Capgemini: Empowering a future-ready talent organization with a skills-first approach
Building a skills engine to support the employee lifecycle
A global business and technology partner, Capgemini advises and supports clients with their business and digital transformation. To become a more talent-centric organization, Capgemini adopted a skills-based people management approach. SAP SuccessFactors HCM helps Capgemini deliver a highly engaging people experience in moments that matter across the employee lifecycle and keep its promise to employees and clients.
| Industry | Region | Company Size |
| Professional services | Paris, France | 340,000 employees |
of employees already using skills-based performance management.
of employees already using SAP SuccessFactors solutions to support other hire-to-retire processes.
Vice President and Head of Talent Acquisition, Capgemini
Transforming people and skills to deliver digital and sustainability programs
Capgemini is a global business and technology transformation partner, helping organizations accelerate their dual transition to a digital and sustainable world while creating a tangible impact for enterprises and society. The company has a diverse staff of 340,000 members in more than 50 countries. With a unique culture and 55-year-plus heritage, Capgemini is trusted by its clients to unlock the value of technology to address the breadth of their business needs. It delivers comprehensive services and solutions using strengths from strategy and design to engineering, fueled by extensive capabilities in AI, the cloud, and data, combined with deep industry expertise and an integrated partner ecosystem.
Clients expect top-quality transformation and technology services from Capgemini, so it’s critical that the company keeps employee skills updated so they can be harnessed according to market needs. The business wants to be able to match the skills requirements of a project with the right in-house talent, or upskill or hire people to meet needs if the necessary skills aren’t available.
To achieve its ambitious plan for growth and strategic priorities, Capgemini needed to become a more talent-centric company. It sought an HR infrastructure that would allow it to attract, retain, and grow market-leading skills, particularly advanced digital skills. This skills focus is evidenced by employees completing 18 million hours of training in one year. As an example, in the past year, 120,000 employees have already been upskilled in generative AI methodologies. The company embarked on a dynamic transformation program aimed at delivering a personalized experience for employees that is supported by smart digital tools, harmonized HR processes, and an integrated, agile HR organization.
Executive Vice President and Group Head, HR Transformation, Capgemini
Deploying cloud-based capabilities to create a high-value HR organization
Capgemini built a skills engine to cover the moments that matter across the employee lifecycle, including recruitment, onboarding, talent management, compensation and rewards, learning, and succession management. The company is implementing SAP SuccessFactors HCM to enable skills-based people management and deliver a highly engaging people experience across these moments.
The skills-based performance management program focuses on forward-looking growth enablement. As well as reviewing employee contributions annually, there are quarterly check-in conversations about current and future skill requirements and continuous feedback from employees, managers, and colleagues. Capgemini deployed the SAP SuccessFactors Performance & Goals solution as a “big bang” for its 340,000 employees at all levels.
Career mobility is key at Capgemini. The skills-based career enablement strategy aims to increase employee access to mentoring programs and 360-degree feedback and empower employees to own their career growth. To this end, Capgemini is preparing to roll out the SAP SuccessFactors Career and Talent Development solution. This will allow employees to set career-growth goals aligned with personal aspirations and organizational needs. By exploring career paths, employees can map their skills to current and potential roles and improve their readiness for the next opportunity. The solution uses skills data from the talent intelligence hub—a centralized framework connecting individual attributes, strengths, styles, and expressive preferences to both people and experiences in SAP SuccessFactors solutions. Capgemini views the hub as the backbone of its HR architecture that links to the solutions and the moments that matter for employees.
Change management was a significant part of the project, and Capgemini invested heavily in both global and local teams to advise on the transformation. Involving the business early, gaining buy-in from sponsors and leadership, and maintaining an open dialogue were also key.
Executive Vice President and Group Head, HR Transformation, Capgemini
Giving employees freedom and support to enhance skills and career paths
Capgemini is undergoing a comprehensive transformation that includes a new HR organizational design, global shared services, and the implementation of 11 SAP SuccessFactors solutions across the employee lifecycle. The company is rolling out the new business processes and solutions geographically over a three- to four-year period and is almost 70% complete.
More than 330,000 people have embraced skills-based performance management, and people managers are providing feedback in the solution. Both parties can now engage in more value-added conversations around career and skills development. Upskilling not only prepares the workforce for the future, but it also reinforces Capgemini’s investment in people, one of the main reasons they join and stay with the company.
Capgemini will enable the connection of employees with diverse career opportunities by using data analytics to provide personalized career path recommendations tailored to their skills and interests. This will give employees the freedom to define their own career paths. The company hopes that democratizing access to role openings and nudging employees toward suitable opportunities will drive adoption and facilitate career advancement for everyone.
The business is on track to provide a personalized people experience; build the right skills at scale; develop strong leadership pipelines; foster a flexible, diverse, and engaged workforce; and grow leaders within a culture of mobility. Ultimately, it wishes to turn human potential into business value and ensure its employees’ sustainability and long-term employability as their careers progress at Capgemini and beyond.
Executive Vice President and Group Head, HR Transformation, Capgemini
Building out the skills engine behind skills-based people management
In addition to performance management and career enablement, Capgemini is building other parts of the skills engine. These include workforce planning across the employee lifecycle and continuous learning initiatives to upskill the workforce and cultivate leadership capabilities at all levels. Skills-based talent deployment to match the right skills to client needs and talent acquisition to hire for skills or upskill employees with robust training programs are also planned.
Capgemini is excited to see how SAP SuccessFactors HCM will benefit the value-added side of HR as well as the day-to-day people queries. Finally, the HR organization is keen to explore how to integrate new technologies, such as generative AI, into its operations.