The success factors behind purpose-led enterprises

When it comes to human resources (HR) management, there is pressure on businesses of all sizes today to rely on their people and the agility of the organisation to thrive and transform digitally.

“Organisations must be able to attract, develop, and retain the best people, which in turn is about tapping into their full potential and meaningfully connect them to the company’s purpose and mission,” said SAP SuccessFactors vice president (Southeast Asia) Megawaty Khie.

“The workforce of today expect a different experience at work. When it comes to technology, they expect to work like they live; intuitively, in the moment and real time,” she added.

Megawaty was speaking at the “Power of HR Roadshow” held in Kuala Lumpur recently, and which was overwhelming attended by representatives of Malaysian enterprises across all verticals.

Cloud-based HR

“Our human capital management (HCM) solutions integrates various functions such as onboarding, social business and collaboration tools, a learning management system (LMS), performance management, recruiting software, applicant tracking software, succession planning, talent management and HR analytics,” she said.

“This often results in better business strategy alignment, while also maximising people performance,” she added.

Here in Malaysia, among various enterprises which have adopted SAP SuccessFactors is Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad (MAHB).

Last year, the company implemented the Malaysia Airports People System (MAPS) awarded to PwC and implemented on SAP SuccessFactors. MAPS is one of various internal systems which feed into MAHB’s big data and analytics initiative.

At the event, SAP SuccessFactors chief technology officer and co-founder Aaron Au (pic above) also shared various global case studies of how enterprises had become more productive after adoption of SAP SuccessFactors.

Among them is a United Kingdom company called Welcome Break which today operates 35 motorway service stations, and which had improved employee retention and increased employee satisfaction upon implementation of the solution.

Earlier in his welcoming address, SAP Malaysia managing director Duncan Williamson said that SAP’s purpose is to help businesses “run at their best” while improving enterprises’ people management, be it their employees or customers.

“SAP SuccessFactors is a core part of delivering on this vision and purpose within SAP itself and for our customers,” he said.

“Our promise to all of our employees and customers is that we’re innovating every single day to help connect people to company purpose.

Purpose-driven companies

“This is because purpose drives people and people drive business results,” he further said, adding that purpose is what excites him when he wakes up in the morning.

According to a study by EY, purpose-driven companies tend to experience a 20 percent increase in sales, have three times higher employee retention and 1.4 times higher employee engagement.

“In addition to driving business results and optimising employee engagement, purpose-driven companies fuel positive impacts on the world as well – growing economies, lifting up societies, and improving our environment,” said Duncan.

“When customers transform and are effective in connecting their people to their purpose, they are able to respond with agility to challenges that they face.

“What’s more, by delivering experiences that benefit employees, it is inevitable that better results would often be achieved,” he concluded.