As a SIRH project manager at ARAGO Consulting and ex-HR, Vanessa Ouvrard supports SMEs and large companies in the deployment of SAP SuccessFactors. She explains why decision-makers place HR at the heart of their strategy.
Why Have We Seen the Rebirth of HRIS In the Last Two or Three Years?
We are seeing the emergence of true HR information systems (HRIS), both in tenders and in our existing customers. And this, whatever the activity or the size of the company. This need arises from the need to structure and optimize the organization through an HR division that becomes essential in the strategy of companies. And even more, because of talents war. Executives are aware of the need for proper management of human resources, which are no longer the fifth wheel of the wagon. This evolution embodies the need for the company to reorganize itself, not only from a functional and process perspective, but also through a tool. Today, companies can no longer afford to manage employee interviews on paper, or recruitment via e-mails.
How Does HR Become Strategic for The Company?
Solutions like SAP SuccessFactors promote automation, saving time so HR managers can concentrate on high value-added activities such as talent management, and so the HR policy supports the company’s operational strategy.
Human capital management (HCM) requires the deployment of a single tool managing all the HR information of an employee: profile, follow-up, career, skills and training, evaluation, compensation, …
Such a solution must enable the employee to manage his career by himself, contributing to the preparation and conduct of the evaluation interview, rather than undergo it, as an example. He may even consult the follow-up.
With secure access to their own information into a personalized portal, employees are more easily involved in their career and in the company. With an adapted and unique solution, managers have a reliable and coherent evaluation tool that gives them a visibility on job evolutions, mobility, etc.
The role of the Head of HR is taking on an increasingly strategic dimension to support the Executive Committee in its decisions. Whether developing in other countries, on other economic sectors, or on new trades, a mapping of existing and future skills becomes necessary. By identifying essential recruitment opportunities, internal mobility opportunities, career plans, the company can simulate developments and refine its strategy.
If their HCM solution incorporates all of this modular functional richness, like SAP SuccessFactors does.
Why Did ARAGO Consulting Choose SAP Successfactors?
ARAGO Consulting was created in 2010 to deploy HR projects with SuccessFactors. At the time, and still today! SuccessFactors is the leading HCM suite, enabling HR and businesses to collaborate on the tool (in coordination with IT) so that employees can manage their career throughout their life cycle in the company. SAP SuccessFactors offers a solution to each need in a modular and complementary way (performance management, training, follow-up, …) and supports the company in its growth.
The flexibility of a SaaS-based cloud solution, such as SAP SuccessFactors, allows companies to continuously adjust their strategy in line with market and regulatory developments.
Thus, a 200 employees company will have certain needs at a given moment. After three to five years, it can carry out internal or external developments. So, the solution must then be able to accompany it.
For instance, SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting module helps companies hire and integrate new employees, and strengthen their employer brand all over the world, in compliance with legal rules.
Companies usually use different tools to manage their various HR processes (administration, recruitment, talent management, training, etc.). Nowadays, a single, comprehensive and integrated HCM tool is required. SAP SuccessFactors integrates core HR, recruitment, onboarding, performance monitoring, career development, compensation … and all these processes are based on a reporting tool in order to define analytical indicators throughout the solution.
How Did You Perceive SAP’s Acquisition of Successfactors?
The acquisition of SuccessFactors by SAP had several positive effects.
For pre-sales, the striking force and conviction of SAP global software leader gives more weight in front of customers interested in SuccessFactors. This brand effect strengthens the trust, the durability and the credibility of the cloud service.
On the other hand, if SuccessFactors invested heavily in R & D, SAP further accelerated these investments by significantly increasing R & D resources. Among the significant improvements, SAP has taken the analytical functions to a higher level, empowering the high value-added actions carried out by the Head of HR in the HR management of the company. Those analytical indicators also help managers to measure their employees’ performance and compare performance at the company level. Recruitment medias effectiveness, costs and budgets, performance, optimal talent mapping … the analytics in SAP SuccessFactors goes far beyond reporting, from observation to predictive!
What About the Promises of Artificial Intelligence?
Artificial intelligence brings innovation and simplification on the whole solution, both on the ergonomics of the interfaces and at the heart of the functional modules.
Because the solution has been designed by positioning the employee at the heart of his career, he finds intuitive, user-friendly, and easy-to-use screens. Using artificial intelligence, the interface learns the behavior and preferences of the user as they are used. Thus, in less than two clicks, SAP SuccessFactors allows you to reach the result, for an employee or a manager, from its personalized portal. Of course, everything is accessible from a smartphone or a tablet. A characteristic that facilitates the adoption and minimizes the training needs.
For example, HR managers can launch a recruitment campaign in just four clicks. Another innovation, the SAP SuccessFactors modules have been enriched with virtual wizards, guiding the user step by step to make the task as simple as possible. The wizard can even determine the contents of input fields that will be pre-filled according to the context and control the possible input. Artificial intelligence functions can also help a career leader, HR member or manager. SAP SuccessFactors gathering all the information about the collaborator, the profiles, the training courses, the courses, … the artificial intelligence makes it possible to determine the possibilities of evolution of a collaborator, with the evaluations or competences necessary to accede to a new one Training opportunities, or the average time to do so. However, career assistants remain necessary to make decisions, to moderate the variables allowing to generate these courses or to take into account the psychological and contextual parameters at all times.
