STARK Group streamlines HR for 20,000 employees with Workday and Kainos
About STARK Group
Established in 1896, STARK Group has become a key player in the construction industry, renowned for supplying a comprehensive range of building materials and tools. Today, STARK Group is a leading B2B distributor of heavy building materials in Europe.
STARK Group operates more than 1,150 branches and distribution centres across Europe through its subsidiaries: STARK Building Materials UK Ltd. in the United Kingdom, STARK Deutschland GmbH in Germany and Austria, STARK Danmark A/S in Denmark and Greenland, Beijer Byggmaterial AB in Sweden, STARK Suomi Oy in Finland and Neumann Bygg AS in Norway.
Each business unit is decentralised, with its own autonomous, national management team. All STARK Group business units are chain concepts, with products and services visibly marketed under a single name in the market in which they operate.
STARK Group has approximately 20,000 employees and annual net sales of approximately EUR 9 billion.
Implementation of new global HCM platform
The first and foundational project started in October 2019. The scope included Core HCM, Onboarding, Compensation, Advanced Compensation (Merit / Bonus), Performance & Talent, Career & Development, Succession Planning, and Recruiting.
The integration scope included AD, SSO, payroll for all countries, LMS, time systems, and e-signature.
The geographical scope included Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway and Germany.
The project was in itself complex, but complexity significantly increased due to STARK Group’s ambitious growth strategy, including the transformational acquisition of Saint-Gobain Building Distribution Deutschland GmbH, adding 5,000 employees (in effect doubling the number of employees).
For this reason, the project team from Kainos was extended with change management consultants and consultants fluent in German.
In addition, the project needed to cater for the STARK Group operating model-based autonomy and decentralised processes.
STARK Group went live with the foundational project in December 2020 and added Germany to the implementation in July 2022.
“Embarking on the Workday implementation amidst our rapid expansion was both a challenge and an opportunity. We've navigated through complexities, integrated acquisitions, and managed to align decentralised processes across our European footprint. Today, as I reflect on our journey, I'm proud to say that we've set a robust foundation for STARK Group's future, empowering our 20,000-strong workforce with tools to thrive in this dynamic industry and continue our expansion."
Adding another 9,000 employees in UK
During Spring 2023, STARK Group completed the acquisition of Saint Gobain Building Distribution Ltd. in the UK and added 9,000 new employees.
A project was started in early April to include STARK UK in the STARK Group Workday HCM platform. Furthermore, implementing Time Tracking, Absence and Benefits for STARK UK as a part of the scope. The deployment is scheduled for December 2023. Another expansion to Austria is also being planned, and Workday’s scalability yet again becomes valuable for STARK Group.
Workday and HR Change Support
Through the transition from Saint Gobain Building Distribution UK to STARK UK they are experiencing a lot of change, particularly with their HR operations. Policy changes as well as system and process changes, with the introduction of the Eloomi learning platform, updated compliance training, new colleague handbook, new HCM and Payroll system.
Traditionally, a lot of HR-related tasks would sit within the HR team, which requires a lot of time spent on admin. STARK UK are using this as an opportunity to enable managers and colleagues to own activities and become more streamlined in their processes, allowing HR to focus on more strategic activities.
With the Workday implementation alone, they will introduce HCM, Talent and Performance, Recruiting, Benefits, Absence, Time Tracking and Payroll in an aggressive timeline. In order to make sure the business is ready, Kainos has developed a comprehensive change plan that will work with the overall Workday project timeline; this includes communications to various stakeholder groups, engagement sessions such as Show and Tell Roadshows, as well as detailed training activities.
Our overall approach is to communicate and engage with HR, then our change ambassadors and finally managers and employees. We have developed a BCP model where HR will train regional ambassadors, who then train local ambassadors to deliver training to the end users of branch managers and colleagues. This tiered approach is crucial to the successful implementation within branches; it ensures training is delivered face-to-face across the 600 branches and provides a feedback loop to the central change team. Training to the end users will run over a period of 3 months post-go-live to ensure Workday is being used in the way it was intended.
Digital, IT and Cyber Change Support
As part of STARK UK separating from Saint Gobain, we are supporting the change management activities to transition all employees from six offices and 600 branches across the UK to become official STARK UK employees.
Change activities include key comms and engagement to all employees, consisting of 20 key “communities” or “stakeholder groups”. Some of the key activities are supporting users to register and use new STARK UK login credentials, updating all email domains, encouraging the use of OneDrive and SharePoint to save all documentation before switching over, ensuring all relevant employees and branches receive updated STARK UK devices, and supporting the seamless cutover of all applications.
The change required is complex and ever-changing, but it is a great opportunity for us to work with the STARK team and build upon the great relationships we already have with them.
We are also using the BCP (Business Change Partnership) model, as mentioned above, to support liaising with employees and managers across the business in order to make the transition as seamless as possible.
This model ensures Office and Branch employees have in-person support as and when they need it, as well as the BCP member sharing information in a timely and efficient way. This two-way communication has been great so far and extremely well-received across the business.