Copy: Ester Schop
Illustration: Studio van Laar
This article appeared in CHRO Magazine (in Dutch)
One of the key enablers of Cosun’s HR strategy is ‘Winning People/Unlock Talent’. The farmers’ cooperative comprising of several businesses – of which Aviko and Cosun Beet Company (formerly Suiker Unie) are the most well-known – wants to get the best out of its people. An advanced personnel information system makes an important contribution to that aim. It was therefore decided to switch to one central HCM system for the entire organization.
“Getting the best out of your people requires good leadership and talent development, but also efficiency in HR processes.“
SuccessDay provides support during and after the HRIT implementation of Workday and provides the capabilities that Cosun itself does not have in-house to fill all the roles. The implementation has gone remarkably smoothly. “As a cooperative, collaboration is in our genes, which is helpful,” says project manager Wijnand Pirée.
The name Cosun doesn’t ring a bell with everyone. Most likely, however, the names of the business groups underlying the farmer cooperative will. Aviko, Cosun Beet Company, Duynie, Sensus and SVZ supply a wide range of products and services: from chips to syrup, from ingredients in gingerbread and meat substitutes to animal feed, detergents, wallpaper glue and cosmetics.
Efficiency in HR-processes
Although the five business groups operate fairly autonomously, they are looking for more synergy in order to achieve their strategic goals. Cosun, for example, has a clear ambition for 2030: it aims to be 100% plant-based, 100% circular and 100% transparent. “For HR, one of the key enablers of our strategy is ‘Winning People’, which is what we also call Unlock Talent. This means that we want to get the best out of our people. It is embedded in issues such as collaboration, roles and responsibilities, good leadership, talent development, but also in efficiency in HR processes,” explains Suzanne Jungjohann, Cosun’s CHRO.
“We did not yet have a Cosun-wide personnel information system; each business group had its own system or way of working. Given the further development of our business, we considered it important to implement one single HRIT system. It enables us to work more closely together as an organization, to fully utilize the strengths of our people and to know where within the organization we have specific skills,” says Jungjohann. There was also a need within the business groups themselves to modernize their current systems or working methods.
Phase 1: HCM Core and Learning module at Aviko
Ultimately the choice was made for Workday. From the outset, the HR departments of all the underlying companies were intensively involved in the selection procedure. Since the need for innovation was most pressing at Aviko, the first phase of implementation started there.
“We deliberately opted for a limited scope: we started with HCM Core and the Learning module. Usually that module is implemented at a later stage, but because the existing learning environment at Aviko was in urgent need of replacement, we accelerated the implementation of the Learning environment. This is because we urgently need it to train a few hundred new employees for the new Aviko factory in Belgium that will be opening its doors soon,” explains project manager Wijnand Pirée.
Phase 1 went live in April 2021. With adoption in mind, Pirée involved all business groups in the design and process structure of the new system at a very early stage. “Everyone has to be able to work with it and not get the idea that something is being shoved down their throats.”
“When I started to build the project organization, I concluded that there were gaps in the organization.”
With adoption in mind, Pirée involved all business groups in the design and process structure of the new system at a very early stage. “Everyone has to be able to work with it and not get the idea that something is being shoved down their throats.” Involvement has been high from the start. He can remember calls with 100 people at a time. About 30 people have a project role, ranging from contributing ideas about the design and the organization to testing beta versions. Pirée: “One of the most important lessons learned after phase 1 was that we had to involve people even more in phase 2. Only then will it work in practice.”
Although Pirée initially thought he would not need outside help, he soon had to reconsider. “I called SuccessDay and honestly confessed that I had been stubborn. When I started to build the project organization, I concluded that there were gaps in the organization. I’m not just talking about capacity, but specific knowledge of HRIT implementations.
SuccessDay has these people on the payroll. You are not dealing with a bunch of interims, but with a team that is used to working together according to its own methods. For example, in the first phase I was missing the Lead for HCM and capacity to supervise testing. SuccessDay filled that in for us to our complete satisfaction.”
