Winner: The Smith Family - Best Tech Awards 2025 The Chris O'Brien Award
Technology Behind the Purpose: Empowering People to Empower Youth Download the DocumentSAP Australia and New
Zealand Best Tech Awards
2025
Zealand Best Tech Awards
2025
At The Smith Family, we believe
that education is one of the
world’s most powerful change
agents.
that education is one of the
world’s most powerful change
agents.
Best Tech SAP
Industry WebsiteProduct and Services Featured SAP Solutions
Charity
Organisation
www.thesmithfamily.com.au▪ Programs
▪ Literacy
▪ Technology
▪ Numeracy
▪ Learning
▪ Mentoring
▪ Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander
Employee Central
Recruitment
Onboarding
The Smith Family is one of Australia’s most respected charitable organisations, dedicated to helping young Australians
experiencing poverty thrive in their education. With over 100 years of operation, the organisation works to break the cycle of
disadvantage by providing long-term educational support to children and young people from low-income backgrounds.
Currently supporting over 65,000 students across 91 communities, The Smith Family delivers programs focused on literacy,
numeracy, mentoring, digital skills, and career readiness. Their work is centred on the belief that every child deserves the
opportunity to thrive, regardless of their circumstances.
With a committed workforce of employees and volunteers, The Smith Family combines grassroots impact with national reach.
Their focus on education as a pathway out of poverty requires both operational efficiency and deep community engagement,
supported by systems that are aligned with their purpose and responsive to the evolving needs of their beneficiaries.
Technology Behind the Purpose:
Empowering People to Empower Youth
Chris O’Brien
Industry WebsiteProduct and Services Featured SAP Solutions
Charity
Organisation
www.thesmithfamily.com.au▪ Programs
▪ Literacy
▪ Technology
▪ Numeracy
▪ Learning
▪ Mentoring
▪ Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander
Employee Central
Recruitment
Onboarding
The Smith Family is one of Australia’s most respected charitable organisations, dedicated to helping young Australians
experiencing poverty thrive in their education. With over 100 years of operation, the organisation works to break the cycle of
disadvantage by providing long-term educational support to children and young people from low-income backgrounds.
Currently supporting over 65,000 students across 91 communities, The Smith Family delivers programs focused on literacy,
numeracy, mentoring, digital skills, and career readiness. Their work is centred on the belief that every child deserves the
opportunity to thrive, regardless of their circumstances.
With a committed workforce of employees and volunteers, The Smith Family combines grassroots impact with national reach.
Their focus on education as a pathway out of poverty requires both operational efficiency and deep community engagement,
supported by systems that are aligned with their purpose and responsive to the evolving needs of their beneficiaries.
Technology Behind the Purpose:
Empowering People to Empower Youth
Chris O’Brien
Challenges
As a national children’s charity supporting over 65,000 students across 91 communities, The Smith Family’s purpose is clear
— to break the cycle of disadvantage through long-term educational support. However fulfilling this purpose at scale brings
significant operational challenges, particularly when workforce systems are not equipped to support it.
Before adopting SAP SuccessFactors, The Smith Family managed its people processes through a patchwork of manual tasks,
siloed tools and various documentation. With a workforce spread across metropolitan, regional and remote areas —
including employees, volunteers and program partners — basic HR operations such as onboarding, data management and
recruitment required substantial administrative effort. This not only limited efficiency but made it difficult to deliver a
consistent and engaging experience to those driving the organisation’s impact.
Without a centralised system of record or streamlined onboarding and recruitment workflows, The Smith Family faced
challenges in scaling its workforce quickly and effectively to meet growing demand. The absence of clean, real-time data
restricted workforce planning and complicated reporting on key people metrics. These issues were compounded by the lack
of embedded governance, documentation and system design, which hindered efforts to build internal capability or evolve
the technology.
At the heart of this challenge was a fundamental question: how could an organisation committed to breaking cycles of
disadvantage build the internal capability, consistency and system foundation needed to support its own people — and by
extension, its purpose?
As a national children’s charity supporting over 65,000 students across 91 communities, The Smith Family’s purpose is clear
— to break the cycle of disadvantage through long-term educational support. However fulfilling this purpose at scale brings
significant operational challenges, particularly when workforce systems are not equipped to support it.
Before adopting SAP SuccessFactors, The Smith Family managed its people processes through a patchwork of manual tasks,
siloed tools and various documentation. With a workforce spread across metropolitan, regional and remote areas —
including employees, volunteers and program partners — basic HR operations such as onboarding, data management and
recruitment required substantial administrative effort. This not only limited efficiency but made it difficult to deliver a
consistent and engaging experience to those driving the organisation’s impact.
Without a centralised system of record or streamlined onboarding and recruitment workflows, The Smith Family faced
challenges in scaling its workforce quickly and effectively to meet growing demand. The absence of clean, real-time data
restricted workforce planning and complicated reporting on key people metrics. These issues were compounded by the lack
of embedded governance, documentation and system design, which hindered efforts to build internal capability or evolve
the technology.
At the heart of this challenge was a fundamental question: how could an organisation committed to breaking cycles of
disadvantage build the internal capability, consistency and system foundation needed to support its own people — and by
extension, its purpose?
Solution
Recognising the need for a more scalable, consistent and future-ready approach to managing its people, The Smith Family began a
phased journey with SAP SuccessFactors. The organisation moved from foundational implementation to ongoing refinement,
capability-building and long-term value realisation.
The first milestone was implementing core SuccessFactors modules including Employee Central, Recruitment and Onboarding. This
established a central system of record and introduced structure to processes that had previously relied on disconnected tools and
manual intervention. Recruitment Marketing was added to broaden reach and improve candidate engagement, helping the
organisation compete more effectively for talent in the not-for-profit sector.
