Patagonia, a global outdoor retailer and leader in sustainable clothing, is driven by its mission to save the planet. To achieve this, the organization needed to connect and empower its employees while fostering a strong culture.
At Patagonia, our mission is to save our home planet. Everything we do revolves around that value of giving back and saving our planet through environmental grassroots initiatives.
People Tech & Portfolio Enablement Leader
In addition to connecting its workforce, Patagonia aimed to automate manual tasks and develop talent through a skills-based strategy. The solution? Workday.
Engaging employees.
Understanding that a connected workforce is a strong workforce, Patagonia wanted to ensure that its employees had visibility into team structure and could easily collaborate on projects, no matter where they were in the world.
With Workday Human Capital Management (HCM), Patagonia established a unified platform for all its HR needs, enabling standardization and connection across all its stores. “With Workday, our processes are standardized across all of our regions,” says Kylie Riley, people tech & portfolio enablement leader.
Patagonia also faced challenges with employee engagement as the organization scaled. It needed a solution to keep employees motivated and found it with Workday Workforce Management.
We use Workday Workforce Management to help keep our employees and our workforce engaged and to continue to grow our talent.
People Tech & Portfolio Enablement Leader
Patagonia’s employees can now see open positions, identify the required skills, and bridge any gaps to progress in their careers. This level of transparency and opportunity for growth has been instrumental in retaining talent and keeping employees happy.
Zeroing in on customer needs.
Patagonia recognized the need to simplify daily tasks for its employees, especially frontline workers and managers. Patagonia’s successful deployment of Workday Scheduling during its busiest time—the holiday season—resulted in a 10% decrease in the need for overtime year-over-year in the same six-month period.
This move, driven by Patagonia’s confidence in Workday, resulted in a seamless transition and improved scheduling efficiency. “Workday mobile has been great for our high-volume frontline workers because they can sign in, clock in, look at their schedule, request PTO, all in one place,” says Riley.
This accessibility empowers Patagonia’s retail staff to focus on customer needs and product knowledge instead of worrying about schedules and timecards. For managers, it frees up time for training and store management, improving overall efficiency and productivity.
Embracing innovation to support career growth.
Patagonia is committed to innovation, and the flexibility of Workday allows Patagonia to focus on problem-solving and developing creative solutions. “A great example of this is that we recently changed the way we wanted to calibrate our workforce. Workday has allowed us to innovate more quickly,” says Riley.
Patagonia is excited about the future possibilities with Workday, particularly in the area of AI. It believes AI will revolutionize the retail industry by automating routine tasks and allowing employees to work more efficiently. The retailer is already using Workday Illuminate™ for skills suggestions and looks forward to leveraging it for schedule optimization.
With Workday Illuminate, we’re enabled to find best-fit employees and employees can find their best-fit jobs.
People Tech & Portfolio Enablement Leader
Patagonia’s culture and innovation serves as inspiration for other companies looking to achieve similar results.