and for it to develop an opinion about the mindset it believes will be most effective.”

Bolles urges organizations to start with a that encourages every worker to have a development path and think of themself as a life-long learner.

Hidden Skills Match with Internal Opportunities

The work-from-home culture of the pandemic brought an awkward awareness that there is much more to our coworkers than we possibly imagined, including hidden skills that were revealed in web conferences: the guitar hanging on the wall that hinted at musical talent, the hobby horticulturalist, or the sports photographer. In the Next Organization, these hidden talents and passions will be recognized as part of the whole human’s skills to contribute to the organization.

The challenge however, as Bolles notes, is that we are first and foremost icebergs to ourselves, with a range of skills and experiences we have ignored or forgotten. A comprehensive skills inventory can uncover hidden expertise.

“At an individual level wanting to know what our skills are and at an organizational level wanting to make a commitment to that whole human, that gives us a tremendous amount of information. Now we have far more skill set and capacity in the organization than we understood we had,” Bolles explains.

Empowering Employees with Agency for Healthy Change

Internal talent marketplaces like , introduced in 2021, empower employees with the agency to seek internal opportunities to grow and invest in themselves within their organizations. Whether trying a temporary assignment, applying for a new role, finding a mentor, or taking a social sabbatical, employees can log on to the platform to find the next step in their development based on their unique skills and interests, as well as their strengths, styles, and passions.

“Change is something people want if they are in control of it,” says Wilson. “We believe that if we understand each individual and serve up opportunities for change to them based on their wants and needs, then we shift the whole dynamic. This way change is not being thrust upon people; much rather, it’s their idea.”

Dynamic teams as a foundational organizational structure is another new innovation from ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors. Cross-functional project teams have long been the source of creativity and productivity within organizations. However, they often remain hidden. They have no space on the org chart – although this is the way work is getting done. Without better transparency, it is impossible for managers to know how their investment is connected to what is being delivered.

“We believe that teams are the best way to learn and grow,” Wilson says. “Those times in your life when you’ve been on a team of people with different backgrounds, skill sets, and styles – that’s when you’re able to deliver something really cool. Those are the most memorable times in your career.”

Being a part of a dynamic team enables employees to co-create the future, says Wilson. “Being able to bring those kinds of team opportunities to ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors Opportunity Marketplace is an essential part of growing individuals and creating a multiplier effect for change.”

Humans Differentiate Organizations

Advancements in digital technologies are opening the way for greater agility as businesses need to adapt to exponential change. For Bolles, however, the future of work within the Next Organization is distinctly human.

“Digital transformation has more to do with empowering workers than with specific technologies,” he says. “The opportunity is in the transformation of the human being that uses the technology. It’s the humans that are using the toolset that differentiate the organizations.”

“Organizations need to be adaptive because individuals are dynamic,” says Wilson, who believes that empowering employees is the key to business agility. “With HXM, ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors is imagining a new way of experiencing work with human-centered experience at the core. By putting people at the center of business, organizations can unleash the vast human potential within their workforce to respond to new opportunities with agility, creativity, and passion.”

Learn more about ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors innovations at on September 14, 2022.

The Surprising Truth about Workers Who Can Be Productive Anywhere

Jacqueline Prause — Tue, 09 Aug 2022 13:15:11 +0000

Hybrid and remote work are here to stay for millions of workers, according to , but that doesn’t mean employers are any more at ease with the non-traditional concept of managing a hybrid workforce – working mostly out of sight, unbound by location, and on flex time.

As employees know, the reality of working from home is… going pretty well, actually. Most of us are still working in our basements, sheds, or spare rooms while monitoring our Wi-Fi connectivity, adjusting our work hours to meet with trans-global colleagues, devising a smarter , and advancing our digital fluency to make use of new productivity tools and apps. Overall, we’re happier and healthier, as study after study confirms.

The Future of Work Is Not Location Bound

When asked about their preferred work model for the , of workers said they want a hybrid work arrangement, according to the by . In the study, Accenture interviewed more than 9,300 workers in 11 countries across 12 industries to understand workers’ mindsets toward three different work models – on-site, remote, and hybrid – and the resources they require for their health and productivity.

Published at the height of the pandemic in April 2021, the study classified employees into four mindsets along a spectrum: thriving (42%), ambivalent (12%), apathetic (15%), or disgruntled (31%). While those who were disgruntled worked largely on-site, those employees who were thriving were mostly working in hybrid arrangements. They experienced less burnout and reported feeling across six dimensions of well-being: financial, emotional and mental, relational, physical, purposeful, and employable.

Three years into the pandemic, we are now capable of managing the virus with vaccines. Despite existing research on work models, many employers continue to struggle with developing a cohesive set of policies for hybrid work. Instead, they opt for one-size-fits-all solutions that fall short in the face of reality. Too many are still narrowly fixated on the question of location: “Where should we work?” However, a surprising outcome of the Future of Global Work Report has potential to reframe this discussion.

