Case Study

Integrated and Flexible Workforce Planning at Illwerke vkw

illwerke vkw

As an Austrian energy supplier with 1,200 employees in Vorarlberg, illwerke vkw AG is active in four business areas:

  • Hydropower
  • Supply and services
  • Energy grids
  • Tourism

Illwerke vkw builds modern pumped storage power plants, develops infrastructure for e-cars, operates high-performance energy grids, advances digitalization and manages an attractive tourism destination.

  • Around 1,200 employees
Initial situation

The workforce planning for the approximately 1,200 employees of illwerke vkw AG was mainly carried out using IT tools that were not directly linked to the data-carrying SAP HCM system. Heads and amounts were planned in two different systems, so that costs and personnel movements had to be maintained in several places at the same time. This caused a high manual effort and led to unnecessary sources of error.

At the same time, increasing demands from management and growing expectations for variation in workforce planning through simulation made the planning process more complex. It was therefore absolutely necessary to merge the different elements of workforce planning in the future and integrate them into the existing SAP system landscape.

Challenges

With the availability of an SAP Business Warehouse and its connection to SAP HCM as the leading human resources management system, the technical basis for workforce planning was created.

For the projection of personnel costs, the complex tariff conversion with grandfathering for existing employees had to be taken into account. To simplify the planning process, personnel departures were simulated and key dates for events already stored in SAP HCM were taken into account directly in the extrapolation of the data.

At the same time, the headcount reporting available at the push of a button was set up. For this purpose, not only the reporting structure had to be stored in SAP BW, but also the historization of the data had to be implemented. As in all HR-BI projects, the conception and implementation of roles and authorizations was mandatory.

Project goals

The goal was to make relevant information and data systematically usable through modern technologies in order to increase the quality of workforce planning at illwerke vkw AG. The cross-departmental planning process was to be embedded in the existing infrastructure with continuous IT support. As a central planning element, the new SAP-based planning was also to be used to visualize organizational and planning variables.

Implementation of the project

In the project team, tasks were clearly assigned to responsible persons. Their competence and professional understanding of the process and the details of workforce planning were the guarantee for clear requirements and targeted implementation. The overall picture was repeatedly coordinated in regular meetings and rounded off in an extensive test phase.

Results and benefits

Users can now participate in workforce planning in a decentralized manner. Thanks to the extensive functions in the projection, the quality of the data provided is very high. The heterogeneous data landscapes could also be harmonized, which means that duplicate data maintenance can now be avoided and HR Controlling can devote itself to its main tasks: controlling HR through personnel measures in line with the objectives of illwerke vkw AG. Also, the possibility of comparing planned measures by means of scenario simulation, which was requested by the management, can now finally be realized in the shortest possible time, based on real-time data.

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