SAP SuccessFactors builds open co-creation community

SAP is bringing a new element of automation to Human Resources (HR) with a new open community designed to create purpose-built and easy-to-consume HR applications.

The hope is that organisations of all sizes from enterprises to startups will come together to co-create applications (and smaller micro-apps) in this space.

“We believe this wave of innovation will result in a ‘human revolution’ that will allow businesses to focus time, talent and energy on the thing that really matters: the people that lead to business outcomes. With this community, we can help assemble a complementary set of solutions for our customers’ diverse needs. And, if they don’t exist yet, we can co-create them together,” said SAP SuccessFactors president Greg Tomb.

This initiative comes on the back of the SAP App Center, a somewhat similar grouping SAP-own-app-store collection of enterprise software applications.

The new community is organised around apps that fall into six initial pillars:

• well-being
• pay equity
• real-time feedback
• unbiased recruiting
• predictive performance
• internal mobility

SAP promises ‘more pillars’ in the coming quarters.

As an example, SAP SuccessFactors is working together with Arianna Huffington’s science-based stress lowering project Thrive Global to attempt to ‘operationalize’ a culture of well-being and improve the employee experience overall.

“Reducing bias in recruiting takes more than the best of intentions,” said Jim McCoy, chief revenue officer and general manager at Scout Exchange, a company known for its data-driven software designed to connect employers and search firms to fill jobs.

“[This action to reduce bias] requires data-backed analysis, process, behavioural changes and comprehensive strategies. As a first step, employers should commit to tracking, reporting and achieving diversity recruiting progress against a set of defined metrics. It’s also important to benchmark performance against industry peers so you’re comparing to more than just your own internal improvements.”