The legacy central platform for recruiting and talent management at AIA was implemented differently across the organization, with a lack of global alignment leading to a lack of insights. Furthermore, some processes were still manual and lacked flexibility. As such, enhancements to the platform—such as improving mobile access and self-service capabilities—were possible but proved to be challenging and time-consuming.
AIA continues to grow, but for growth to be sustainable, our processes need to be scalable and flexible to respond quickly to changes, including new regulations.
Group Head, HR Transformation, Analytics & Governance
Actionable insights with a community focus.
When the AIA team first experimented with Workday, they appreciated its flexibility and how easy it was to extract different kinds of insight from data—insights that can be used to empower talent managers. Further testing showed the robustness of the Workday workflow engine and how AIA could tailor Workday to its specific needs. The anytime, anywhere access to Workday also struck a chord because of the mobility challenges of AIA’s legacy system.
Additionally, becoming part of the Workday Community appealed to the team. The concept of sharing among Workday users was strengthened when AIA received good feedback from Workday customers. Leonard Lai, Group Head of HR Transformation, Analytics & Governance, says, “Actionable insights, good user experience, scalability, and a sense of community covered all our needs.”
Moving toward intelligent HR.
In just 15 months, AIA was live across all 18 of its markets with Workday. In only one month, the adoption rate reached 90 percent and personnel interacted with Workday four times per week on average. Following that, AIA automated 60–70 percent of its manual processes, with 70 percent of its approval processes executed within Workday instead of being carried out on paper or via email. In turn, the number of interactions and inquiries for the HR team has decreased, providing staff with more time for planning and budgeting. Talent managers now gain 24/7 insights into staff development, improving efficiency and enhancing communication. Leonard says, “The whole delivery model has changed, enabling us to be more flexible and positioning us for intelligent HR.”
The flexibility of Workday means you can adapt it to best fit your specific needs.
Group Head, HR Transformation, Analytics & Governance
Transforming the role of HR.
According to an internal employee pulse survey, approximately 83 percent of AIA employees are either satisfied or very satisfied with Workday. Furthermore, overall internal satisfaction ratings have increased by 10–20 points as a result of HR transformation at AIA, supported by the Workday suite of applications.
In transforming, AIA also aimed to improve the perception of HR and its role across the company. Each member of the HR team has dashboard views of HR operations, enabling them to be more focused on case management, directing time toward employee challenges, career development, and managing regulatory changes to promote more sustainable business growth. In doing so, the team is now considered to be business advisors rather than solely an operations department.
Accelerating the use of evidence-based strategies.
Executives and managers are using reports and dashboards in Workday Prism Analytics to get an accurate view of the organization by monitoring trending data, benchmarking trends between companies, and identifying the right strategic questions they should be asking themselves and the business. AIA is pumping 10 years of historical data into the system, which offers a permission-based secure environment. In the future, executives and managers will be able to test their ideas to form evidence-based business strategies to drive the company forward. Says Leonard, “Looking ahead, we are planning to expand our use of Prism Analytics by focusing on operational insights that can trigger business actions, such as ways we can improve.”