Customer Stories
Milliken: Empowering HR to meet evolving business and workforce needs globally
Explore Milliken’s journey with SAP
When industrial manufacturer Milliken & Company sought to modernize its on-premise HR systems to improve employee experiences across the globe, it chose to move to the cloud. Recruiting HR Focal Point as its partner, Milliken defined a three-year road map to adopt SAP SuccessFactors Human Experience Management Suite in line with its objectives.
increase in the number of job applicants.
languages supported in one global recruiting solution.
of manual recruiting processes automated.
Our partnership with SAP helped us modernize our people processes, which gives me more time to focus on my purpose of empowering exceptional teams.
Stephanie Frazier
Director, Global HRIS, Milliken & Company
Reimagining employee experiences to satisfy modern expectations
Global industrial manufacturer Milliken & Company delivers sustainable solutions to answer some of the world’s greatest challenges. Innovating across textile, flooring, specialty chemical, and healthcare industries and offering around 11,000 products, consumers may come in contact with around 50 of its products on any given day. These include fabrics that fend off flames; carbon-neutral carpet and floor coverings; longer lasting paint colors and washable colors for markers and inks; and innovative wound and burn care dressings.
Operating in 15 countries, Milliken is recognized among the world’s most ethical companies. The company shows an unwavering commitment to delivering sustainable solutions for its customers and communities and rallies its people behind a common purpose to positively impact the world for generations.
Using aging HR software systems, Milliken was increasingly unable to deliver the rich functionality and experiences its people expected. In addition, having developed HR systems and processes to suit the particular legal requirements of specific countries, it did not have a unified view of its HR operations. This made it challenging to deliver detailed compliance reporting as it had to rely on manual systems and spreadsheets.
Ready to reshape its HR operations, Milliken embarked on an HR transformation in the cloud. Beyond reimagining the employee experience, the goal for Milliken included standardizing HR processes across its four lines of business globally, reducing the HR team’s administrative burden, and improving data transparency for ease of reporting.
Milliken’s culture is unique as a privately held and family-owned company for more than 150 years. There is a real sense of family in our multinational workforce and SAP SuccessFactors Human Experience Management Suite helps our people feel connected, empowered, and supported throughout their careers with us.
Stephanie Frazier
Director, Global HRIS, Milliken & Company
Managing a three-year technology rollout aligned to business objectives
Before embarking on its migration to the cloud, Milliken evaluated its current landscape, recognizing the different legal and language requirements of its global operations. Stephanie Frazier, director, global HRIS at Milliken explains, “Even within our four internal business divisions, things were done differently. Moving to the cloud gave us the opportunity to really look at our processes and our people and standardize those things so that we are a more efficient and sustainable HR organization.”
To get there, Milliken had to understand its HR processes across its four businesses and work out how to prioritize its digital transformation road map. Frazier adds, “Determining how to prioritize our digital transformation took time and required a collaborative effort across our global enterprise. But choosing SAP SuccessFactors Human Experience Management Suite (SAP SuccessFactors HXM Suite) was easy given our history using SAP S/4HANA, SAP Concur solutions, and the SAP Fiori user experience, as well as on-premise HR. We defined a three-year road map and focused the talent module rollouts to align with our business objectives.”
Milliken appointed its partner HR Focal Point LLC to supplement its internal technical expertise and provide proven experience and best practices implementing SAP SuccessFactors solutions.
As a company, we are committed to investing in our people and providing opportunities for continuous learning, peer mentorship, and community involvement. SAP SuccessFactors HXM Suite is central to us achieving this aim.
Stephanie Frazier
Director, Global HRIS, Milliken & Company
Inspiring and energizing talent for an engaged workforce
Milliken opted to commence its cloud-based HR transformation with the SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting solution, expanding the reach of its recruiting activities with mobile-optimized career Web sites in six languages. It also implemented the SAP SuccessFactors Succession & Development and the SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central solutions, gaining transparency and efficiencies in HR management and administration.
Frazier comments, “One of the things I love about SAP SuccessFactors solutions is you can begin your transformation where your business needs it the most. We replaced an outdated English-only careers Web site with a modern experience that is truly optimized for viewing on mobile devices and available in six different languages. We’ve had about 10 times more candidates view our jobs since we went live and are currently fine-tuning applicant tracking.”
Milliken now has a hybrid HR environment connecting SAP SuccessFactors solutions and the legacy on-premise solution. The integration synchronizes core HR and payroll data, giving Milliken a single source of HR data truth.
With more visibility and insights into its workforce, the company can bolster its efforts to support greater diversity, equity, and inclusion and be more attuned to the unique strengths of individual workers. In addition, self-serve tools free up its HR team from performing manual tasks and increase employee engagement by giving its people access to the HR tools and information they need when they need them.
And as the majority of Milliken associates do not have a company computer, the adoption of the SAP SuccessFactors Mobile app has proven to be transformational, enabling its deskless workforce to access HR data and content at their convenience, whether in the office or in the field.
Thanks to SAP solutions, we’ve evaluated our talent processes and achieved our HR and people objectives. In one move, we’ve fast forwarded into the future, meeting our people’s expectations and helping them be more successful.
Stephanie Frazier
Director, Global HRIS, Milliken & Company
Taking employee experiences and engagement to the next level
To deliver on its ambitions in employee engagement, Milliken has implemented the SAP SuccessFactors Performance & Goals solution to facilitate a mindset of performance management, enabling personal and professional growth. It is also working on streamlining benefits administration with the SAP U.S. Benefits Administration application by Benefitfocus.
Milliken also integrated the SAP Analytics Cloud solution with its legacy on-premise system and plans to take advantage of rich data insights on headcount, turnover, and time-to-hire rates to further boost operating efficiencies and inform its people management strategy.
And with the company expanding through acquisition, the use of SAP SuccessFactors HXM Suite enables Milliken to accelerate the integration of acquired businesses and ease the transition for new employees.
Frazier comments, “We have over 150 HR people around the world who used to spend a lot of time pushing paper. Thanks to our investment in SAP SuccessFactors solutions, they no longer have to. Now, my goal is to enable them to serve as HR consultants to the business, finding ways to deal with the very real challenges of turnover and engagement.”
Featured partner
HR Focal Point LLC offers proven experience and best practices implementing SAP SuccessFactors HXM Suite. Supplementing Milliken’s internal team expertise, HR Focal Point provided technical and project management expertise and knowledge sharing, enabling the project to be delivered on time and under budget, despite ongoing challenges during the time of COVID-19.