During the study, Accenture researchers identified a segment of workers (40%) who felt they could be productive anywhere. For this group, work location did not matter because they could be equally productive on-site and remotely. How do they do it? The researchers studied this group more closely to find the answer.

“We were initially interested in that location question – what helps to drive worker productivity remotely or onsite,” says Gabriela Burlacu, PhD, talent researcher at Accenture. “But actually, what was far more interesting and far more impactful on a company’s bottom line was this idea of a segment of workers that felt they could be what we called ‘productive anywhere.’”

Traits of Workers Who Are Productive Anywhere

That many workers can be productive, happy, and healthy in whichever setting should be welcome news for any company trying to hammer out an intentional policy for hybrid work. “It’s location agnostic,” Burlacu says, regarding the impact on the future of work. “It’s also a precursor to effective hybrid work, because if you feel you can be productive anywhere, then you really could work comfortably in both places.”

Much more important than work location seemed to be an employee’s individual potential and the resources available to support their work. The Accenture team found some commonalities among the “productive anywhere” cohort that can be carried over to other organizations as well. These workers had more autonomy, positive mental health, a desire to participate in learning, advanced digital fluency that enabled them to evaluate and adopt technology to get the job done, strong social bonds at work, and work-life enhancement, which means that they felt their work added to their ability to enjoy other areas of their lives.

The organizations that these workers belonged to also had interesting commonalities. They tended to be agile, intelligent, digitally mature, and have supportive leadership. They also have beneficial health policies that signal that employee health and safety is valued by the company.

Autonomy is a key theme in any discussion about hybrid work. It takes steady effort and awareness to balance autonomy and organizational goals for business success. Burlacu has some suggestions. “The ways that we measure productivity have to look a little different. Giving people some level of freedom to manage their own time and how they complete tasks is important,” she says. “But another side is also giving manageable feedback that’s really clear in terms of what the expectations are and how to improve. It’s an often-overlooked part of autonomy. Workers don’t always know if they’re working on the right things for the company’s success; whereas being really clear about the objective can actually help drive autonomy.”

Resources Prove Essential to Fight Workplace Stress

While the research shines a light on workers who thrive no matter where they work, it also uncovered another 8% of workers who experience the same disconnection, frustration, and inefficiency regardless of location. These workers were, in essence, productive nowhere. Researchers assumed this group had endured hardships and stress during the pandemic. Instead, they found that what separates the two groups is not stress.

“Our ‘productive anywhere’ group was actually more burned out than our ‘productive nowheres.’ They had a host of other negative work stressors as well. But what really differentiated them and their work experience is they had much higher levels of resources,” says Burlacu, indicating that this is something within companies’ power to address so that all workers can fulfill their potential.

The Future of Work Starts with Mindset

Perhaps some of the best news of the study is that researchers found that of high-growth companies have already adopted a “productivity anywhere” workforce model. This suggests that a future of work that looks beyond where to work may be just around the corner.

“We were able to identify what aspects of a company’s environment and work experience really help workers be productive anywhere,” says Burlacu, “Because that should be the goal – not more seamless remote work, not better on-site work – but enabling people to have this ‘productive anywhere’ mindset.”

Psychologists Say Your Flex Work Desires Are Perfectly Normal. But Does Your Boss Agree?

Jacqueline Prause — Thu, 14 Jul 2022 12:15:57 +0000

Coaxing employees back to the office may become the defining workplace challenge of 2022 for businesses that saw much of their workforce go remote during the pandemic. In what’s being called the , employers and employees are seemingly not in agreement about which work model to use for the future of work: full-time on-site, full-time remote, or a hybrid arrangement.

In , half of business leaders surveyed said they already require or plan to require employees to return to full-time, on-site work by the end of the year. Making headlines are managers like who point out the productivity gains that come from the social connection, culture keeping, and idea generation that they say can only be created in a shared workspace. But others disagree: several senior executives attending the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2022 in Davos, Switzerland, in favor of a hybrid work model, saying it was the most realistic approach for attracting and retaining talent.

Employees are on a mandated return to office, emboldened by newfound bargaining power as a result of the record and worker resignations of the Great Reshuffle. reveal that up to half of employees say they will quit or look for a new job if expected to return to the office full time.

Flex Work Models Up for Debate

Lost in the debate that is playing out in the media is valuable scientific research on the effects of different work models on worker productivity. This discussion is largely being driven by subjective impressions and entrenched ideas based on the “old normal,” said Dr. Gabriela Burlacu, talent research manager at , speaking at the recently held annual conference of the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychologists (SIOP).