Phase 2: Rollout to other business groups and broader scope
In the 2nd phase, Pirée wanted to have sufficient resources available from the start to get the job done. In this phase – which will go live in March 2022 – modules already running at Aviko will also be rolled out at the other business groups and the scope will be broadened. “We sat down around the table to again explore how we could unburden Cosun. The expansion of HCM and the module Compensation we assigned to a Lead of ours and in addition we provide the Lead for the modules Time Tracking and Absence,” explains Bas Eggelaar, managing director of SuccessDay. On several occasions, SuccessDay has also provided expertise regarding change management, solving specific problems at the business groups, and providing of training.
“There is always an avalanche of questions towards the support organization as soon as the system is launched.”
The Eindhoven-based consultancy firm also provides support around and after going live. This initially involves the Smooth Landing service, followed by technical after-go live support: Workday AMS Support. “There is always an avalanche of questions towards the support organization as soon as the system is launched. From HR, management, and the employees themselves. The implementation partner handles the technical questions, we do the rest. If you don’t pay enough attention to landing a new HCM system within your organization, you quickly lose its acceptance,” says AMS manager Steven Thangathurai. AMS stands for Application Management Services, the service that frequently comes after Smooth Landing. This includes answering technical questions, installing new releases and updates, doing configurations, and resolving integration issues.
Plans for phase 3 and beyond
Although the going live of phase 2 is fast approaching, there is already plenty of thinking going on about phase 3. “The Talent and Performance modules are high on our wish list. A lot of things are still done on paper, so we want to make a huge digitization effort. We are also looking at Employee Engagement. We have many more wishes, so there will probably be a fourth and perhaps a fifth phase. In short: we’ re going to be busy for a while,” says CHRO Jungjohann.
“I want to take it step-by-step rather than with a big bang.”
She stresses that the new system will primarily be used to help Cosun’s staff work more comfortably and efficiently. “HR will soon be in your pocket: with one mobile app, you will soon be able to request days off, submit your expenses, view your pay slip, you name it.”
“I will never again implement a new payroll and HCM system simultaneously and try to link them at the same time.” Is Pirée’s answer when asked about the most important lessons learned so far. “I want to take it step-by-step rather than with a big bang. Soon it will be more ongoing business in which we gradually implement changes and improvements.”
Good collaboration is essential
Pirée finds it enjoyable to work with SuccessDay. “They are very approachable and really think along with us. SuccessDay matches our culture well: they are not a blah-blah company, they are very pragmatic. They don’t come to us in a three-piece suit to sign a contract. For the AMS part, it is also very important to us that they have Dutch-speaking consultants, and your ticket is not handled somewhere on the other side of the world.”
SuccessDay deliberately chooses not to be an anonymous ticketing box. Eggelaar: “We pay attention to the customer and prefer to call rather than email. Additionally, knowledge transfer to the internal organization is an important item. This enables the customer to manage it themselves the next time.”
Additionally, Pirée found that the cooperation between SuccessDay and implementation partner Kainos runs smoothly. When the Learning environment was live already, there was still a lot of ongoing development – both in phase 2 of the project and in the production environment. “That requires good communication and coordination. It was nice to see that they didn’t try to knock each other off the stage.”
“This project proves that the collaboration Cosun is striving for is a success.”
The project manager is most proud of the fact that the independent business groups reached consensus relatively easily on how they would set up the system. “This project proves that the collaboration Cosun is striving for is a success,” he says. Eggelaar, who has worked for many different organizations, agrees wholeheartedly: “I found the calmness of the project and the way we worked together really unique. There are always tight deadlines in projects like this, there’s always stress, but Cosun’s culture has been a great help. Because you’re dealing with a down-to-earth, no-nonsense cooperation you get the same result at the same time with less stress. And that’s very nice. Cooperation is really in their DNA.”
