Endeavour Energy: Accelerating towards a sustainable future by transforming core HR practices
Explore Endeavour Energy’s journey with SAP
At the forefront of the clean energy transformation in Australia, Endeavour Energy is focused on creating a more sustainable future for its employees, customers and communities. By upgrading its HR system using SAP SuccessFactors solutions, Endeavour is giving employees the tools they need to take ownership of their career growth and development.
| Industry | Region | Company Size |
| Oil, gas and energy | Parramatta, Australia | >1,700 employees |
processes automated.
remote implementation of SAP SuccessFactors solutions.
Chief Data, People and Sustainability Officer, Endeavour Energy
Leading the sustainable energy transition through technical innovation
Australian energy supplier Endeavour Energy distributes electricity to more than 2.7 million people living and working in some of Australia’s fastest-growing regions, including Sydney’s Greater West, the Blue Mountains, the Southern Highlands, Illawarra and the South Coast of New South Wales.
With a vision to lead the way with smarter energy solutions, Endeavour Energy is rapidly transforming from a traditional “poles and wires” business to a distributed systems operator. This will help Endeavour deliver a more sustainable energy future where smart meters, batteries and solar technologies allow customers to generate and store electricity and sell it back into the grid.
Endeavour Energy is also a founding member of industry-led initiative The Energy Charter, which was formed in 2019 to embed a customer outcomes–focused culture within all parts of the energy supply chain.
Endeavour Energy’s employees live and work within the regions in which they operate and take great pride in serving their communities by providing electricity to customers in a safe, affordable, reliable and sustainable way. For this reason, Endeavour Energy is dedicated to ensuring its team members have the right tools and experience to meet the energy transition head on.
To achieve this, Endeavour needed to modernise a system landscape based on an outdated on-premise solution. Use of physical documents and multiple spreadsheets for critical tasks including remuneration management, onboarding and performance management increased the risk of processes not being implemented and could create significant delays in the completion of tasks. These manual processes also meant employees had to spend more time than necessary completing paperwork, with limited visibility on its progress once submitted.
According to Endeavour Energy’s chief data, people and sustainability officer, Melissa Irwin, the company needed to find a better way to support employees in line with its values of innovation, collaboration and adaptability. This would begin with the delivery of an upgraded digital HR system.
Chief Data, People and Sustainability Officer, Endeavour Energy
Delivering an innovative HR system
Endeavour Energy required an HR system with an intuitive user interface that could facilitate data consolidation and analysis as well as streamline manual administrative tasks to improve the employee experience from recruitment onward.
Endeavour took an enterprise decision to partner with SAP and implement SAP SuccessFactors solutions based on the company’s use of software including SAP S/4HANA, SAP Concur solutions and SAP Business Technology Platform.
Confident in the efficacy of SAP software, Endeavour Energy selected SAP SuccessFactors solutions for their ability to provide essential HR capabilities and accessibility for general users and their intuitive integration into the company’s technical infrastructure. The solutions complemented existing capabilities in business functions beyond HR, including corporate, procurement, billing and finance.
SAP SuccessFactors solutions also resonated well with the organisation’s efforts to continually drive innovation and cultivate flexibility. As the implementation coincided with the shift to remote working during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Endeavour Energy put a robust change management system in place to support employees. By focusing on employees’ needs and emphasising the benefits of the new HR system, the company was able to engage people with the transformation and quickly adapt to using online tools.
Although the implementation was challenging, it was comprehensively planned, and the new HR system was launched without delay or complications, automating more than a dozen core processes into workflows and processes based on SAP SuccessFactors solutions. The offerings delivered during the initial implementation included the SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting, SAP SuccessFactors Onboarding, SAP SuccessFactors Learning, SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central and SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central Payroll solutions. Three years later, Endeavour launched the SAP SuccessFactors Performance & Goals solution. Expanding on the solutions after the initial implementation at a pace suited to the business was a key benefit.
Another benefit is the solutions’ ongoing delivery of new features and capabilities through biannual updates. This supports the company’s goal to exceed customer expectations by continually improving the performance and sustainability of its energy network. A combination of these new capabilities and Endeavour Energy’s internal drive to automate has spurred the company to transition 10 more processes to SAP SuccessFactors solutions in the last three years.
Chief Data, People and Sustainability Officer, Endeavour Energy
Aiding employee autonomy and data-driven decisions
Integrated SAP SuccessFactors solutions have brought much-needed efficiency to Endeavour Energy’s HR processes and provided employees with increased autonomy regarding their responsibilities and careers.
Employees can now more easily engage with HR processes and change their personal data directly. The intuitive solutions eliminate the need for user training and centralise employee data for easier access, from viewing pay slips to updating emergency contacts. Employees now rarely need to request assistance while using the HR system. Meanwhile, the automation of time-consuming administrative tasks has allowed HR team members to shift their focus to supporting employees with more value-adding activities, such as employee well-being and development.
There is now a systematic approach to performance management, with the solutions providing the structure to improve connections and communication between employees and managers. Employees can now clearly articulate their goals and development, while managers can provide feedback, track and support career development and ascertain turnover rates.
Recruitment of new team members has also become more effective, with recruiting managers now able to oversee the process and focus on evaluating candidates without reliance on others. Previously, the discovery of incomplete information such as working rights or qualifications would mean having to restart the process, causing frustration and affecting subsequent processes such as onboarding.
At the executive level, SAP SuccessFactors solutions provide improved data integrity and analysis opportunities. For example, Endeavour Energy is required to establish and maintain visibility of compliance with its government-issued license to operate by undertaking background checks on its employees. Custom dashboards now show a real-time view of compliance for the executive team.
The delivery of a modernised HR solution has created a culture of data-driven decision-making at Endeavour Energy that will serve the company well in achieving its ongoing customer service and sustainability goals. The transition to clean energy relies on both people and data – increased access to data makes people ask the right questions, which leads to more-considered decisions and a brighter future for the Australian energy industry.
Endeavour Energy intends to continue partnering with SAP through SAP Preferred Success services. By providing enhanced support, feature-adoption planning and access to customer success experts, these services fuel Endeavour’s desire to constantly innovate and create better customer and employee experiences.
Endeavour is also interested in integrating more AI-driven productivity and predictive analysis tools into its system landscape. This will empower employees to add value through more-rewarding tasks requiring emotional intelligence and other uniquely human strengths.