Amey uses SAP HR system to manage 11,000 people

SAP HR is being used to power a human resources (HR) shared service at construction firm Amey.

Developed by SAP specialist Epi-use, the system is a standard on-premise application.

“We were already an SAP user, but we had a business case for building an employee portal," said Noel Scotford, head of HR systems and HR business improvement at the construction firm. 

"Amey took a conscious decision in 2009 to transform its HR from a decentralised, admin-heavy department, to one with a shared service centre and specialist teams aligned to the teams within the company," he said.

Scotford's goal with the software was to transform the role of people managers to HR functions – absence management, performance management, booking leave, entering expenses online, and expenses approval.

He said the project involved a major undertaking to roll out a portal to everybody, which had to be available at any time, given the nature of the work that Amey employees do, which often involves working nightshifts.

He said usage rates are very high – 100% of managers use the system every month, while an increasing number of employees are using the system for online payroll and to booking annual leave.

Last year, the company won silver in the "small to mid-size enterprise implementation category" at the SAP Quality Awards, in recognition of the way it had linked SAP HR to its overall "OneHR" change programme.

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