Inchcape Shipping Services is in the process of standardising its HR processes in a bid to boost efficiency and better understand its workforce across the 67 countries in which it operates.
ISS’ chief HR officer, Camilla Aitchison, said: “The system has enabled and supported the strategy of the business and leverages our global growth. We have visibility of everybody in the company.”
“We’ve launched what I call the ‘chocolate biscuit version’, so people can go in and manage data and do performance stuff for 2013,” Aitchison explained. “Next year, we’ll build in more capabilities and more succession and talent management – the ‘chocolate gateaux layers’.”
As to why the firm opted for a SaaS-based offering, the aim was to ensure that the internal IT team did not have to divert resources away from other areas in order to support in-house software. “We were looking for something that was scalable and easily adaptable as the HR strategy and business strategy changed,” Aitchison said.
Another key consideration was learning and development. Because the roll-out was a global one, it was deemed important to find an offering that was usable with minimal amounts of training. Even so, before the system was launched, Aitchison made certain that each line manager had used it and run a test business report.
The system was initially rolled out to 468 line managers in 67 countries in November, but the plan is to extend this to 3,500 staff this month.
