Companies around the world are faced with challenges around their future working models. Everyone is talking about how and when to re-open their offices, not if they should. They are debating hybrid options, re-opening company gyms to employees, reimagining workspaces, and more. And they are acknowledging how some work needs to be done in person, at least part of the time.

Because even in a world turned upside-down by a global pandemic, success is still all about people coming together to use their talents and drive to make their organization exceptional, agile, adaptive, and creative. Make no mistake – business leaders learned the hard way about the need for digital transformation that enables them to turn their business 180 degrees overnight, support digital customer engagement channels, drive productivity through automation, and enable flexible, stable supply chains. They also understand now, more than ever, that one of biggest drivers of success is having a real-time view into every aspect of their business.

But equally important, business leaders have gained a deeper understanding of just how critical their people are to achieving successful digital transformation.

Think back to early 2020…

…when the escalating COVID-19 pandemic forced business leaders to quickly reset business and workforce priorities. As the disruption intensified and dragged on, organizations were forced to challenge their views about what work was “essential” to deliver for their customers, shareholders, and stakeholders, as well as rapidly reorient their goals and operations. The most successful organizations turn to their people as the key drivers of business performance and innovation. Suddenly every question, every issue, and every decision was viewed from a human angle first. Why? Because employees are the primary source of a company’s creativity, innovation, agility, and service excellence.

The findings in Deloitte’s 2021 Global Human Capital Trends study validate this perspective by highlighting how organizational preparedness hinges on:

• The ability to bring human strengths, such as decision making and adaptability to the fore – both during times of crisis, and continually
• Perpetually cultivating human resilience, courage, judgment, and flexibility in order to navigate a turbulent reality
• Taking the creativity unleashed by the need to survive a crisis—the creativity that is a hallmark of being human – and using it to reinvent the organization and its future

For organizations to successfully transform their business and react to change, however, their people need to be aligned, engaged, and properly skilled. But according to Deloitte, few organizations are ready on these fronts. For example, their study indicates that only 17% of executives say their workers are very ready to adapt, reskill, and assume new roles. This is concerning, especially when 72% of executives state that this is critical to navigating future disruptions.

Deloitte’s study also revealed findings suggesting just how important the employee experience is to business success today. For example:

• 45% of executives state that building an organizational culture that celebrates growth, adaptability, and resilience is the most important action to transform work
• 79% of employees state that their overall employee experience has positively impacted the quality of their work and productivity

Modernizing your people strategy unlocks digital transformation success

The “big so what” of these findings is clear: Modernizing your people strategy is the key to transforming into an agile, resilient, and adaptive intelligent enterprise. In practical terms, this means:

• Putting your people at the center of your business by delivering personalized, best-in-class work experiences that foster employee productivity and engagement. This means, at least in part, providing the agile, digital tools they need to complete work as quickly as possible and remove frustration. Companies using outdated technology must transform their business to create an efficient and engaged workforce in order to achieve peak performance. Now more than ever, organizations need modern workforce technology that empowers and motivates people to achieve business success. ​
• Aligning and integrating human resources and enterprise business processes and data by running them on a single platform. This makes possible new workforce insights and ways of assessing the impacts of workforce-related decisions on finance, operational, and customer performance. Imagine, for example, the power of having HR data fully integrated with operations data and employee and customer experience data. And having direct links between supply chain, finance, sales, manufacturing and point of sale systems in HR systems that support things like training, development, staffing, collaboration, performance management and compensation.

This alignment means, for example, you’ll be able to:

• Plan for the future by determining the optimal project teams
• Diagnose how business outcomes are affected by the composition and needs of your workforce
• Build the workforce you need by determining the impact of unplanned turnover on sales forecasts, productivity and delivery
• Optimize spend by aligning workforce costs to headcount plans
• Automatically aligning training based on product or compliance events

SAP helps drive digital transformation by putting your people first

​Human Experience Management (HXM) solutions from SAP put the employee experience ahead of everything to drive your business transformation. They give you the tools to provide your workforce meaningful, relevant experiences that recognize their individual value and increase their productivity, confidence, and engagement. ​​SAP offers concise and consumable scenarios to advance your people transformation and provide a solid foundation for ongoing business success. The key is to focus on accelerating your path to tangible transformational outcomes, while providing flexibility to drive change in the way that works best for you. ​

​Through the RISE with SAP offering for human experience management (HXM), SAP delivers business transformation as a service to help IT organizations lead business transformation and be a change agent. Depending on your specific situation, there are three concise and consumable scenarios supported to drive tangible transformational outcomes while providing the flexibility you need to drive change in the way that works best for you:

• Structure for success – by building your people foundation for successful business transformation, and bridging the gap between finance and HR to measure profitability, plan and forecast accurately, and manage compliance​
• Reskill to innovate – with the training required to increase the speed of innovation by developing people’s skills, as well as supporting the project and technical teams with training for a successful adoption and transformation​
• ​Operationally transform your business – with easy access to people and finance data; simple, intuitive experiences for payroll; and time tracking that result in seamless operations and planning

Learn more

To learn more about RISE with SAP for HXM, please explore the following resources:

• RISE with SAP for HXM on one page or in a 2 min. video 
• SAP News Centre: Accelerating People Transformation with RISE with SAP for Human Experience Management
• RISE with SAP for HXM on sap.com 
• More on RISE with SAP in the SAP Community