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Standardising People Operations Across a Continent
Headline result
$2.4m targeted annual savings
The challenge
A global logistics and maritime transport group had grown, in large part, through acquisition and regional autonomy. That had served the business well operationally, but it left people operations fragmented: 26 different countries running variations of the same processes, inconsistent data standards, and an ERP & shared-services ambition that had nowhere solid to stand. Before the organisation could invest confidently in digital HR or, eventually, AI – it needed one operating model it could trust.
My approach
I was engaged as Programme Director to design and lead the transformation. Rather than starting with technology, I started with the operating model: what "good" would look like for employee services, governance, and data across 26 countries with very different starting points. From there, I directed workstreams covering the HR Operating Model, Shared Services, Process Excellence, and Data Governance, and led a European Master Data programme to give the business for the first time a single, trustworthy source of people data across the region. Throughout, I managed two of the largest countries' payroll consolidations & operations running directly, alongside supplier and executive stakeholder governance, because a transformation of this scale only earns trust if the day-to-day keeps working while it's underway.
The impact
The programme, now being run globally, is set up to deliver a single, standardised operating model across all 26 countries, supporting around 22,000 employees, with $2.4m in targeted annual savings and a Master Data foundation that has opened up further, larger savings since. Just as importantly, the business now has the data governance and process consistency it needs to take its next step into digital and AI-enabled HR services – the ambition that started the programme in the first place.