Edewell Personal Care conducted an 18-month project with the aim of improving the personal data in his SAP Successfactors solutions.
For strategic decisions in human resources, precise and accessible personal data is required for recruiting, performance management, employee engagement, compliance and much more. In addition, a “clean” data foundation is essential in order to be able to use AI -controlled tools effectively. Edewell Personal Carea manufacturer of personal care products based in the United States, wanted to prepare and manage and manage its over 7,000 employees worldwide for the future.
The portfolio of Edweell includes more than 25 well -known body care stamps, including Schick, Banana Boat, Wilkinson Sword and Wet Ones. In 2024, the company generated one Net sales of $ 2.25 billion. As Colin Emery, Director of Global HR Systems at Edweell, emphasizes, the company relies on a personal -oriented corporate culture that enables employees to work for efficient work and gives the company a competitive advantage.
In 2022, Emery was given the task of building a People Analytics department at Edweell. However, it quickly became clear to him that the data required for this was not exactly enough. “Our detection system was no longer the system that it was once. Actually, there was none at all,” explains Emery. At that time, the accuracy of the HR data was only 37 percent for important data fields in the positioning and employee profile.
Since Edewell was founded in 2015, according to Emery, the company has been relating to the “limitless configurability” of the scaling, systematization and standardization of its global HR systems SAP SUCCESSFACTORS solutions. The solutions worked as intended, but the data contained therein were not properly maintained. This further caused many inaccuracies. “It was clear that the quality of our data in SAP SUCCESSFACTORS in some parts of the world left a lot to be desired – especially in countries where SAP Successfactors Payroll is not integrated,” he says.
Emery was aware that high data quality is crucial for effective decisions, precise reports, a smooth user experience and future innovations. However, he had neither the budget nor the time for the commissioning of external resources. Therefore, he decided to develop Edweell’s method for solving the problem internally.
HR Data Champions as multipliers
After Emery had determined which data fields had to be adjusted and maintained primarily in order to have the greatest impact on data quality, he turned to those who were responsible for the data and best understood them: HR Business Partner (HRBPS). Because for the success of the data quality project it was necessary to integrate the HRBPs. A changed attitude and extensive change management were necessary, said Emery. Because not all HRBPs felt responsible for maintaining the data in the SAP-Successfactors solutions and some of the training courses required to understand the systematized HR processes.
To make the changeover easier, Emery launched an HR-Data steward program so that the HRBP community of Edweell could be trained accordingly. The respective data stewards receive weekly reports and have the task of personally fixing the data errors or informing a suitable colleague. They are trained how the inaccuracies occur, what consequences they have and how to remedy them. This makes the data stewards into experts and are able to convey their knowledge to other HRBPs. Through the training, the HRBPs were able to act proactively instead of just reacting. This is a crucial factor for the success of the data quality project, explains Emery.
For example, the number of data seizures went back from 2,700 to just a handful. “This is a tiny, tiny fraction of what it was before,” says Emery. “This is because the HRBPs do it right instead of making mistakes that then have to be corrected.”
The project started in the USA and was later extended to Europe, Latin America and the Asian-Pacific area. Now the data accuracy of Edweell is constant 96 to 97 percent, reports Emery.
Analytics in the HR department: BEsser data, better decisions
The success of the data quality and data steward project can be clearly seen, and now Edgewell can benefit from a clean HR data foundation. The reliability of the company’s HR reporting has also improved noticeably, for which it uses stories in SAP-SUCCESSFACTORS solutions. “Stories offer a great advantage if we use real-time-SAP-SUCCESSFACTORS data,” explains Emery. The possibility of sending a link to which the permissions can be accessed on the basis of roll -based authorizations also makes it easy and quick to share data. Edweell uses Stories to analyze data on inclusion, sense of belonging, leadership, duration of employment, recruiting and much more and to share the knowledge with corporate management, HR managers and HRBPs.
This data-based procedure helps EDWell to identify areas with potential for improvement and to make strategic HR decisions. For example, the People Analytics team found on the basis of the data that there was a short-term fluctuation problem for certain roles and locations. The HR department of Edewell then created a new applicant experience to improve and systematize the recruiting and onboarding processes. The “Joyful Journey” program also serves to share information about the company and gain talent. “Without the data, we would never have known how to proceed,” says Emery. “They made us invest time, effort and money in these processes – and this immediately had a positive effect on the short -term fluctuation.”
“In the past three years we have provided data and explained how important it is to clean up the data in the system in order to make it meaningful for us,” added Emery. “We never collect data for your own sake. It always has to be about which measures can be derived from this data.”
Ready for the future: HR innovations with AI
Edweell’s impressive data quality not only offers its executives -relevant insights, but also creates a solid basis to benefit from HR innovations. This applies all the more than many innovations such as AI need clean data to function well. AI assistant and agents such as joules are only as good as the data on which they are based. Therefore, initiatives on data quality and data governance are increasingly becoming an entrepreneurial necessity.
Here EDGewell is ahead of his time. “When I started People Analytics three years ago, I knew that we first had to concentrate on cleaning up the data. Only in this way we were able to prepare for the super automation and the upcoming AI tools,” says Emery. “Now we are well equipped for the next generation of tools.”
Gillian Hixson is integrated communication specialist at SAP.
