To succeed in challenging times, organizations must react quickly to meet the changing needs of their workforce. This has never been truer than during the COVID-19 pandemic, when employees had to completely change working behaviors and employers faced complex logistical challenges in orchestrating a safe and compliant return to the workplace.
Human experience management (HXM) solutions from SAP SuccessFactors offer no-code extension opportunities that enable customers to introduce new workflows in a matter of days or weeks. They can build these extensions without needing specialist development expertise or additional IT investment.
While these extensions can be developed without the need for coding, they can still be used to create a fully integrated experience for employees. Organizations can create new workflows that comply with existing authorization, data privacy, and permissions rules. They can also take advantage of mobile UI capabilities and open APIs to integrate with analytics and third-party applications.
Below are some examples of how companies adapted to a rapidly changing environment to protect the health and wellbeing of their employees.
Monitoring employee health status company-wide
When the pandemic first hit, a U.S.-based manufacturer of fluid system products wanted a way to efficiently track the health status of its employees. The IT team was able to quickly create a COVID-19 tracking extension that integrates with the HR core system of record. The company achieved this without needing to purchase any additional software functionality.
Providing insights to inform return-to-work planning
To facilitate a safe return to work, a large U.S.-based insurance company created an application that supports thorough and efficient return-to-work planning. The application collects information about employee preferences for either working at home or in the office, and matches this data with available office capacity. Planners can then make decisions on reopening the workplace in a safe manner.
Started during the initial lockdown period, the team was able to develop the application quickly. In fact, it was up and running months before workplace restrictions were lifted.
Helping employees meet legal requirements during the daily commute
Employees of a large global telecommunications provider needed to be able to prove that they were legally allowed to travel to the office during curfew conditions. The company created a self-service extension that lets employees print out mobility certificates that they can show when required.
Engaging with employees as they adjust to a “new normal”
Having a motivated, engaged, and healthy workforce is key to success – in every industry. With employees adjusting to a “new normal,” employers that can digitally facilitate workforces to enable new ways of working, not only help employees perform at their best but also gain a significant competitive edge. By enabling organizations to rapidly adapt workflows and create extensions to meet a wide range of workforce needs, SAP SuccessFactors solutions are leading the way in offering this flexibility.
In-App Extensibility with Extension Center
In-app extensibility is available in the SAP SuccessFactors HXM Suite via the Extension Center and the Metadata Framework (MDF). Over the last year we have seen many customers building extensions to support COVID-19 related requirements for their workforce. A few examples of such extensions are described in this blog post. Creating extensions requires no coding, they are completely embedded in your SAP SuccessFactors HXM solution and implementing them is a matter of days and weeks. Please comment if you have built extensions in your company or helped customers building them. It will be nice to see further examples.
If you have questions on creating in-app extensions with Extension Center, please feel free to post under the SAP SuccessFactors platform tag.
Find out more about creating no-code extensions for SAP SuccessFactors solutions here.
