Welcome
onboard!

Etihad’s persona-led portals create a more professional candidate joining experience

As a part of Etihad's wider HR Transformation Strategy, one goal was to enhance and
professionalise the onboarding, off-boarding and cross-boarding experience
with SAP SuccessFactors Work Zone and Onboarding 2.0

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KEY OUTCOMES

A more professional welcome for new candidates

Persona-led candidate portals create a more engaging and efficient onboarding experience

More effective cross-boarding induction creating first point of engagement with line managers

Automation and digitalisation reduce labour-intensive manual processes and HR admin

Etihad Aviation Group is a diverse, global aviation and travel group with some 8,500+ employees operating 82 aircraft carrying passengers to 68 destinations in 45 countries.

Etihad's Human Resources & Organisational Development division supports its strategic and operational agenda with a centralised HR delivery model. The HR division includes several departments that look after Etihad's greatest asset – its people. These teams cover medical services and wellness, learning and development, HR services, talent acquisition and UAE national development. With a growing focus on transformation and digital technology, the team are also driving the adoption of cloud-based HR systems and working to build a mobile-enabled workforce.

Starting with a total headcount of 8,100 Etihad expects to recruit an additional 3,000 staff and process around 750 leavers while also managing employee cross-boarding to promote posts internally.

We spoke to the Etihad team Rajeev Raj, Global HRIS & Analytics Manager, Gillian Deignan, HR Onboarding Manager and Kruti Thakkar, Etihad’s SAP HCM SuccessFactors Consultant to understand how they pioneered the change, creating a superior digital onboarding experience for Etihad’s job candidates.

Etihad Aviation Group is a diverse, global aviation and travel group with some 8,500+ employees operating 82 aircraft carrying passengers to 68 destinations in 45 countries.

Etihad's Human Resources & Organisational Development division supports its strategic and operational agenda with a centralised HR delivery model. The HR division includes several departments that look after Etihad's greatest asset – its people. These teams cover medical services and wellness, learning and development, HR services, talent acquisition and UAE national development. With a growing focus on transformation and digital technology, the team are also driving the adoption of cloud-based HR systems and working to build a mobile-enabled workforce.

Starting with a total headcount of 8,100 Etihad expects to recruit an additional 3,000 staff and process around 750 leavers while also managing employee cross-boarding to promote posts internally.

We spoke to the Etihad team Rajeev Raj, Global HRIS & Analytics Manager, Gillian Deignan, HR Onboarding Manager and Kruti Thakkar, Etihad’s SAP HCM SuccessFactors Consultant to understand how they pioneered the change, creating a superior digital onboarding experience for Etihad’s job candidates.

THE DRIVE TO DIGITISE HR

Etihad wanted to create a superior candidate experience that would foster employee engagement from day one and provide a more professional welcome.

They wanted a solution that would provide accurate tracking of candidate’s master data, simplify and enhance the cross-boarding experience, and ensure smooth off-boarding. It would need to replace labour-intensive tasks with streamlined pathways for a range of candidate personas and enhance the candidate and line-manager user experience making it attractive to encourage user adoption.

Rajeev Raj explains, "We wanted a solution to help us digitalise the candidate journey, capturing and tracking master data accurately, providing digital material in a timely way and enhancing the overall experience. At the same time, we recognised we had a golden opportunity to make the process more professional, moving away from paper-based documentation.”

Rajeev continues, "Our sector has complicated hiring requirements, from pilots and cabin crew to ancillary staff. And as volatile conditions changed during the Covid pandemic, we needed to be able to respond more effectively during hiring peaks."

With an SAP ERP and key SAP SuccessFactors modules in place, it was a natural choice to:

Implement SAP SuccessFactors Work Zone to empower employees with a personalised, modern, and intuitive digital workspace solution.
Upgrade to SAP SuccessFactors Onboarding 2.0 (including Off-boarding and Cross boarding) to update and simplify the processes, improve HR Admin and User experience and reduce manual activities.

Etihad wanted to create a superior candidate experience that would foster employee engagement from day one and provide a more professional welcome.

They wanted a solution that would provide accurate tracking of candidate’s master data, simplify and enhance the cross-boarding experience, and ensure smooth off-boarding. It would need to replace labour-intensive tasks with streamlined pathways for a range of candidate personas and enhance the candidate and line-manager user experience making it attractive to encourage user adoption.