Joining her for the session “Where Will We Work? I-O Psychology Puts Flexible Work Models on Trial” were industrial and organizational (I-O) psychologists Dr. Benjamin Granger, head of Employee Experience Advisory Services at , and Dr. Kristen Shockley, associate professor of Psychology at the . Joshua Acosta, a research analyst with , also later provided insights from the recent ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors report “.”

Autonomy Fuels Motivation for Greater Productivity

“If we think about theories in I-O psychology, autonomy and control permeate a lot of these theories,” said Shockley, who pointed out that “autonomy as motivation for sustained effort” is a frequent theme in I-O literature. “Autonomy is a fundamental need and when you allow people to work remote, it inherently gives them more of this autonomy. That is something which relates to a host of outcomes, like productivity and well-being.”

The psychologists agreed that the optimal work model for the average global employee is a hybrid work arrangement. They noted, however, that this is not necessarily the best model for every individual or organization. For those organizations that opt for a hybrid model, they emphasized that the work needs to be structured so that collaborative tasks, like brainstorming, are done on-site and more analytical tasks are done remotely. “I am very pro the hybrid model, with the caveat that it does need to be intentionally and holistically designed,” said Burlacu.

Workers Expect Flex Work after Pandemic Productivity Sprint

A , which surveyed 10,000 workers in 12 industries in 12 countries in 2021, found that 83% of workers identified a hybrid model as optimal for them. Those already in hybrid environments reported better mental health and stronger work relationships, and felt they were doing better work for their organizations.

The , which studies work-from-home arrangements and attitudes, tracked the productivity of remote workers from April 2020 to January 2022. It found that on average people were in remote work arrangements, even with the added stressors of the pandemic.

For the , Qualtrics carried out a study of 14,000 employees in 22 industries across 27 countries to look at general job attitudes, engagement, inclusion, and well-being. Employees generally felt more energized at work – compared to the previous year – with half saying their physical and mental well-being actually improved while working remotely.

“Many organizations haven’t lost step in terms of productivity,” said Acosta from ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors, citing the latest research from ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors, which found that workers’ attitudes are shifting to expect hybrid arrangements. “If people are working in a hybrid setting or home setting, we’re seeing they’re often just as productive as when they’re in the office. It’s our perspective that hybrid work isn’t going away anytime soon.”

Hybrid Work Moves from Contingency to Certainty

If 2021 was the year hybrid work was utilized for health and safety, then researchers at ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors predict that 2022 will be the year that it moves from contingency to certainty. This means that organizations will need to establish policies, practices, and cultural norms to operationalize hybrid work arrangements. Acosta noted this will look different across all organizations, depending on the composition of the workforce.

Accenture’s study revealed that a number of demographic factors influence workers’ decisions about where to work, including age and gender demographics and where they live. For example, Gen X women said they could be more productive in remote work, while Gen Z men felt strongly about being on-site. Urban dwellers felt they would be more productive in the office, while people living in rural areas preferred remote work.

“All of that together suggests that if you let people choose, you will end up with demographically very different workforces on-site versus remotely,” Burlacu said. “That wouldn’t be a problem if you created equitable work experiences and equitable access to development and promotion opportunities.” She then followed up with a hard truth: “But the issue of equitable access has never been properly resolved in the workplace.”

Just ask deskless workers. This group – defined as employees who perform their jobs away from a desk – was largely absent from the discussion in 2021. In 2022, however, these workers are presenting more pronounced views, according to research by ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors. With companies facing talent shortages in all job categories, Acosta said that organizations will need to seriously consider deskless workers’ changing expectations for autonomy and flexibility while balancing organizational and job demands.

Maybe It’s Time for a New Definition of Flexibility?

“A lot of times we assume workplace flexibility means where you work, but what’s become clear to us in our work is when employees define flexibility, they’re talking about where and when they work, and they’re also talking about how work gets measured and managed,” Granger said. “Employees are defining workplace flexibility much broader than many organizational leaders. We need to be more flexible in how we define workplace flexibility.”

Acosta agreed, saying “Organizations are going to need to be really thoughtful in operationalizing how they can deliver flexibility as well as autonomy, and perhaps even redesign not only where people work, but when and how work takes place.”

Up for Debate: Is AI the Future of HR?

Jacqueline Prause — Wed, 15 Jun 2022 12:15:49 +0000

The Great Reshuffle of the labor market has businesses scrambling to attract new talent and retain workers. As employers introduce smart technologies to drive efficiency, they may stumble on a hidden layer of division in the workforce: some workers are comfortable having their resumes and workplace performance data read by artificial intelligence (AI) – and some workers are fearful of the use of smart technologies in their employment decisions. Approximately, 25% of workers fall into each camp, with the remaining 50% somewhat neutral, according to research from .

What the research suggests is that it will take a long time for workers to accept AI, indicating the heart of HR will continue to be human for the foreseeable future. Until AI gains wider approval, the burden will be on employers to demonstrate their commitment to ethical, transparent AI to ensure an inclusive employee experience.

