HROA, Awards, 2007

2007 HROA Awards honour best practice, collaboration and creativity

2007 HROA Awards honour best practice, collaboration and creativity

The outstanding contributions of seven of the European HR transformation industry’s leading organisations and individuals were publicly acknowledged last night at the Annual HROA Awards™ in Brussels.

Presented during the HRO World Europe Conference™, the Awards recognise and reward the achievements of some of Europe’s most innovative and dedicated HR transformation industry leaders, suppliers, and practitioners.

Richard Crespin, Global Executive Director of the HROA, presented the Awards at a reception for specially invited guests and conference visitors.

Practitioner Executive of the Year – Carina Malmgren Heander, Electrolux
The Practitioner Executive of the Year Award was made to Carina Malmgren Heander, SVP of HR at Electrolux and former VP of HR at Sandvik, where she worked until October this year. Carina was honoured for her commitment to continuous HR service improvement and the fact that, when HR outsourcing was virtually unheard of in the Nordic engineering industry, she led Sandvik’s outsourcing transformation efforts and set an example to her peers.

In making the presentation, Crespin explained that Malmgren Heander’s record of establishing standardised processes across Sandvik’s operations as well as her zeal for advocating creative solutions, such as foreign trainee programmes, made her achievements stand out from the rest of this year’s Practitioner nominations.

Single-Process Relationship of the Year – Pitney Bowes & ADP^®
This year’s Single Process Relationship of the Year Award was bestowed on Pitney Bowes and ADP GlobalView® for their successful efforts to realise a particularly complex payroll processing transformation. According to judges, payroll processing cost savings of $588,000 per year ($90 annual saving per employee) combined with the implementation of a scalable Sarbanes-Oxley compliant solution made this project "an extremely worthy winner." Guests learned that the Award was also made in recognition that Pitney Bowes is among the pioneering companies that have implemented and effectively used a standardised payroll approach across Europe. Pitney Bowes 5,500 employee payroll is now managed through a single integrated information system across 10 countries.

Technology Relationship of the Year – ADP and SAP^®
ADP GlobalView service experts leverage the SAP ERP Human Capital Management solution to deliver payroll and HR outsourced services to more than 60 multinational companies. Together they represent 720,000 employees across 15 countries in Europe and 30 countries worldwide. It is the scale of this achievement, its accessibility to the industry and the effectiveness of its shared model that convinced the HROA Awards Committee that ADP and SAP were the rightful winners of this year’s Technology Relationship award.

In making his presentation, Richard Crespin praised ADP and SAP’s joint product development pedigree and “the genuine HR transformation value that the collaboration has delivered for a large number of clients.”

Shared Services Project of the Year – Chevron
The use of highly detailed communications plans to help create momentum and support a complex Shared Services development programme at Chevron were just two of the factors that won the company the 2007 Shared Services Project of the Year Award.

Chevron had four clear goals for its Shared Services project which included migrating personnel data from different legacy systems in every country onto one ERP (SAP) system. The transformation teams also wanted to implement self-service functionality and establish an internal Shared Service Centre. In addition, they set out to transfer UK payroll to a new system whilst also outsourcing all payroll administration. Judges were not only impressed by the strength of the company’s ambition but also the thoroughness of its planning and attention to detail.

Evidence was provided by Chevron’s Change and Customer Relationship Management Programme. The Programme includes Service Standard Agreements with agreed turnaround times and accuracy rates plus a commitment to regular feedback through an annual online survey, monthly reviews with embedded HRs and monthly employee and manager phone surveys.

Richard Crespin, Global Executive Director of the HROA, summed up the distinguishing achievements of this year’s Award winners and the value of the Awards themselves by saying, “Not only do they turn a spotlight on the Association’s mission to guide the industry towards standardisation, but they also offer encouragement and good examples to a new generation of young, ambitious HR professionals. Launched just two years ago, the Awards have become a highly visible reminder of how quickly the HR transformation market is growing and maturing.”

Lifetime Achievement Award for Gluntz
Crespin also expressed his delight at the HROA Awards Committee’s decision to make a special presentation to its retiring Chairman, Philipe Gluntz. In presenting Gluntz with a Lifetime Achievement Award, Crespin described how Gluntz’s exceptional working knowledge of the intricacies of HR transformation combined with tremendous energy had set a singular example to others.

“Philipe’s deeply-felt conviction of the value of outsourcing and HR transformation to modern business today means he has done more for the advancement of the industry than perhaps any other individual in Europe to date.”

The purpose of the HROA Awards is to inspire, encourage innovation and endorse best practice whilst reinforcing industry standards. The HROA Awards Judging Committee is formed by members of its Europe Operations Committee who oversee an open, transparent, impartial, and unbiased judging process with the short listed nominees voted on by the general membership of HROA.

For information on the awards, contact

Andre Rampat, Vice Executive Director, HROA Europe
Tel: +32 2 777 9675
Mobile: +32 472 434731