NEWSROOM

SAP came together with HR managers, HR experts, industry professionals and business partners at the HR Connect event to evaluate new trends in human resources processes and the effects of artificial intelligence on the business world. At the event held at Çırağan Palace, ways to improve and develop employee experience and competencies with artificial intelligence and advanced technology were evaluated.

TURKEY - Artificial intelligence and advanced technologies are changing the way of working while penetrating many areas of the business world. It is used in many areas from improving operational processes to strengthening employee experience and competences. While enabling the effective unlocking of the potential of human resources, it transforms working models and the way they interact with their customers. SAP, a leader in enterprise applications and business-oriented artificial intelligence solutions operating in more than 130 countries, came together with its business partners in Turkey at the HR Connect Istanbul event on 28 May to evaluate ways to improve human resources processes by integrating them with artificial intelligence. In the event held at Çırağan Palace, 6 panels were organised with business leaders from different sectors.

"There are 10 main items on HR's agenda in 2024"

Delivering the opening speech of the event, SAP EMEA Consulting Services Regional and Southern Europe HR Director Hande Genç said, "Last year at the HR Connect event; We discussed topics such as digital transformation, hybrid working, talent gaps, leadership and work-life balance. According to the SAP Human Resources Meta Trend research, which has been repeated every year since 2021, the most important trend of 2024 is artificial intelligence. Artificial Intelligence plays a role in increasing productivity, risk management and employee experience, especially recruitment. Developing competencies and skills is also on the agenda this year, and there is a competency-oriented approach in all processes of HR, from workforce planning to career development. In 2024, employees are called back to the offices and company cultures are redesigned together with employees. Diversity, equality and inclusion issues are another area of focus, which is important not only as a social responsibility but also for ensuring creativity and innovation in companies. In 2024, mental health emerges as a result of burnout and change fatigue. Socio-economic conditions, change, which has become the new normal in working life, put pressure on employees, and providing a safe environment for company management and leaders is high on the HR agenda.  Economic fluctuations and new laws accelerate equality-oriented efforts in remuneration. Sustainability is being integrated into both company and HR policies as a strategy. Finally, HR departments are prioritising issues such as their own competency transformation and data literacy."

"We create more efficient companies and business processes with SuccessFactors"

José Luis Velázquez Martín, SAP Southern Europe SuccessFactors Leader, said: "Turkey is a country we always follow with its successful projects in HR applications. We are pleased with the interest shown by companies in our SuccessFactors products and solutions in recent years. As a leading company in the field of enterprise business applications in the world, we stand by companies with our cloud-based solution SuccessFactors, which supports talent management, HR analytics, workforce planning and employee experience management in the field of SAP human resources. Especially the Covid process was an important threshold. Compared to before Covid, today it is understood that HR is the most valuable asset of every company and the importance of innovation in business processes. As SAP, we continue to enrich our solutions, including artificial intelligence, in this process." 

Olga Belovolova, Head of SuccessFactors Customer Consultancy in SAP EMEA Region, said, "Recently, artificial intelligence has become a turning point for HR processes. As SAP, we stood out at several points by including artificial intelligence business applications in the SuccessFactors product. First of all, artificial intelligence is integrated into the HR field as a lever. We support the management of processes by developing assistants to support employees. For example, employees can instantly access ethical rules, internal rules and regulations and quickly access the information they want with the right prompt. SuccessFactors will be able to analyse candidates' CVs and evaluate their work experience and skills more effectively by using artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies to make the recruitment process smarter. In addition, it will be able to predict the success potential of candidates, which will better support recruitment decisions. We will continue to offer many features that will help businesses provide better service to their employees and increase their satisfaction." 

Bülent Karal, Deputy General Manager of Cloud and Business Solutions at SAP Turkey, moderated the panel titled "Artificial Intelligence HR Evolution: From Traces to Actions", he stated that SAP aims to create a dynamic, inclusive and future-ready workforce by using the power of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in the field of human resources with its Success Factor solution.  He emphasised that with data-driven, employee-centred approaches, businesses will gain a great advantage in developing the talents and careers of their employees.  SAP Turkey continues to contribute to the more effective and efficient operation of businesses by transforming human resources processes with innovative AI solutions.

