The aim of the motorway service station and hotel operator is to ensure that its 4,300 employees are aligned with corporate goals at every level of the organisation.

 

A further goal is to provide each individual with suitable training and career progression opportunities in order to enable them to transfer across different brands and business units as required.

 

To help, Welcome Break intends to roll out SAP’s SuccessFactors’ Software-as-a-Service-based Business Execution Suite offering during the rest of this year and 2013.

 

As well as comprising a core HR system, the applications also include social learning and collaboration functionality, plus analytics tools to enable the company understand its talent pool as well as individual members’ training and competency requirements more effectively.

 

Karl Jolly, Welcome Break’s director of people, said that the deal would “help us provide a really strong foundation for where we want our business to go in the future. Optimised performance from aligned, engaged and capable people is really important to us if we are to maintain our market-leading position”.

 

Up until now, the firm’s payroll system was the only means it had of holding employee records centrally, while training and learning requirements were recorded manually.

 

This meant that it was difficult to identify internal talent or cross-train staff to work with the different brands represented by the Group, including Starbucks, BP, Burger King, Days Inn and Waitrose.