Catering to 91,000 employees
Mondelēz is a global manufacturer of recognizable snacks and treats like Oreo, Toblerone, and Cadbury to name a few. With operations in 150 countries, it is likely most of us have enjoyed its products, contributing to the company’s almost $31.5 billion in yearly revenue. But being the global market leader in cookies—the tastiest achievement—requires a workforce of 91,000 employees working from factories and offices on all continents.
With a number of fragmented tools, Mondelēz had a growing need for a more structured and centralized solution to shared services and knowledge management. The focus was on simplification and efficiency. “Number one is empowering employees,” says Volker Schrank, Senior Director of HR Technology and Employee Experience at Mondelēz International. “I want things to happen quickly, smoothly, and automatically so that employees don’t have to think about it. But every solution and every technology needs to be cost-effective for us. And if I can bring a solution that achieves those two things, then it’s brilliant.”
This is why, to deliver enterprise service management and completely overhaul the HR experience for its employees, Mondelēz trusted ServiceNow. It implemented ServiceNow HR Service Delivery (HRSD) while relying on focus groups to learn more about what employees wanted and needed before applying this to the new platform.
One-start shop
Mondelēz uses ServiceNow as the backbone of its HR service environment. This allowed the company to create an all-encompassing employee portal that’s focused on self-service and integrates seamlessly with Workday, Microsoft Teams, and third-party payroll solutions. With easy access to knowledge base articles, employees can easily find answers and solutions to 80% of their most common HR queries in 16 languages, resulting in a 76% increase in self-service.
“It’s not a one-stop shop for us,” says Volker. “It’s the one-start shop. You go to Employee Center, and it tells you the rest. All our up-to-date information is there. ServiceNow curates it and brings the capacity of inbuilt workflows and case management. Even our payroll is there, and this is what makes it brilliant. There is just one place where they go. Full stop.”
The portal itself was not the only employee-focused simplification. With 50% of Mondelēz employees working in manufacturing, providing them with an easy way to access the portal was vital. This meant that, depending on geographical locations and security requirements, deskless workers could access Employee Center via mobile or digital kiosks in its manufacturing plants, reducing complexity and providing equitable access to productive experiences.
Focusing on experience and efficiency
Mondelēz continues to drive shared services efficiency with new ideas and solutions. It’s constantly looking for improvements, such as finding out what terms end users apply most frequently and what they search for. It also started utilizing ServiceNow dynamic translation and aims to soon offer materials in multiple languages covering 92% of its workforce.
As part of its journey to create a connected experience layer, Mondelēz has leveraged the AI Search function in Employee Center which has resulted in deflection rates of between 30% and 60%, depending on the region. “This really was a game-changer for us,” comments Volker. “And it’s a double win. Employees immediately find answers to many of their questions, and those with more sensitive needs don’t have to wait to reach someone in the shared services center. At the same time, we don’t have any change in cost. So, it’s great. I love that.”
With all the improvements and easy-to-use tools, the consumer-grade search experience has been an obvious success. “Now, 90% of our global workforce access our self-service solution,” says Volker. “And this is across our complete workforce, including our manufacturing workers.”
Connecting the employee journey
With ServiceNow, Mondelēz not only unified its service experiences but also employee journeys. For example, it is now enjoying a seamless and automated onboarding process with ServiceNow, connecting multiple departments like HR, IT, and facilities, different systems like Workday and Adobe Sign, and different personas like managers and buddies for a truly end-to-end onboarding experience. In fact, the difference is staggering. “We deployed in four countries that represent over 50% of our hiring volume, and a month later the NPS score from our hiring managers jumped by 70 points,” says Volker.
“ServiceNow is the portal that guides you through the whole process whether you’re a pre-hire, a new hire, or a hiring manager. It gets everything together: the training, documents, forms, facilities, or equipment ordering. And it’s all automated.”
This increase in efficiency is evident in processes such as new hire laptop fulfillment, which under the previous solution experienced a failure rate of 60%. With ServiceNow, this has been reduced to just 2%.
Indeed, Mondelēz bets on constant process automation, with regular reviews of what could be made available through self-service and what could be automated end-to-end. The aim is to solve queries with a few clicks. One such example is the financial performance award that Mondelēz offers to outstanding employees. The process used to take up to one and a half months. “Now, there’s just a digital form that has all of the intelligence that you need,” says Volker. “It gives you different options depending on your selections and is automatically submitted to the relevant departments. It takes five days at most—that’s an 88% faster resolution time—and the award is added to the employee’s next pay.”
Saving time and effort also means saving money. Although the company has experienced significant improvements in its cost-effectiveness related to the platform, it is hard to put a dollar value on it. “We are saving a lot on an annual basis,” says Volker. “I have multiple examples of optimizations that tell me we are making a noticeable financial difference for the business.”
Following the crumb trail
Mondelēz always aims to serve its community and create a positive environment for its employees all over the world. And this project illustrates its focus perfectly. The improvements made possible by the ServiceNow Platform continue to grow, with the company successfully expanding HR service access to global teams, including deskless workers. The solution is centralized but ensures local focus, and the transformation of the shared services to a true employee-focused function is significant. “This would not have been possible without ServiceNow,” comments Volker. “The capabilities are amazing.”
But the work is never done and Mondelēz is constantly learning, listening to employees, and looking at ways of improving its services. One possibility for achieving these goals is through implementation of generative AI. While it is still in testing, once in use, its goal of further increasing the deflection rate to improve the end-user experience is within reach. Commenting on just one possible use of generative AI, Volker says: “Simply having the AI provide a summary of a document can be a huge improvement for someone who finds an overly long article relating to their question.” Overall, the ServiceNow Platform has transformed shared services and knowledge management at Mondelēz. But Volker also stresses the support and the relationship the company developed with ServiceNow. “The nature of the support we’ve had through ServiceNow from the beginning is very special,” he says. “And it just keeps on going.”