How Edgewell Personal Care conquered data and skills issues on their SuccessFactors go-live
- Summary:
- Every implementation brings a new twist. For Jermaine Holt of Edgewell Personal Care, that twist was a biggie: his team had to help with an unexpected corporate data split, and make sure the SuccessFactors go-live wasn't affected.
Any major implementation, SaaS or not, pushes an organization on skills and process. But Jermaine Holt recently faced the challenge of his career. As the Director of Global Services for Edgewell Personal Care, Holt's team was deep in a SuccessFactors evaluation in May of 2014 when the formal split between Edgewell Personal Care and Energizer was announced.
That meant moving ahead with the SuccessFactors implementation, but managing a major data split with huge impact on employee records as employees split off into one of two business divisions. To pull this off, Holt would need an effective collaboration with business users, as well as some serious IT integration chops. At SuccessConnect 2015, I had the chance to sit down with Holt and find out how he pulled it off.
Why the HRIS upgrade? Old systems weren't cutting it
Holt is an old school SAP guy with new school duties. Edgewell outsources payroll globally with Xerox ADP; Holt manages that relationship. His team wraps its arms around all aspects of workforce administration from hire to retire. Their mission? Support and deliver this functionality internally, serving as the service provider to the internal HR organization, while tying into finance as needed.
Holt's team started looking hard at new HR solutions in 2014. Bottom line: older systems weren't getting the job done:
The technology we had is not only aging, it was dead. What we had was really just a glorified reporting system - it didn't have a lot of other capabilities. It didn't have employee self service or manager self service capabilities. Tbere were no workflow capabilities. Everything had to be managed locally. When we find out we were going to have to split, we couldn't financially go out and hire two of everybody, so how could we manage that split? We needed better technology. We needed to drive payroll with a true global HRIS, which we really didn't have before.
The final evaluation of new solutions came down to SuccessFactors and Workday. Edgewell ultimately chose SuccessFactors, based on a range of criteria including caliber of user experience, integration with back end systems, and perceived fit with their corporate split plans. User adoption was a huge factor: Holt's team had a bad experience with a mediocre talent management system employees weren't using. The new solution had to be super easy - perhaps even enjoyable - to use.
Go-live was easy - but data integration wasn't
The good news? The SuccessFactors implementation turned out to be the easy part. The implementation began in mid-November, and went live in January - 12 weeks later:
It was wonderful. Once system was live, we were able to start sending out reporting immediately. Because we were also in the middle of a separation, there were a lot of moving parts, but the implementation went well.
After go-live, Holt faced a bigger test. During the spring of 2015, his team had to manage a complicated data split, coordinating with colleagues on the Energizer side as well:
Our biggest challenge happened after the implementation. We had to take the data out of the old system and load it in SuccessFactors, but we were also maintaining data from all these different payroll applications.
As of a week ago, the data transition into the new SuccessFactors systems is finally complete. Looking back, Holt learned some lessons about data governance. He may never have to manage such a massive data split again, but the experience should serve him well:
If we had to do it all over again, we would have had a more robust data governess model implemented before we split the company. It would have helped us to keep the data cleaner, so that we could load it once instead of multiple times.
Now that the split is behind him, Holt can look back on the results he toiled for. It's too early for an ROI assessment on the project as as whole, but he's already received plenty of feedback from business users:
Everybody that's used the system loves it. We haven't had anyone that said, "Oh my God, this thing is so impossible to use." Everyone that's used it loves it. They have all been very, very happy.
You can't succeed without the right skills
From a skills standpoint, Holt utilized the expertise of SAP Services. But to pull of a successful SaaS implementation, you need a skilled internal team as well. Holt advises customers to ensure that these roles are in place:
1. Good IT leadership skills - which Holt defines as someone who can see the vision ahead but, who can also manage change in the present:
You need someone who can see the future of where the software is going to get the organization and the value proposition. You won't get there without that. They have to be true to that vision. They cannot waiver, because there's going to be people wanting to jump off the fence, and they've got to stay the course.
2. A highly skilled cloud/IT architect, who can also come from an external team:
You really need a really solid architect, somebody who can see the big picture of how this software is going to play in your IT space. In other words, you've got all these integration points - are you going to source data from your new HRS to the network? If so, how are you going to do that? Do you have an IDM solution in place for your network that's big enough to take that data? How are you going to source it to your back end ERP system?
You need somebody who who can answer those questions because otherwise, all the technical stuff is going to be on you. You're probably going to spend more money, because it's going to involve some kind of clean up effort, because you've made some bad architectural choices. In retrospect, I think we made very good decisions, so from a systems stand point, we're not going to have to change the architecture at all. What we built is going to be sustainable long term.
Holt also pointed to the need for a evangelist who can sell the project internally, especially if this is the first venture to the cloud, helping teams to understand the role of off-site data centers and differences in application support. As Holt puts it, "Can you speak cloud?"
The wrap - bridging the IT/business gap, and what's next
Holt has more fun ahead. Next up: a much tighter embedded UI integration between ADP payroll and the new SuccessFactors system: "When we're done, the user won't have any idea that this is actually coming from a separate system. It's fully integrated. That's going to happen at the end of this year."
Holt knows these projects can't succeed without a strong relationship with HR and finance leads. In turn, those leads drive business user involvement in design, and eventually, adoption. When I asked Holt for his secrets to better IT-business relationships, he basically admitted that he camped out in the offices of his HR and finance directors. He never set a formal meeting, but informally, he made a point of dropping by and hitting key points. Eventually, the relationships gelled.
For Holt, that's the big opportunity ahead, as cloud changes the long term outcome:
Our logo is a hummingbird because it's all about agility. Being able to be faster and more agile than our competition. We don't get there without good technology. That means change not only from a growth standpoint, having access to good solid data from a workforce planning standpoint.
Cloud is the next step in pushing the envelope. Now your business users don't have to be IT experts, but they have the control. They can request their own changes; they can help drive design. They can be an integral part in the testing. They can become the expert in understanding how the software can be used to drive business value, because now they're in the drivers seat. That's the biggest change.
Image credit: Photo of Jermaine Holt by Jon Reed.
Disclosure: SAP and Workday are diginomica premier partners as of this writing. SuccessFactors handled most of my travel expenses to attend SuccessConnect 2015.