HR-data ingezet bij Rituals

Geluk vinden in de kleine dingen van het leven. Dat is dé missie van Rituals. Dankzij een uitgebreid assortiment aan luxe home- en bodyproducten in meer dan 1.000 winkels en online weten klanten over de hele wereld Rituals gemakkelijk te vinden. “Voor een fijne klantervaring zijn onze medewerkers in de shops ontzettend belangrijk”, vertelt Joop Fiers, Head of HR Digital & Analytics bij Rituals.

“Vanuit HR verzamelen we allerlei data met betrekking tot onze medewerkers in alle landen, zoals in- en uitstroom, verloop en fte-verdeling. Maar we konden die informatie niet efficiënt genoeg aanroepen en inzien. Daarom was het voor HR belangrijk om de people analytics te professionaliseren.”

Collecting data manually

Almost all of Rituals' international locations work with Workday, a system for Human Capital Management. Fiers: "Our management expects regular updates on HR matters. Previously, we had to extract data from Workday and our other HR systems, such as payroll software. We then had to put that manually into an Excel sheet. This took up a disproportionate amount of our time. Moreover, we also noticed that not all countries were accurate enough with data entry and maintenance. That quickly resulted in less reliable output, such as employees born three years ago according to our system or part-timers working forty hours." 

It is essential for Rituals that HR data be reliable and consistent at all times. "Very soon after implementing Workday, we opted for permanent monitoring of data quality," continues Fiers. "To professionalize the People KPI dashboard and set up a data quality dashboard, we sought collaboration with Inergy."

Rituals and Inergy have known each other for some time. Inergy developed a new Business Intelligence platform for Rituals and the two companies have been working closely together ever since. "I always hear positive things from our organization about the cooperation with Inergy," Fiers explains. "That's why I logically asked them to help with this HR project as well." 

Understanding KPIs and data quality issues

To access HR data faster, Rituals and Inergy decided to develop a KPI dashboard in Microsoft Power BI. "Together, we first examined which elements, according to Rituals, ensure happy and satisfied employees," says Melvin Agten, Business Consultant Data Science at Inergy. "The further you zoom in on that, the clearer it becomes what you then need to measure - and thus what the KPIs should be that you want to be able to steer directly on. Based on interviews with internal stakeholders, we mapped all HR objectives according to a logical cause-and-effect structure. Then, together with Rituals' HR data specialist, I inventoried which data we needed to unlock." 

To improve data quality in all HR systems, Rituals wanted a Power BI dashboard that provides insight into quality issues. "You have to be able to trust your data," Fiers argues. "As long as a lot of data is incorrect, you will always be left doubting the data you see. This dashboard shows which data is incorrect or incomplete ánd which system we need to be in to solve it." 

Agten adds: "Eighty database fields are now permanently checked. Think of employee characteristics such as initials, gender and date of birth. But also, for example, when an employee has left Rituals or just been promoted." The creation of the data quality dashboard faced a hefty challenge. "There was no overview of the data flows between Workday and other HR systems," explains Agten. "Therefore, we had to map all data flows so that we knew exactly which logic to apply to which data flow."

Future-proof dashboards

Fiers looks back on a fine cooperation with Inergy. "Inergy's consultants took us through the process step by step and continuously provided clear feedback - that's just very pleasant," he states. "They keep their promises and don't carelessly put together a dashboard. By first examining how our processes run and setting up a KPI framework, among other things, Inergy ensures future-proof dashboards."

Managing developments more proactively

By now, all countries are working intensively with both dashboards. Fiers: "The KPI dashboard offers enormous added value. We can now view all crucial data in one place and thus provide our management with the information they need at any time. The dashboard is automatically refreshed every month. Despite some manual checks that we still have to perform at the moment, it saves us a lot of searching and gathering. Moreover, we can now spot developments much faster and better, allowing us to manage more proactively." 

The data quality dashboard is also already proving its worth. "Colleagues in all countries are actively cleaning up and supplementing data," Fiers observes. "This also indirectly raises awareness about the importance of good data quality. In addition, we get more insight into where issues arise, which allows us to start adjusting processes." 

Data lives within Rituals

The first step toward even greater professionalization has been taken. And Fiers notices this immediately. "Colleagues are now discussing, in a positive sense, our data. For example, why turnover differs by country. And I am getting more and more requests to see even more data. So it's very much alive. That's great. With these dashboards, Inergy has really laid an excellent and important foundation on which we can build further."