Rajeev Raj explains, "We wanted a solution to help us digitalise the candidate journey, capturing and tracking master data accurately, providing digital material in a timely way and enhancing the overall experience. At the same time, we recognised we had a golden opportunity to make the process more professional, moving away from paper-based documentation.”

Rajeev continues, "Our sector has complicated hiring requirements, from pilots and cabin crew to ancillary staff. And as volatile conditions changed during the Covid pandemic, we needed to be able to respond more effectively during hiring peaks."

With an SAP ERP and key SAP SuccessFactors modules in place, it was a natural choice to:

Implement SuccessFactors WorkZone to empower employees with a personalised, modern, and intuitive digital workspace solution.
Upgrade to SuccessFactors Onboarding 2.0 (including Off-boarding and Cross boarding) to update and simplify the processes, improve HR Admin and User experience and reduce manual activities.

PARTNERS IN DESIGN

Rajeev explains how Etihad selected HR technology experts TalenTeam as an SAP implementation partner,

"We invited several organisations to develop some example processes and submit a project plan. TalenTeam's solutions demonstrated flexibility in their approach and were very competitive on cost for the value they provided. In addition, we saw that they were experts in learning and HR solutions and understood industry best-practice."

"As soon as we engaged with TalenTeam, says Rajeev, "we quickly established a strong working relationship with them. Everyone involved committed to the plan and timelines."

The scope included designing a solution for onboarding, off-boarding and cross-boarding for candidates and internal role changes. The implementation team conducted process walkthroughs involving the process owners to ensure the requirements were clearly understood and mapped to new processes using SAP SuccessFactors. In addition, the group jointly developed a user-friendly, intuitive portal for employees with SAP SuccessFactors Work Zone. (4 interfaces for different personas) This enables users to complete online forms and upload required documentation directly to SAP SuccessFactors.

During the implementation, the project team encountered a few system limitations when adapting the product to Etihad's current processes.

"There were some challenges in accommodating our off-boarding processes and integrating the customised portlet with SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central," says Kruti Thakkar. "But TalenTeam were able to respond by helping us rethink what we wanted to achieve and proposed workarounds."

The solution went live after a rapid end-to-end implementation lasting just five months.

Multiple benefits

"We now have a robust and scalable system that enables us to implement candidate tracking for on and off-boarding, and link candidate and employee profiles," says Rajeev. In addition, SAP SuccessFactors Work Zone provides a uniform entry point so we can access the HR information and business apps we need. It’s more flexible and much more streamlined as we can move smoothly between modules. The navigation is straightforward, meaning it’s easier to use and we no longer risk duplicating functionalities. What’s more, the full tracking capability ensures nothing - and no one - falls off our radar.”

Line managers are the first point of engagement when a team member moves into a new internal role and when onboarding a new employee.

What has their experience of Onboarding 2.0 been so far?

“I’m happy with the recent onboarding 2.0 experience, and the process is seamless. I’d be delighted to give it an overall rating of “Very Good”.

“It’s definitely been positive. It’s been helpful creating a platform for engaging with the candidate prior to joining, in creating structure around actions to be taken, and preparations to be made for the candidate joining us.”

Multiple benefits

"We now have a robust and scalable system that enables us to implement candidate tracking for on and off-boarding, and link candidate and employee profiles," says Rajeev. In addition, WorkZone provides a uniform entry point so we can access the HR information and business apps we need. It’s more flexible and much more streamlined as we can move smoothly between modules. The navigation is straightforward, meaning it’s easier to use and we no longer risk duplicating functionalities. What’s more, the full tracking capability ensures nothing - and no one - falls off our radar.”

Line managers are the first point of engagement when a team member moves into a new internal role and when onboarding a new employee.

What has their experience of Onboarding 2.0 been so far?

“I’m happy with the recent onboarding 2.0 experience, and the process is seamless. I’d be delighted to give it an overall rating of “Very Good”.

“It’s definitely been positive. It’s been helpful creating a platform for engaging with the candidate prior to joining, in creating structure around actions to be taken, and preparations to be made for the candidate joining us.”

