Helvetia Group: Making HR fit for the future with SAP SuccessFactors
Unifying HR services and shaping digital transformation
With more than 12,000 employees across six countries, talent management posed a challenge for Helvetia. Without a unified overview of the group workforce, how could it get the right people in the right roles? By replacing disparate systems with a single HR portal based on SAP SuccessFactors solutions, Helvetia is increasing transparency, boosting efficiency, and improving the employee experience.
| Industry | Region | Company Size | Partners |
| Insurance | St. Gallen, Switzerland (HQ) | More than 12,000 employees throughout Europe | BearingPoint and HR Campus |
Insight into employee data
Transparency
Total cost of ownership
Head of HR Operations, Helvetia Switzerland
Taking a stand
Founded in 1858, Helvetia has grown to become a major European insurance group with over 12,000 employees and more than 7 million customers. A leading player in the Swiss insurance market, Helvetia also operates in Austria, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain.
As it continues to build on the success of the past 165 years, Helvetia recognizes that to achieve its strategic goals, it must focus on its employees, digitalization, performance culture, and technical excellence.
From an HR perspective, this was a challenge, because each country had its own local systems and processes in place for core HR, talent management, and other HR applications. Integration between these systems was limited, and it was difficult to get a unified overview of the workforce.
Jochen Hübner, Head of HR Operations at Helvetia Switzerland, confirms: “So many disparate systems in place made it difficult to get even a basic view of how employee dialogs and performance management were run, for example. What’s more, many of these systems were older, with outdated user interfaces.”
A period of strong domestic and international growth made the need for group-wide visibility more evident. As the group expanded, identifying and growing talent to fill critical positions became even more challenging. To support employee development and succession planning, the board wanted greater visibility of the talent pipeline across the entire business.
Tasked with building a centralized talent management platform, the HR Operations Team quickly realized that it had to go further. “It soon became clear that we needed to think bigger than just talent management,” says Hübner. “We needed a root-and-branch overhaul of HR IT landscape across the group, so we embarked on a wider HR digitalization journey.”
Head of HR Operations, Helvetia Switzerland
Rethinking HR
As the first step, Helvetia’s central HR Operations Team engaged with its counterparts in each country to develop a group-wide vision for the future of HR.
“Our vision is for employees and managers to be able to access HR systems, services, and data anytime, anywhere,” says Hübner. “To achieve this, our goal is to harmonize and align group-wide HR processes on a single platform by the end of 2025.”
Following an extensive evaluation period, Helvetia selected SAP SuccessFactors HCM as the foundation for this new platform. “We went to market in search of a holistic HR suite and SAP SuccessFactors fit the bill, with modules covering the entire employee lifecycle,” recalls Hübner.
Working with implementation partner HR Campus, Helvetia started with SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central before deploying SAP SuccessFactors solutions for recruiting, performance & goals, succession & development, compensation, learning, and time tracking to support its Swiss operations.
Also in Switzerland, Helvetia has integrated SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central with PeopleDoc, its HR service delivery and document management platform. “We use PeopleDoc for HR support ticketing as well as managing employees’ personnel files, so it’s a critical application for us,” explains Hübner. “It was easy to integrate PeopleDoc, a third-party application, with SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central via SAP Integration Suite, part of SAP Business Technology Platform, so data now flows freely between the two solutions.”
SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central is currently also rolled out in France. The project team is working to implement it in Austria, Italy, and Spain by the end of 2023. Helvetia aims to have all modules live in all countries by the end of 2025.
Head of HR Operations, Helvetia Switzerland
One group, one HR
When the rollout is complete, Helvetia will use SAP SuccessFactors to manage HR across the group. The group is already reaping the rewards of a centralized platform in Switzerland, where Helvetia replaced a diverse mixture of on-premise and cloud solutions – as well as manual processes – with a single self-service web portal.
For example, in Switzerland, SAP SuccessFactors Time Tracking now provides self-service time and attendance management services, giving all 3,800 Swiss employees the ability to quickly record their working time by clocking in and out via the web portal – a feature that employees value. The integration of time tracking into SAP SuccessFactors has been very well received by employees, as it provides central access to all HR processes including time tracking. Helvetia promotes flexible working models, so the ability to track time and attendance is key to ensuring accuracy and transparency.
“User feedback for SAP SuccessFactors Time Tracking has been very positive, as it is so much easier to use than the legacy system,” confirms Hübner. “Employees report that they like having easy access to their timesheet, which shows the direct impact of clocked work on overtime and time accounts. If employees do need to work late, there are specific approvals set up that managers must agree upfront, helping to ensure that employees maintain a healthy work-life balance.”
“SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central serves as a single source of truth for organizational and employee data,” says Hübner. “Employees have direct access to their personal data, which they can update at any time. Managers can get an instant overview of their team, including their performance reviews and objectives, employee dialogs, and learning history. Senior leaders and board members have much better visibility of the talent pipeline, which will help with succession planning and internal recruitment. The efficiency and ease with which people can access and manage HR data is fantastic.”
He adds: “Replacing so many disparate systems with a modern cloud solution has significantly reduced operating costs. Once the remaining four countries go live with SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central, we will have a single solution with a single licensing model, and we will benefit from even greater economies of scale.”
Head of HR Operations, Helvetia Switzerland
Striving for more
By 2025, the SAP SuccessFactors solutions will be used by employees in Switzerland, Austria, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. Helvetia is also planning to roll out the SAP SuccessFactors Mobile App to make HR self-services even more convenient for its workforce.
In Switzerland, Helvetia is already working to move from its existing on-premise HCM payroll solution to SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central Payroll to gain further synergies.
Direct access to HR data has already significantly increased transparency, and Helvetia is eager to make the most of this. “We want to do more around people analytics,” confirms Hübner. “We want to empower HR teams, managers, and senior leaders with better dashboards, better reporting, and better analytics, so they can dive deeper into the data. This will help them to make better-informed strategic decisions.”
Looking further ahead, Helvetia plans to build an employee listening strategy to better understand the wants and needs of its workforce. The group plans to run a pilot project using SAP employee experience management solutions by Qualtrics to gather feedback and inform insight-based actions to deliver an even better employee experience.
Featured partners
BearingPoint is a management and technology consultancy with European roots and global reach, and SAP Gold Partner. To learn more, visit www.bearingpoint.com
HR Campus is an SAP Gold Partner and a certified partner for SAP SuccessFactors Solution Operations operating in Switzerland and Liechtenstein. To learn more, visit www.hr-campus.ch/en