Multifaceted strategies for a connected world.
abrdn customers trust them to make investments today that will create a better tomorrow. In today’s climate, global asset managers must weigh uncertainty stemming from current and future events as well as global and regional opportunities. abrdn is an industry leader because they get it. Their personalised future-based strategies are backed by a multifaceted approach that prioritises research, effective collaboration between multiregional employees, and sustainable environmental, social and governance policies.
Supporting staff to navigate change.
As abrdn helped clients successfully manage investments during global challenges, including the pandemic and Brexit, the company was also fast-tracking operational improvements to support employees as they navigated internal change from mergers and divestitures. Caroline Mellor, global head of HR Operations at abrdn, says, “To evolve our business strategy, we continue to ask, ‘What can we do differently to better support our employees?’” This question motivated the company to consolidate disparate HR systems and processes into one seamless solution based on Workday Human Capital Management. Because of this, employees gained a single point of access for their profiles, timecards and other HR-related information. abrdn also digitised and streamlined additional workflows, including repetitive tier one help desk requests such as how to book time off and find holiday balances, payslips and tax forms.
Through Collaboration Crews, we quickly learned how to solve challenges.
Global Head of HR Systems and Data
Improved planning with new perspectives.
abrdn also joined the regional pilot of Workday Collaboration Crews to connect with other Workday customers, discuss common challenges and get ideas. Sophie Porter, global head of HR Systems and Data at abrdn, says, “Speaking with other customers in an open forum is invaluable. Through Collaboration Crews, we quickly learned how to solve challenges by hearing how other organisations are using Workday. And some of those organisations had never considered doing some of the things we’re doing, so it was interesting to understand where we are already quite advanced.”
A global chatbot drives respectable returns.
Always on the lookout for new features and functions, abrdn recently enabled the Workday Assistant chatbot. Porter explains, “We’re all so used to interacting with chatbots in our daily lives that we thought, ‘Workday Assistant is pretty cool. Let’s enable it in our HR system.’”
It took just an hour to configure and globally deploy Workday Assistant so that it answers specific types of questions using approved responses. “You can do most things in Workday with just a couple of clicks,” Porter says. “Even though Workday Assistant was really easy to set up, it’s had a massive impact on our employees. It’s saving them time and also impressing them, making our HR operations team look really good.”
Even though Workday Assistant was really easy to set up, it’s had a massive impact on our employees.
Global Head of HR Systems and Data
Time to focus on future innovations.
With Workday, abrdn saves its global employees time and equips them with the seamless operational workflows and insights that they need to better help clients manage their assets. For example, the company has rolled out Workday Adaptive Insights and Workday Payroll to unify workforce planning processes, and Workday Extend to accelerate custom HR app development. Mellor says, “With the time we’re saving using Workday, we’re looking at how we can use the data that we have to increase insights into our business and our own stories instead of just providing flat reports. We’re always looking at what we can do better. By quickly adding additional functionality, we can constantly innovate and use technology to improve processes and work smarter.”
By using all the functionality we have in Workday, we’re moving in a really positive direction.
Global Head of HR Operations