CREATING A SEAMLESS CANDIDATE EXPERIENCE

A significant driver for the project was improving the candidate experience with Etihad. Previously the application process and journey through selection and onboarding were fragmented, with largely manual processes and some to-ing and fro-ing to collect master data. The project team designed a bespoke portal to provide candidates with an engaging and professional interface.

To this effect, the onboarding team invested significant time in creating in-depth personas for each of the role types, talking to existing team members to validate the personas and creating the right content for each portal that needed to be formatted and uploaded separately.

Gillian explains, "We designed personas for all of our different categories of roles: pilots, cabin crew, core and outstation staff. Each persona has a different path through the process, with its steps and requirements, simplifying the journey for everyone."

Segmenting the candidate portal for each type of candidate has simplified maintenance, as changes to processes can be applied to the recruitment personas, which then take effect for the relevant applicant type.

While the talent acquisition team still had to manually complete any candidates already in the hiring process when the solution went live, they have already started collecting statistics. Anecdotal feedback suggests that the candidate journey is much more engaging, easier, and quicker to complete.

SPREADING THE WORD

Etihad decided on a 'big bang' approach to rollout, simultaneously deploying the application to all hiring managers and new candidates. This decision meant that communication and training were critical to the project's success.

All Hiring managers received the staff-specific information they needed, giving them plenty of time to plan for the change. In addition, the rollout ensured that online learning assignments were available, enabling hirer managers to walk through and familiarise themselves with the new processes.

"We also provided a user guide for our candidates, showing them how to engage with the onboarding process through the portal," says Kruti.

SPREADING THE WORD

Etihad decided on a 'big bang' approach to rollout, simultaneously deploying the application to all hiring managers and new candidates. This decision meant that communication and training were critical to the project's success.

All Hiring managers received the staff-specific information they needed, giving them plenty of time to plan for the change. In addition, the rollout ensured that online learning assignments were available, enabling hirer managers to walk through and familiarise themselves with the new processes.

"We also provided a user guide for our candidates, showing them how to engage with the onboarding process through the portal," says Kruti.

WORKING WITH TALENTEAM

"We have been very pleased with our strong partnership with TalenTeam. They were able to help us reach the outcomes we were seeking. But, more importantly, they acted as a catalyst for us to bring our legacy processes closer to industry best practice."

Prior to starting, TalenTeam also set up a call for the Etihad team to talk to another customer in the region who was able to share their experience, which was helpful.

TOP ADVICE FROM THE HR TEAM

"We learned that the groundwork is fundamental. You need to start by understanding the types of roles - or personas - you are recruiting and segment your profiles based on those roles. This is essential to getting the best out of the system.

From Gillian’s perspective, it’s also important to ask, “What if...” and do some potential scenario planning. It’s the only way to know up front if the system can support each use case and the impact it will have if it does not. That helps manage expectations about the systems limitations so that you can start to form the best workaround.

You also need to be prepared to be flexible about processes that present challenges to the system and adjust those to new, best-practice models that ultimately will result in a better solution for the business."

To learn more about how SAP SuccessFactors Work Zone and Onboarding 2.0 can enhance your employee lifecycle from recruitment through onboarding, development, retention, and offboarding, talk to TalenTeam!

As a part of Etihad's wider HR Transformation Strategy, one goal was to enhance andprofessionalise the onboarding, off-boarding and cross-boarding experience with SAP SuccessFactors Work Zone and Onboarding 2.0

KEY OUTCOMES

THE DRIVE TO DIGITISE HR

PARTNERS IN DESIGN

Rajeev explains how Etihad selected HR technology experts TalenTeam as an SAP implementation partner,

During the implementation, the project team encountered a few system limitations when adapting the product to Etihad's current processes.

Multiple benefits

What has their experience of Onboarding 2.0 been so far?

Multiple benefits

What has their experience of Onboarding 2.0 been so far?

CREATING A SEAMLESS CANDIDATE EXPERIENCE

SPREADING THE WORD

SPREADING THE WORD

WORKING WITH TALENTEAM

TOP ADVICE FROM THE HR TEAM

As a part of Etihad's wider HR Transformation Strategy, one goal was to enhance and
professionalise the onboarding, off-boarding and cross-boarding experience
with SAP SuccessFactors Work Zone and Onboarding 2.0