OceanaGold puts employees at the center of its business with SAP SuccessFactors

Talent glitters in the mining industry

A multinational, mid-tier gold producer, OceanaGold manages the entire chain of mining activities from extraction to refining and runs sustainable mining development projects and operations across New Zealand, the Philippines, and the United States of America. The company constantly practices the idea of sustainable mining by giving back to the community with initiatives like water management. OceanaGold now finds itself in interesting times as new digital technologies revolutionize the mining industry.

In the past, the company would dig up the mines and extract resources with manual labor and heavy earth moving tools. Technological advances in recent years means that mining equipment is now dotted with sensors, with someone sitting remotely (in a control room) capturing the data and analyzing the information to make mining easier and safer. This change in the business landscape has increased the demand for technical skills in the mining industry. The war for talent in the mining industry has also heated up in recent times with a positive outlook driven by a global rise in commodity prices.

Reclaiming talent

To attract and retain talent, OceanaGold wanted to move from traditional HR processes to a focused and strategic HR talent management strategy. The current HRIS (Human Resource Information System) is limited in scope as it was designed more to handle routine HR tasks like leave management, payroll, and record management. OceanaGold now wants to reduce its dependency on manual processes and instead automate its HR processes, from hiring to retirement. Further, it wants a system that to drive effective recruitment strategies and give analytical insights into the performance and growth of employees.

The focus for OceanaGold was to develop leadership capabilities in its workforce, assign people to the jobs suiting them, and up-skill them regularly. In collaboration with Capgemini, OceanaGold decided to implement the SAP SuccessFactors solutions, as the software had already proved its mettle in the mining industry.

Enriching the traditional HR processes

SAP SuccessFactors provides an integrated set of solutions covering all the aspects of human resource management. Compared to OceanaGolds’ current HRIS solution, these tools are more intuitive and provide better visibility of HR processes across the company. As the tool is cloud based, it also helps in reducing the capital expenditure for companies.

The ease of use of SAP SuccessFactors starts with recruitment that enables the application process to be hassle-free for applicants and even a complicated task like social media hiring is fairly simple and interactive. HR managers can also use analytical features to run dedicated recruitment campaigns and work collaboratively with line managers.

Mining companies are still heavily dependent on labor, which makes it necessary to maintain and update employee records along with taking care of their needs like salaries. Fortunately, with SuccessFactors the HR department can automate these tasks and focus on strategic tasks such as performance management and putting the right people in the right job.

Technology is throwing open new digital roles for employees within the company. With SuccessFactors, it is easier to view the inventory of skills and move people into technical roles. Employees are also in control of their career growth as they can easily view their growth metrics and even learn new skills.

Results Count: OceanaGold is poised for long term growth with skilled employees

• Drive a strategic HR Process: SuccessFactors helped OceanaGold to align the HR processes with its business strategy.
• Enable leadership development: with SuccessFactors, OceanaGold can nurture future leaders by showing them a clear career path.
• Gain a competitive advantage: hiring the people with the appropriate technical skills will help OceanaGold to establish a strong presence in the industry.
• Provide better management reporting: with analytical features at their fingertips, the HR department can provide insightful dashboards to the management.

A strong foundation for refining talent

OceanaGold is committed to building a strong foundation for understanding its workforce as the first step in improving its ability to manage talent proactively. The organization identified a need for a single system of record for employee data. OceanaGold will use the improved visibility to define workforce plans based on skills, geographies, roles, and other essential areas. SuccessFactors provided the organization with improved visibility to define workforce plans based on skills, geographies, roles and other essential areas. By sharing information with employee population, co-workers can easily find and connect with each other beyond geographic or functional boundaries, fostering increased employee collaboration. Essential to meeting its strategic objectives, OceanaGold required a scalable system to provide solid core HR data management globally with rich functionality to accommodate the ever-evolving business requirements as the company continues to grow. The international complex reporting structure was provided with a flexible and highly adaptable system with substantial data security capabilities.

OceanaGold has gone live with Employee Central, Performance and Goal Management, and Recruiting Management and integration with external payroll systems for its population in six countries and is in the final stages of completing its implementation in the Philippines. OceanaGold anticipates substantial time and costs savings by reallocating resources to focus on value-added management and HR initiatives, behind the administrative strain of manually managing disparate HR systems and associated data. As OceanaGold grows and prospers, its management will be able to use the system to make deliberate decisions related to workforce needs: the system supports real-time and transparent views of the current employee population, reporting trends linked to performance, and global talent demand. Employee Central will also dramatically improve adherence to and consistency in standardized HR processes and workflows. People managers will also benefit by having real-time access to employee data leading to informed decision-making relative to their teams.

OceanaGold acknowledges that its employees who are already using SuccessFactors have recognized its value and are experiencing increased transparency regarding globally standardized employment lifecycle processes. They will learn to further connect and build relationships with colleagues across divisions, regions, and countries. Together, the global employee population can work toward common goals leading to OceanaGold’s growth, as well as their individual career growth.