IDH is a Dutch organization that unites governments, companies, civil society organizations, and trade unions towards a joint vision and program agenda for sustainable trade. When they were a smaller company, IDH managed HR using a simple HR platform and spreadsheets. However, as they scaled globally, it became clear that this method wasn’t sufficient for their needs. Just a few months after starting at IDH, Carolien Arents, Director HR, requested to implement a robust HCM to provide the company with real-time data insights and support strategic planning. Her requirements included an intuitive and attractive platform for managing employee entitlements, the capability to create automated processes, including approval flows, and a single source of truth for all things HR. After conducting a tender process, they chose Bob and have been adding new modules ever since.
Boosting engagement across geographies
As a global organization spread across 15 countries and various time zones, IDH wanted to increase engagement and create a sense of “One IDH” for their people everywhere.
Bob helps them do just that, functioning as an internal social media platform where IDH’s people can see what’s happening within the company. Every morning, IDH’s employees check Bob’s homepage to read the latest Shoutouts that announce new hires and recognize people’s accomplishments. They can also see who’s celebrating a birthday or work anniversary and send them good wishes. Bob provides a centralized place for IDH’s people to get to know their peers and engage with them across locations.
Bob has also proven invaluable for their global new joiners who use the Org Chart as part of their onboarding to help them navigate IDH’s complex organization that spreads across 30 different sites and six business units. Using Bob’s Org Chart, they can see where they fit within the organization, the people they work with, and who reports to whom. All of IDH’s employees also have access to Bob’s Docs, which contains company documents such as policies relating to global time off and the company culture. Having all their official docs in Bob helps IDH to streamline their operations and become a more transparent organization. Bob is IDH’s single source of truth, where their people know they can find the information they need.
Simplifying workforce planning while retaining a transparent culture
When it comes to workforce planning, IDH adopts a transparent strategy where all positions are visible to everyone within the organization and open to all employees to apply for. The company wanted a solution to support this approach while helping them be more strategic in their annual planning process.
The flexibility of Bob’s Workforce Planning supports IDH’s vision. IDH provides visibility to all their employees to see all the open positions in the company. If someone sees a relevant opportunity, they are encouraged to apply, increasing internal mobility across the organization.
IDH’s HR team also uses Workforce Planning to identify all the current positions—both filled and vacant—and gain a bird’s-eye view of how the organization is growing. They are working on adding salary information for all positions within the Workforce Planning module, which will help them plan and budget for new events. For example, they will be able to calculate the total cost of hiring a new team in a specific location to support a new project. Bob’s Workforce Planning helps IDH to be more strategic in planning their positions for the coming year and can adjust their budgets accordingly.
Testing new processes in Bob’s Sandbox
IDH is extremely detail-oriented when rolling out new processes and was happy to learn that Bob offers a Sandbox environment for risk-free testing. IDH recently added the Sandbox to their Bob offering and uses it to experiment with Bob’s modules before launching them company-wide. IDH uses the Sandbox daily to test running reports, particularly when using custom employee fields and doing bulk data imports. They also use the Sandbox as a training environment for new HR admins to play around with as they learn to navigate Bob. As Iza Osman, HR Officer at IDH, explains, “The Sandbox allows us to make mistakes in a safe environment without any consequences. We experiment there, check what we can and can’t do in a way that works for IDH, and then we go away and implement it in Bob.”
Main takeaways
- Bob helps IDH boost engagement and create a sense of “One IDH” across 30 global sites.
- Bob’s Workforce Planning module supports IDH’s strategy of advancing internal mobility.
- Bob’s Sandbox provides a risk-free environment for IDH’s HR team to test new processes before launching them company-wide.
