Footwear retailer Deichmann is consigning paper pay stubs to the past. Now, employees can view them in an app, on any device, anywhere. They can also manage their own personal data using self-service functions and will soon be able to apply for leave and complete similar tasks online as well.
Deichmann’s green logo is a familiar feature of shopping areas and malls in Germany. Headquartered in Essen, a city famed for its industrial heritage, Deichmann SE operates in 31 countries, with roughly 4,300 stores and around 42,000 employees worldwide. The company has been family-owned since its founding in 1913 – and it wants to remain independent in the future, too.
The footwear retailer is market leader in its segment in Germany and Europe, and is currently strengthening its efforts to digitalize processes. Even though it is a major company, its culture is still very much a friendly and informal one. The in-house IT team is helping Human Resources (HR) digitalize various scenarios.
“Our people are our priority,” says Melinda Hilbert, who is in charge of IT for Finance and HR at Deichmann, when explaining the rationale behind the drive to move personnel processes online.
Deichmann is now rolling out offerings from SAP’s cloud solution for HR across its German business. SAP SuccessFactors software enables companies to standardize their entire HR function and move all tasks online.
Deichmann decided to implement the solution as part of the SAP strategy it is following for HR and finance. “Our company is growing, and the solution is easy to scale,” Hilbert says. For this reason, and because it would integrate well with the company’s existing IT and processes, SAP SuccessFactors was an obvious choice.
“Taking this step created a central integration platform for all the solutions that we plan on implementing in HR,” Hilbert shares. It was the technical answer to the business question of how to ensure all the data from HR and finance is integrated going forward.
In the initial phase of the project, Deichmann is making digital versions of documents available to its employees. The first self-service functions have already gone live and employees are now able to update their address and bank details themselves, as well as provide an emergency contact.
User Experience as a Priority
The project, “StepOn,” is also aimed at helping make Deichmann more attractive as an employer and strengthen employee retention.
“These days, employees expect everything to be online. And user experience is always a priority,” Christina Boehme, head of HR at the company, says. “The fact that we also save on printing and postage costs is not just an added bonus, it makes us more sustainable too.”
Launchpad for Easy Access to Apps
Aachen-based SAP partner ROOS IT helped Deichmann with the implementation.
“We used SAP Business Technology Platform to build the custom pay stub for the new employee portal and for the launchpad for accessing SAP Fiori apps from mobile devices and desktops, SAP Launchpad service,” reports Andreas Lennartz, managing partner at ROOS IT. “What’s more, the SAP solution acts as a central database for applications used across the company and verifies the user’s identity for self-service functions.”
ROOS IT quickly built an app for the footwear retailer that enables employees to easily call up their pay stubs. It also supports secure access to the data held in the company’s on-premise network regardless of the device used — be it a smartphone, tablet, or desktop computer.
“The pay stubs app retrieves data through a connection to an SAP billing system that Deichmann runs on premise,” Krausen explains.
Deichmann Targets a Global Rollout
Digital pay stubs have been rolled out to 1,200 Deichmann employees who are based at company headquarters and in and around Essen. Retail outlets are set to follow. Its workforce is already familiar with SAP software: Deichmann also deploys the SAP SuccessFactors Performance and Goals solution for performance appraisals and for probation period reviews.
This story originally appeared on the SAP Germany News Center.
