Gallagher modernizes the employee experience with Oracle Cloud HCM

To stay competitive, Gallagher needed to hire, promote, and incentivize the best people, but the insurance broker’s legacy human resources systems made that work difficult, with HR business processes based on legacy green-screen applications, Excel spreadsheets, and some manual operations.

The provider of insurance services, employee benefit consulting, global risk management, and brokerage services has grown globally through mergers and acquisitions since its 1927 founding. The company completed 49 acquisitions in one recent year, and 300 acquisitions over five years.

Today, Gallagher operates in more than 150 countries, with the majority of its 26,000 employees working in the US, UK, and Canada. But Gallagher faces tough competition from bigger firms as well as smaller ones that are well established in localities where Gallagher operates. Recruiting top talent, and retaining those people after acquisitions, is critical to Gallagher’s competitive edge.

The company sought to consolidate onto a single, global human capital management (HCM) system, providing a single version of truth. It sought to optimize business processes across all operating entities, with standardized workflows and a common, modern user experience. And it needed real-time analytics to improve business decisions.

The company needed to ensure employees and organizations had a smooth and timely onboarding experience.

In evaluating Oracle Cloud HCM, Gallagher met with customers who had already implemented the cloud application to learn about their experiences. The company also met with Oracle executives to find out about Oracle’s long-term strategy and ensure it aligned with Gallagher’s priorities.

Gallagher found Oracle Cloud HCM offers many advantages, including that human resources leaders can update policies and procedures from headquarters and distribute those changes worldwide. Oracle Cloud HCM accommodates local regulatory requirements such as those for salary, work hours, and retirement contributions. Oracle updates applications quarterly, via the cloud, assuring that Gallagher is always on software that reflects the latest and best HR practices. Gallagher employees can update their own information through self-service. And the company can use Oracle Cloud HCM modules to automate tasks from hire to retire.

It tried Oracle Cloud HCM first with the compensation system, because that system wasn’t critical to daily operations, had only about 10 users, and used a simple process. Gallagher ran the cloud application alongside its legacy, on-premises system. The trial was a spectacular success, so Gallagher moved forward with a full implementation.

After implementing Oracle Cloud HCM, Gallagher is on track to save 30% on its overall HR tech costs over the next five years.

The company converted about 56,000 employee data records with seven years of employment history. The company now offers a single Oracle Cloud HCM implementation across all operating entities and countries, with a modern user experience for all employees.

Gallagher achieved its goals of standardizing, optimizing, and automating business processes worldwide.

And the company was able to replace its system of annual employee evaluations with frequent reviews, allowing employees to more effectively improve their work processes.

Gallagher thoroughly evaluated partners to implement Oracle Cloud HCM, asking a half-dozen companies to send teams of specialists to discuss capabilities. Ultimately, the company chose Cognizant, which had the needed skills for the functions Gallagher sought to implement.