Following the initial deployment, The Smith Family committed to embedding and evolving the system to better meet its unique
needs. Without system design documentation or configuration records from the original implementation, the organisation
conducted a comprehensive review of its SAP SuccessFactors environment. This assessment clarified what had been delivered,
identified areas for functional improvement, and highlighted enhancements that would deliver further value.
With a focus on sustainability and internal capability, a structured embedment model was introduced to support continuous
improvement, enhance user adoption, and build internal ownership of the platform. Twice-yearly reviews of SAP SuccessFactors
release updates ensure the system remains aligned with evolving functionality, Identity Authentication Services have been
successfully implemented and transition to the new Onboarding solution is planned in the near future.
The Smith Family’s approach has been grounded in thoughtful, phased progress, aligning investment with readiness and focusing
on improvements that make the greatest difference to system users and programme outcomes. This has enabled ongoing
enhancements to platform performance, workforce experience and data system security.
Recognising the need for a more scalable, consistent and future-ready approach to managing its people, The Smith Family began a
phased journey with SAP SuccessFactors. The organisation moved from foundational implementation to ongoing refinement,
capability-building and long-term value realisation.
The first milestone was implementing core SuccessFactors modules including Employee Central, Recruitment and Onboarding. This
established a central system of record and introduced structure to processes that had previously relied on disconnected tools and
manual intervention. Recruitment Marketing was added to broaden reach and improve candidate engagement, helping the
organisation compete more effectively for talent in the not-for-profit sector.
Following the initial deployment, The Smith Family committed to embedding and evolving the system to better meet its unique
needs. Without system design documentation or configuration records from the original implementation, the organisation
conducted a comprehensive review of its SAP SuccessFactors environment. This assessment clarified what had been delivered,
identified areas for functional improvement, and highlighted enhancements that would deliver further value.
With a focus on sustainability and internal capability, a structured embedment model was introduced to support continuous
improvement, enhance user adoption, and build internal ownership of the platform. Twice-yearly reviews of SAP SuccessFactors
release updates ensure the system remains aligned with evolving functionality, Identity Authentication Services have been
successfully implemented and transition to the new Onboarding solution is planned in the near future.
The Smith Family’s approach has been grounded in thoughtful, phased progress, aligning investment with readiness and focusing
on improvements that make the greatest difference to system users and programme outcomes. This has enabled ongoing
enhancements to platform performance, workforce experience and data system security.
Impact
40% reduction
in time spent on manual
recruitment and onboarding
administration, freeing up HR
teams for strategic and
program-focused work
Increase
in candidate engagement and
application quality following the
launch of Recruitment Marketing
career site
100% of new hires
now processed through a
centralised, consistent
onboarding process, improving
readiness and engagement
The Smith Family’s investment in SAP SuccessFactors has enabled meaningful, measurable improvements in how the organisation
supports its people and, ultimately, the children and communities it serves.
By establishing a centralised HR platform, The Smith Family now operates with greater consistency, clarity and confidence across its
employee lifecycle processes. Recruitment is more targeted and efficient, onboarding is better structured and more welcoming, and core
people data is accessible and reliable. These changes have reduced administrative burden, improved compliance, and created more time
for teams to focus on what matters most — delivering support to students and families.
The introduction of Recruitment Marketing has extended the organisation’s reach in a competitive employment market, enabling it to
attract high-quality candidates who are aligned with its purpose. Improvements in onboarding have helped new team members feel
connected and prepared from day one, enhancing retention and enabling quicker contributions to program delivery.
Equally important, the ongoing embedment model has helped The Smith Family build internal system capability and resilience. Through
structured reviews, proactive planning, and a roadmap for continuous improvement, the organisation has become more self-sufficient in
managing its platform and responsive to emerging needs — without requiring major reimplementation or disruption.
The impact of this transformation goes beyond HR operations. By enabling better people processes and stronger data insights,
SuccessFactors is helping The Smith Family scale its reach, strengthen its workforce, and ensure that every child supported through its
programs receives consistent, high-quality support.
40% reduction
in time spent on manual
recruitment and onboarding
administration, freeing up HR
teams for strategic and
program-focused work
Increase
in candidate engagement and
application quality following the
launch of Recruitment Marketing
career site
100% of new hires
now processed through a
centralised, consistent
onboarding process, improving
readiness and engagement
The Smith Family’s investment in SAP SuccessFactors has enabled meaningful, measurable improvements in how the organisation
supports its people and, ultimately, the children and communities it serves.
By establishing a centralised HR platform, The Smith Family now operates with greater consistency, clarity and confidence across its
employee lifecycle processes. Recruitment is more targeted and efficient, onboarding is better structured and more welcoming, and core
people data is accessible and reliable. These changes have reduced administrative burden, improved compliance, and created more time
for teams to focus on what matters most — delivering support to students and families.
The introduction of Recruitment Marketing has extended the organisation’s reach in a competitive employment market, enabling it to
attract high-quality candidates who are aligned with its purpose. Improvements in onboarding have helped new team members feel
connected and prepared from day one, enhancing retention and enabling quicker contributions to program delivery.
Equally important, the ongoing embedment model has helped The Smith Family build internal system capability and resilience. Through
structured reviews, proactive planning, and a roadmap for continuous improvement, the organisation has become more self-sufficient in
managing its platform and responsive to emerging needs — without requiring major reimplementation or disruption.
The impact of this transformation goes beyond HR operations. By enabling better people processes and stronger data insights,
SuccessFactors is helping The Smith Family scale its reach, strengthen its workforce, and ensure that every child supported through its
programs receives consistent, high-quality support.