ING Bank streamlines global HR document management with Kainos EDM
“Each country had its own disjointed document management solution, creating significant manual effort and compliance risks. With Kainos EDM, employees can locate and print documents themselves, eliminating the need to submit requests to HR, aiming to save over 2,000 requests per year.”
About ING Bank
ING Bank is a leading global financial institution headquartered in the Netherlands, known for its innovative approach to digital banking. Serving millions of customers worldwide, ING Bank operates across 40 countries with a workforce of over 60,000 employees. The bank’s strategic partnership with Workday highlights its focus on leveraging digital solutions for transformation, efficiency, and employee satisfaction.
Document Management: Global processes, localised solutions
In 2017, ING Bank implemented Workday in the Netherlands in order to streamline HR processes. Reaping the benefits of the new way of working and with an ambitious vision, ING continued to roll out Workday across 40 countries in the coming years to have one global HR system.
However, employee document management was not considered as part of this initial drive for globalisation of processes. This resulted in a new obstacle as Praba Prabakar, Workday Lead at ING Bank, explains, “Each country had its own disjointed document management solution, creating significant manual effort and compliance risks. We had a centralised People Services model which meant global processes but localised solutions.”
With the different ways of working across geographies, ING’s HR teams faced a number of challenges:
• Compliance and retention: Multiple document repositories made it difficult to meet country-specific legal requirements. “We were beginning to pass the 7-year retention threshold for some countries. We needed storage and retention policies that matched our architecture,” says Praba.
• Employee experience: The need for “wet signatures” in some countries caused delays, particularly during onboarding. Praba emphasises, “Employee experience is one of the big things we wanted to address. Previously, managers were constantly chased by email or chat to get signatures. It gives a negative first perception when there are many varied and lengthy introductory processes.”
• Operational inefficiencies: The lack of standardisation across countries led to manual work across document generation, distribution and retrieval, slowing down progress and increasing HR time and effort.
ING Bank knew there was a huge opportunity for improvements in this area. Already a Kainos Smart Test customer, ING embarked on a strategic partnership with Kainos to implement Kainos Employee Document Management (Kainos EDM), a Built on Workday solution in 2022.
Scaling HR Document Management – inside Workday
ING Bank went live with Kainos EDM in the Netherlands and Philippines in 2023 and Germany in 2024, establishing a strong foundation for ING’s future HR document management needs. Seamlessly integrated within Workday, Kainos EDM allows ING Bank to easily create, manage, distribute and store documents directly within Workday.
The solution has already proven to be transformative for ING, helping to automate repetitive tasks and create more scalable processes that enhance HR efficiency across geographies. In Germany ING is rolling out 38 document templates with global translations, and in Phase 1, 80% of HR documents have been fully automated. Kainos EDM also provides a seamless experience for users, who can now access and manage their own HR documents. Praba explains, “With Kainos EDM, employees can locate and print these documents themselves, eliminating the need to submit requests to HR. It will save over 2,000 requests per year.”
During the initial phase, ING has seen immediate gains in HR efficiency: automating the employment contract process alone has saved 0.5 FTE. “Scale this across other functional areas and across 40 countries and the potential savings are substantial,” Praba reiterates. Built on Workday, Kainos EDM ensures that ING can leverage existing security models, locations, employee data and more. "Providing seamless digitalised services and keeping our bank secure are key strategic goals for ING. Having Adobe esignature and leveraging Workday security is already a big step forwards towards being compliant and avoiding potential data risks.”
Benefiting from one unified system
ING Bank will now continue its phased rollout, with a full implementation set for mid-2026. Praba notes that collaboration with Kainos has been essential to this success. “Collaboration is key,” he shares. “Kainos is dedicated to helping us succeed, supporting our team’s independence in implementing Kainos EDM, and working closely with us to develop a tailored support model that fits our needs.”
Through Kainos EDM, ING Bank is transforming document management within its Workday platform, achieving a scalable, compliant, and efficient solution that aligns with the bank’s global objectives.