Ali Mahir Parlakay, Data Analytics and HR Systems Director at Rönesans Holding, evaluated the subject with the following words: "We have a 30-year existence story. According to the World's Largest International Contractors ENR index, we are the ninth largest engineering and investment company in Europe and the largest in Turkey. We have a total team of 30 thousand people. We have been using SuccessFactors since 2015 and benefiting from the advantages of this solution. We use it not only for HR management but also for data analytics. For the transition to the next level, we have started to include artificial intelligence in our corporate processes, and we are first revising the infrastructure. We manage all our project design processes with SAP experts. We also gain flexibility with SAP's cloud products. We will continue to grow our SAP investments."

"We respond to the needs of our employees with SuccessFactors"

Güneş Nalbantoğlu, Corporate Human Resources Group Director of SOCAR Turkey, said: "SOCAR came to Turkey in 2008 with our investment in Petkim. We completed our integrated holding structure in 2019. We have more than 5 thousand employees. We preferred SAP SuccessFactors in our strategic partnership in digital transformation. We digitalised many processes such as recruitment and onboarding. Digital transformation has been our priority strategy for SOCAR. We focused on creating value through efficiency. In this context, we create a more comfortable living space for our employees. While we are currently commissioning a total of nearly 120 processes, in terms of HR, we follow the reporting stages with SuccessFactors automation. We have a digital assistant on the artificial intelligence side. It answers the questions of our employees in HR processes. We are also trying to use it in the field of recruitment. On the other hand, the HR field needs people to gain the ability to use technology. Therefore, we ensure that our employees acquire the competencies of the new age through our projects. We create value for our employees with artificial intelligence. We respond to the needs of our employees with SuccessFactors." 

"80% of employees think that the use of artificial intelligence in business processes will affect them positively"

Participating in the panel titled "SuccessFactors and Artificial Intelligence", SAP Turkey and Middle East HCM Services Solution Consultant Volkan Aysel shared the following information on how to make HR processes more efficient with SAP SuccessFactors' solutions, SAP's artificial intelligence supported digital assistant Joule and other artificial intelligence applications: "According to the research conducted with approximately 1,500 employees globally, 80% of employees think that artificial intelligence will support them in business processes. In other words, contrary to popular belief, there is an optimistic atmosphere among employees. HR has a great responsibility in evaluating this. As SAP, we focus not only on improving HR processes with Joule and artificial intelligence applications, but also on improving the entire digital experience of employees. We prioritise three main issues. These are that artificial intelligence should offer a company-specific experience, be reliable and work responsibly. As SAP, we care very much about the impact of artificial intelligence on people's lives, our customers' business processes, and SAP's impact on society and the economy. We transparently share the entire artificial intelligence development process without reducing the human touch to zero and without marginalising people. On the HR side, we have 4 main focal points supported by artificial intelligence: Improving the employee experience, preparing the workforce for the future, supporting HR departments in flexibility and adaptability, and enabling HR data to be used in all company processes. At this point, we use artificial intelligence in 3 main application areas; Deep Learning AI, Generative AI and Joule (Conversational AI). With these, we aim to automate all processes in order to provide the best experience for human resources, managers and employees. We offer alternative approaches instead of fixed scenarios. We enable employees and managers to find answers to their questions by talking. In November 2023, our artificial intelligence applications, which gained momentum, reached a much wider range of applications with the updates released in May 2024, and we will continue to continuously improve our system and provide the best experience for our customers by making much more effort in this regard in the coming period." 

 "Artificial intelligence is a natural part of development"

Şişecam Human Resources Assistant General Manager Şengül Arslan, who participated in the panel titled "Competency-Focused Organisation Transformation in the Age of Artificial Intelligence" moderated by PwC Company Partner, Workforce and Organisation Consultant Ülker Day, said: "I have been working to strengthen companies with the combination of people, culture, organisation and technology for nearly 30 years. As Şişecam, we have 25 thousand employees working in all our functions in 21 countries, including 45 production facilities in 14 countries. When we talk about transformation in the age of artificial intelligence, Şişecam continues its journey by defining the corporate capabilities - process, technology, organisational structure and talent - that will prepare our company for the future and prioritising our investments accordingly. Since 2018, we have been making a very serious technology investment with SAP covering all our operational and corporate processes for the transformation of digital capabilities. When we look at the steps in terms of human resources that will prepare our company for the future, it is very important to design a development journey on the axis of talent, competence and skill triad, to recruit, develop, manage their careers and motivate them in accordance with these needs, in other words, to manage the whole. For this reason, it is critical that our end-to-end and integrated global talent processes tell us where the most suitable resources are for our competence and skill needs. We have all kinds of data to get these answers. Because we started our digital and global human resources transformation journey in 2017 and established an infrastructure that can monitor and manage data and processes end-to-end. Now it is time to get faster and more accurate answers to these questions with the capabilities brought by artificial intelligence."

