As a global leader in animal nutrition and aquafeed, Nutreco is committed to its purpose of “Feeding the Future” through sustainable, innovative solutions. With around 11,000 employees across 35 countries and sales in over 90 countries, the company operates in a truly global and diverse environment.
Recognising the complexity of its workforce, from frontline workers to corporate teams, Nutreco saw the need for a unified, agile HR system to drive digital transformation, streamline access to information and foster a more inclusive employee experience.
Workday was chosen as the right solution for the HR technology strategy, enabling the organisation to better serve its people and evolve with confidence.
Building a strong HR foundation
Nutreco began its Workday journey in 2019 with the goal of bringing everyone onto a single system. However, this quickly expanded into a broader transformation initiative. “Soon we realised that we also needed a different target operating model,” said Monique Vermeltfoort, global HR technology manager.
This shift led to the launch of a multiyear HR transformation programme that introduced clear separation between HR business partners and shared services, and included the rollout of Workday Help. With these changes, Nutreco has significantly increased access to its HR tools across the organisation.
“We included the full workforce. Inclusivity is very important for us,” Vermeltfoort explained. “With the implementation of Workday Help, we can reach almost all of our employees. Empowering users to independently manage their HR-related tasks within the system or easily obtain assistance when required is a great milestone.”
Today, 90% of Nutreco employees have access to HR support, with the company well on its way to achieving full coverage. Through Workday Help, the HR team efficiently manages approximately 12,000 support tickets each month, delivering meaningful, timely assistance to employees across the globe.
Global Head of HR Operations and Technology
Agile, connected, data-driven, and future-ready
Wendy Doon, global head of HR operations and technology, places agility and data at the core of Nutreco’s strategy. “Agility and data-driven decision-making are at the core of how we operate. Whether it’s workload balancing across HR shared services globally or driving continuous improvement via an agile backlog, we’re constantly evolving, powered by our teams, our customers and Workday.”
This level of flexibility allows the team to maintain high-quality support while adapting to changing demands. Nutreco is also leveraging Workday data to drive better business decisions. “HR is now better positioned to collaborate with finance, using shared data to support more effective budget management and rolling forecasts,” Doon noted.
Strategic workforce planning has become a key priority at Nutreco. By defining and maintaining clear role structures and leveraging meaningful workforce insights, the company is taking a more forward-looking approach to identifying future talent needs across regions.
We’re making greater use of insights from Workday Workforce Planning to drive our approach. This journey is already underway. By structuring and tracking roles more effectively, we aim to better anticipate future talent needs, from skill sets to headcount across locations. It’s a powerful step toward more proactive planning.
Global Head of HR Operations and Technology
A vision for AI
Nutreco sees significant opportunity in AI and is looking to expand its use of Workday AI capabilities to support long-term strategic goals.
“We’re looking forward to adopting more of Workday AI functionality,” said Doon. “Predictive analytics, in particular, is something I’m eager to bring into Nutreco; it has real potential to guide our next steps.”
Vermeltfoort also stressed the importance of keeping the human element at the heart of AI adoption.
“It’s essential to remain critical of the responses AI agents provide,” Vermeltfoort said. “At the core of AI is good data quality, and everyone working with AI needs to understand that. It’s about maintaining the human touch and collaborating with AI, not one replacing the other.”
With Workday, Nutreco is building a future-ready HR function grounded in agility, inclusivity and intelligence while staying true to its purpose of Feeding the Future sustainably.