As one of Australia’s leading retailers, Coles Group aims to help Australians eat and live better every day. Its businesses include Coles Supermarkets, Coles Online, and Coles Liquor.

Shopping carts lined up at the supermarket door

Stores:

1,800
Employees:

130,000
Revenue:

AUD$43.6 billion in 2024

Summary

Challenges

Each year, Coles takes on thousands of new workers.
Manual processes for generating employment contracts consumed significant time and effort.

Solution

Integrated seamlessly with SAP SuccessFactors.
Streamlined recruitment with automated workflows.
Reduced manual work with managed services.

Results

Accelerated and improved worker onboarding
Improved transparency in the onboarding process
Delivered regulatory compliance

Challenges

To meet ongoing demand, the company recruits and onboards thousands of workers every year
The manual, paper-based process of creating and mailing out thousands of employment contracts consumed considerable time and effort
The retailer sought to streamline regulatory compliance activities for the workforce by leveraging employment data from SAP SuccessFactors

Coles is one of Australia’s leading retailers, offering groceries, deli, meat, fresh fruit, and vegetables to consumers across the country. Like any retailer, the company experiences seasonal peaks in demand—sending its recruiting process into overdrive.

Previously, Coles relied on a highly manual process to generate employment contracts. With so many workers to onboard each year, this huge administrative workload limited productivity and posed a challenge for the team as they worked hard to ensure regulatory compliance.

All employment contracts were paper based, without a joint process between business units. Employees physically mailed contracts to candidates and had to wait for them to sign them and send them back. As a result, lead times for putting people into new roles were very long. If new hires didn’t return signed contracts in a timely manner, it created extra work and compliance risk.

To improve the onboarding process, Coles embarked on a digital transformation to boost the efficiency of its human resources function. As part of this initiative, the company deployed the SAP SuccessFactors® human capital management suite.

The combination of OpenText Content Management and SAP SuccessFactors makes our onboarding process transparent. Candidates don’t have to wait around to receive their contracts in the mail, and they get real-time feedback when all their action items are completed.

Bernie Repacholi
Head of People and Technology, Coles Group

Solution

Coles chose OpenText™ Content Management for SAP® SuccessFactors—engaging OpenText™ Professional Services as the implementation partner—so they could upload, store, access, and manage HR information from a single point of control and automate key processes.

Products deployed

OpenText™ Content Management for SAP® SuccessFactors

Automate HR operations with HR document management

Services provided

OpenText™ Professional Services

Get a trusted partner to guide your information management path

Integrating seamlessly with SAP SuccessFactors

Coles evaluated a number of enterprise content management solutions before selecting OpenText. Among the key criteria were ease of integration with SAP SuccessFactors and the ability to digitize HR processes, such as the generation of employment contracts. OpenText Content Management for SAP SuccessFactors quickly emerged as the front-runner.

With the OpenText solution, Coles saw the potential in powerful, automated workflows based on SAP SuccessFactors events. OpenText Content Management for SAP SuccessFactors also empowered Coles to dynamically customize document templates for all business units, significantly reducing manual administrative work.

Using OpenText Content Management, Coles configured digital templates for employee contracts. Powered by business rules in the OpenText solution and data from SAP SuccessFactors, the company can automatically generate employment contracts.

Streamlining recruitment with automated workflows

As part of the onboarding process, candidates submit their personal details via a secure online portal. The moment a candidate’s working rights are validated, Coles triggers the contract generation process in the OpenText solution.

Next, the OpenText solution takes the candidate’s personal details and data from SAP SuccessFactors to generate the employment contract, which is also customized based on the Coles business unit the new hire will be working for.

When employee contracts are ready, they are sent out to candidates digitally via DocuSign. Once the candidate signs, the completed contract is automatically moved to the relevant folder in the OpenText solution, secured based on role-based access permissions from SAP SuccessFactors.

As a result, the entire process is now completely paperless, providing Coles with more control over how contracts are stored and who can access them, strengthening compliance.

Reducing manual work with managed services

With support from OpenText Managed Services, Coles ensures the new solution does not put additional pressure on its IT team. The company is working with OpenText Professional Services to migrate the solution to Google Cloud Platform, strengthening availability for vital HR services.

Bernie Repacholi, head of people and technology at Coles, said “The OpenText team is responsive and always available to assist us. We have regular meetings to track the performance of the solution and identify opportunities for improvement. For example, the OpenText team recommended moving to Google Cloud Platform to help us boost service availability and accelerate disaster recovery."

We have regular meetings [with OpenText] to track the performance of the solution and identify opportunities for improvement. For example, the OpenText team recommended moving to Google Cloud Platform to help us boost service availability and accelerate disaster recovery.

Bernie Repacholi
Head of People and Technology, Coles Group

Results

Coles now uses OpenText Content Management for SAP SuccessFactors to streamline the onboarding process for thousands of employees each year—boosting operational efficiency and improving the candidate experience.

Accelerated onboarding for seasonal workers

Using OpenText, Coles is speeding up onboarding for new employees and people changing roles within the group. Crucially, the company can now easily accommodate any peaks in its recruitment process. By streamlining the candidate onboarding journey with OpenText, Coles is also improving the employee experience. The digital process is more convenient for new hires.

“The combination of OpenText Content Management and SAP SuccessFactors makes our onboarding process transparent,” commented Repacholi. “Candidates don’t have to wait around to receive their contracts in the mail, and they get real-time feedback when all their action items are completed. In this way, we’re setting new hires up for the best start at Coles.”

Delivered regulatory compliance

Enterprise-grade data governance capabilities from OpenText enable Coles to simplify compliance with regulatory requirements. When new legislation came into place obliging employers to assess whether they could offer casual workers a permanent role after 12 months of employment, OpenText Content Management for SAP SuccessFactors proved to be an invaluable asset.

To comply with the legislation, Coles must inform casual employees about permanent job offers within 28 days of their 12-month employment anniversary. OpenText Content Management for SAP SuccessFactors automatically generates letters to inform employees about the outcome of their job offer assessments, backed by a full audit trail that OpenText Professional Services helped roll out.

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