"When it comes to the question of how artificial intelligence will affect talent and jobs and how we should prepare for it, all jobs, processes and technology have a point where we come to. Since automation entered our lives, as HR professionals, we have been working to make jobs more efficient by dividing them in a meaningful way. First, we focused on human-machine interaction, analysing and deciding which work can be done by humans or machines. Then we separated operations from specialist jobs, centralised and standardised them, supported them with technologies and established shared service centres, and made robotic process automations. Now we are looking at how we can support specialised and operational jobs with artificial intelligence, and how we can make them more efficient and faster. So artificial intelligence is a natural part of development. We utilise this technology in many processes such as recruitment or employee experience and demand management. For example, we use AI support solutions to answer all questions about our labour regulations in 11 languages and to create content such as training materials. We ensure that our communication and solution channels for our employees and candidates are integrated with each other and produce consistent responses with AI. We implement applications that directly touch the person and offer well-being solutions, such as creating insights by analysing the health history of employees."

"I do not think that any of the technological developments, including artificial intelligence, pose a threat to talent. We need to increase the total economic value generated for 8 billion people in the world, and the more accessible the technology is, the more value will be generated. We have seen so far that as the value created increases, new jobs and new needs arise, jobs do not decrease. On the contrary, it increases as investments are made in the right competences."

"For the future of work, we are designing the future of HR with artificial intelligence"

Nursel Ölmez Ateş, Borusan Human, Communication and Sustainability Group President, said the following "As Borusan, we currently have 14 thousand employees. We operate in 11 countries on 3 continents. We carry out all HR processes and systems jointly. SuccessFactors has made our lives significantly easier at this point. In this journey we started in 2018, all our HR processes are currently on SuccessFactors. We keep employee data and HR corporate memory of companies here. In recent years, there has been a significant transformation all over the world. Business life is preparing for a new future. I think that HR should be a pioneer in this future and prepare for the future with organisation - process - system designs. Today we are talking about artificial intelligence, but in order to talk about it, it is necessary to move all HR systems from end to digital. This alone is a very important effort, but it is not enough. We also need to focus on our data maturity in all systems. Artificial intelligence solutions that we position on digital infrastructure optimise HR processes and bring us efficiency. We can get out of operations and focus more on strategic human resources issues. For example, an average of 1,200 employees per month ask our AI chatbot Bi'Bilen all their operational questions about HR, and 95% of them receive correct answers. After Bi'Bilen came into our lives, we used the HR specialist staff we had positioned for this job in the past in our other development works in the field of digitalisation. Our goal is to improve the employee and manager experience with artificial intelligence. To focus more on strategic HR processes with the efficiency we create in operational processes. I do not think that the use of artificial intelligence in business life is a development to be feared in terms of human resources. It makes it possible to strengthen the areas where people will create value. It provides organisations with the potential to develop new business models. A report by McKinsey for 2024 shows that artificial intelligence is used 3% in HR processes today. This is a very low rate. We need to increase this rate rapidly because for a company to transform and change, the human resources area must transform first."

"We plan to implement all modules by the end of 2026"

Speaking at the panel "Redesigning Employee Experience in the Digital Age" chaired by Detaysoft General Sector Sales Manager Canan Kuralay, Tunahan Çetin, McDonald's Turkey Remuneration and Benefits Manager, said: "As McDonald's Turkey, we carried out technological transformation in our restaurants within the scope of "Restaurant Experience of the Future". We aimed to move our restaurants to a place where our guests can spend pleasant moments with their families. We launched our table service with our KİOSK devices and mobile order-to-car delivery application. As part of our 'digitalIK' project, we preferred SAP SuccessFactors. Our main motivation in digitalisation was to centralise data management and increase efficiency. We are currently using the employee centre and payroll modules. In the project we are conducting with Detaysoft, we plan to implement all modules, especially performance, recruitment, HR analytics, onboarding, until the end of 2026." 

