AGL Energy is becoming more data-driven in its approach to career development and workforce management, supported by new services from Workday that it’s in the process of implementing.
Image credit: AGL
Speaking to Digital Nation on the sidelines of the Workday Rising conference, AGL’s chief people officer Amanda Lee said the energy company had “signed up to a whole new suite of capabilities” in Workday “to set us up for the future”.
The company re-platformed from SAP to Workday for its core human capital management (HCM) in 2017-18 and is now expanding its Workday footprint.
Among the Workday capabilities being adopted are Talent Optimization and Career Hub, both in support of a goal to become a more “data-driven” and “skills-based” organisation.
Talent Optimization is intended to help organisations make “data-driven talent decisions, understand and nurture top talent, and engage workers,” according to Workday documentation. [pdf]
“We’re working towards getting data faster, getting better insights, [and] turning those insights into actions,” Lee said.
She added that Workday is intended to provide better insights to leaders to aid their decision-making.
It’s also about better workforce planning – mapping out current skills in the organisation and future needs, and strategising on how to close any gap between the two.
Additionally, Lee said that becoming more data-driven would aid individual career development and management, keeping track of – for example – performance management and learning and development.
“We’re capturing all of this data in Workday, so that the machine learning that sits behind Workday can surface insights that helps leaders to better manage that individual’s career experience at AGL,” she said.
Lee said that her team is upskilling around data capabilities with professional development courses delivered by Swinburne Edge.
Technology-minded
Lee noted the positive influence that technology systems generally brought to bear on AGL’s people and culture operations.
Over the years, AGL has modernised recruitment, talent and performance management, and learning and development through its use of software-based systems.
“Technology definitely allows us to be a lot faster at managing our HR processes, from recruitment to talent management, and to all of the different ‘people’ cycles that we go through every year,” she said.
In addition to introducing new Workday modules, AGL is continuing to optimise its core “Workday footprint”.
“We’ve been able to look at data to help us inform better actions around where we need to focus in terms of diversity and inclusion,” Lee said.
“We’ve seen pretty good results in terms of using that data and seeing that data change from the actions that we’ve taken as a result of where [the tool has] told us to focus.”
Lee said that the expansion of its use of Workday is accompanied by a continued change management effort aimed at increasing adoption and use of Workday-powered capabilities.
“As we bring in the new capabilities, how do we best manage that change with our people so that the adoption is there?” Lee said.
“It’s quite a long journey to get to the maturity stage of being a data-led function where you use data to support your business,
“However, having technology at the core of our strategy at a corporate level and permeating that through the functional areas – that’s going to be a journey for the next five years.”
Kate Weber attended the Workday Rising conference in Las Vegas as a guest of Workday.