Finding Fairness in Efficiency

“AI is not the entire future of HR,” cautioned Dr. Caitlynn Sendra, an experience product scientist at ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors, where she studies how products influence the employee experience.

Sendra spoke at the annual conference of the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychologists (SIOP) in Seattle on April 28, during the debate session “Robot or Not: Is AI the Future of HR?” She teamed up with Michelle Brown, chief operating officer at , a provider of leadership development solutions, to argue the point of view of those who object to more AI in HR. Outside the debate arena, Sendra and Brown say they favor a more positive stance on AI and are keen to see the technology deliver on different use cases. This debate however left little room for compromise between pro and con.

The pro-AI arguments in this provocative debate centered on the ways in achieving new levels of efficiency at greater scale. This is a hot topic in the talent acquisition space, where recruiters struggle with record volume and demanding metrics. However, seasoned HR experts say AI is no replacement for human judgement and strongly recommend a balanced approach in which AI is integrated as one tool within a holistic talent strategy.

“Whenever we’re talking about AI, there’s a big emphasis on efficiency, but my counterpoint to that is always, what about fairness?” Sendra said to the audience of mostly industrial and organizational (I-O) psychologists. “As psychologists, I’m sure we all know that perception of fairness also matters.”

Divided Perceptions: The Promoters and The Fearful

��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors surveyed 1,378 workers in 14 countries to gauge their perceptions of how smart technologies, like AI and machine learning, are going to impact them in the workplace. This research revealed that 44% feel apprehensive, while others feel distress (26%) or fear (25%). In testing 22 use cases, less than 25% of employees could be considered “promoters” on a traditional net promoter score.

Many employees voiced that the use of physical, body-related data sources, like facial tracking or movement tracking, were particularly problematic. “Employees really expressed that they did not want these kinds of tracking technologies being used in their work,” Sendra said.

In High-Stakes Decisions, Who Do You Trust?

Some say what’s really missing from AI in HR is the nuance and emotional intelligence that is distinctly human. But is that such a bad thing?

“AI can be very good at relieving the mundane, repetitive tasks of HR professionals,” said Brown, who insists that HR needs a human heart. “But often on the other side of that repetitive mundane task is a person – a person in a high-stakes interaction about securing the job of their dreams or navigating confusing healthcare benefits for a sick family member.”

The counterargument to this important point is that unfortunately some people encounter bias or discrimination during these high-stakes interactions. In 2021, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) received more than reports of discrimination in the workplace, a reminder that not all workplaces are safe environments, where workers can place their trust in bias-free decision making.

Advocates of more inclusive hiring practices point to that AI can filter out unconscious human biases in the hiring process, opening opportunity to members of underrepresented groups. A slew of new AI-powered solutions has sprung onto the market, promising improved efficiency and DEI outcomes for employers desperate to hire more diverse and qualified talent in a competitive labor market.

AI quickly becomes murky under scrutiny of the algorithms that power its decision-making, which can be rife with bias based on the historical training data that is fed into the system.

“This opens up that key ethical dilemma in AI and concerning automated decisions, where we can encounter bias because algorithms are programmed by human developers from human decisions of the past and often with incomplete data sets,” asserted Brown, echoing the words of mathematician Cathy O’Neil, who famously said, “Algorithms are opinions embedded in code.”

The legal and ethical landscape for AI is shifting rapidly in many key employment markets, as well. For example, the EEOC recently launched an aimed at ensuring algorithmic fairness over concerns that these new technologies do not become “a high-tech pathway to discrimination.” Part of the EEOC’s initiative – and an indication of the complexity of the debate around AI – will be to examine “promising practices” for AI, as well.

Agreed: More Transparency Is Needed

As the debate at the SIOP conference drew to a close, the two teams reached something close to an agreement about AI in the future of HR. “AI is appropriate for some cases,” concluded the objector team. “What’s needed is to open the black box and provide the data and explainability.”

“On opening the black box, I can agree with you,” declared the pro team in a moment that felt close to finding common ground.

Beyond opening the black box, employers can take additional steps to improve employees’ experiences with intelligent technology, according to research from ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors: providing evidence to show that algorithms are unbiased, establishing regulatory bodies such as an AI ethics committee, explaining the benefits of the technology, and allowing employees to correct information generated from algorithms.

The takeaway for employers is that transparency and care will be key to providing inclusive, ethical AI as part of the employee experience. AI will be integrated and accepted into the workplace at a different pace compared to other technologies. Not all workers are going to be ready at the same time. In the meantime, perhaps we need to consider what we are giving up and what are we gaining as AI enters HR.

The research from ��Ĵ�ý SuccessFactors referenced in this presentation will be available on its in the upcoming months.

Jacqueline Prause, Author at ���Ĵ�ý News Center

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