"We support our employees with value-added solutions"

Alpar Öge, Senior Manager of Business Solutions and Artificial Intelligence Applications at Petrol Ofisi, said: "As Turkey's leading fuel and lubricant company, we say 'Ready for Tomorrow from Today' and continue to focus on solutions that touch people. We see digital transformation as a holistic cultural transformation. We are taking strategic steps in this direction. We chose SAP SuccessFactors to automate our human resources processes, evolve into an end-to-end agile structure and support this people-oriented cultural change. In the project we carried out with Detaysoft, we implemented many modules from employee centre to career development, recruitment, training and remuneration. Our main goal was to increase productivity with an inclusive, future-proof, artificial intelligence-supported solution. As Petrol Ofisi Group, we support our employees with value-added solutions that are ready from today to tomorrow, and we work devotedly together with all our stakeholders." 

"We created a common language in HR with SuccessFactors"

Vektora Corporate Communications and Marketing Manager Zeynep Aykaç chaired the panel titled "Groundbreaking Transformation in Employee Experience: Digitalisation", Zeynep Baysal Okur, IC Holding Organisational Development and HR Analytics Manager, made the following statement about artificial intelligence and digital transformation: "As IC Holding and Group Companies operating in many fields such as Construction, Energy, Infrastructure, Tourism, Industry and Real Estate, we started our SuccessFactors journey under the name of IC Agenda, aiming to perfect the employee experience. We first launched the Employee Centre Module, followed by the Performance and Goals Module, and recently launched our Talent Management & Career Development Module with Vektora. We knew that digitalisation in human resources brings serious advantages in finding young talents, talent acquisition and retention, and we have achieved these advantages with our use of SuccessFactors. In addition, making data-based decisions thanks to the reports we receive through SuccessFactors has provided us with great advantages in terms of both competition and efficiency. This is an experiential journey and we continue this journey by developing IC Agenda and adding new modules."

"Our goal is to provide a good experience to our employees with artificial intelligence" 

Ece Leblebici, Human Resources and Strategic Communication Group Manager at Enda Energy, said, "In the early days, we were using SAP's HR module. However, in the following period, especially within the framework of changing business models in the field of human resources, we decided to establish an experience-oriented structure by bringing technology and people together. With SAP's SuccessFactors solution, we started our journey to the cloud with a more sustainable, cloud-based and innovative solution where system updates are automatically assigned and every detail can be followed on a single screen. We are currently using Employee Centre, Performance Management, Recruitment and Training Management modules. In the following process, our goal is to provide an even better experience journey for our employees by including artificial intelligence support in the process." 

Antoaneta Radoslavova, SAP Concur Regional Leader for Israel, Greece and Turkey, who explained SAP Concur and SAP Fieldglass solutions that offer a comprehensive user experience and improve employee processes, spending more than 161 million Euros in Turkey in 2023, made the following assessment: "SAP Concur, one of SAP's integrated solutions, is a cloud-based solution that helps businesses effectively manage their travel and expenses. By providing a single end-to-end integrated travel and expense management solution, businesses can significantly reduce costs, save time and benefit from process efficiencies compared to the traditional approach that handles each business function separately. With SAP Concur, businesses can quickly and easily consolidate their travel and expense processes in the cloud as it streamlines processes and provides visibility into expense, travel, itinerary and invoice management. In 2023, more than 161 million Euros of expenditures in Turkey were recorded through SAP Concur, and currently about 600 companies manage their expenditures in Turkey on SAP Concur. While doing this, we also benefit from artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence will not replace skills, but it supports the management of travel and expenses by facilitating processes and providing supportive information at the point of difficult decisions."

Tony Aylward, SAP Fieldglass Consultant, said: "Today, more than ever, we are talking about the importance of labour and talent to help our customers do their jobs. The workforce is now diversified, contract consultant, freelancer, part-time, full-time, independent contractor. SAP Fieldglass digitalises the entire talent management process for employees, from requisition to invoicing and payment.  Fieldglass provides visibility of the total workforce and easily integrates with your other corporate SAP systems and automates service procurement and external talent management with a cloud-based strategic procurement platform, so our customers can achieve total workforce management and planning."