As healthcare costs continue to climb each year, generic medicines are a lifesaver for millions of people worldwide, especially those with chronic illnesses. Keeping generics affordable while researching and developing new specialty medicines is a responsibility that guides Teva Pharmaceuticals every day. After Teva’s workforce grew from 7,000 to 57,000, primarily through acquisitions, the Israel-headquartered company turned to SAP SuccessFactors to harmonize human resources across 80 countries.
“The SAP SuccessFactors solutions are helping us develop and enable the workforce of the future as we build a consumer-centric organization. And we can do all that while reducing our costs,” said Anat Markus, Head of Global HR Operations and Services at Teva Pharmaceuticals. “We now have the foundation for the people data we need to manage operations in a more integrated way, and forge new relationships with our customers.”
Making HR strategic to the business
Chief among the HR team’s objectives was to accelerate value to the business. This meant moving HR staff away from being generalists to specialists. They’ve become recognized experts the business can count on to provide strategic workforce planning, competitive talent strategies, support for managers and development plans – all designed to keep the business running flawlessly.
“I’m a strong believer that technology is a key enabler of our HR transformation,” said Mark Sabag, Group Executive Vice President, Chief Human Resources Officer at Teva. “Cloud technology is the only way to standardize, simplify, and improve the level of service for our employees. When employees get better service internally, they bring greater value to our company and to all those we serve.
People are at the center
Teva’s first step in transformation was centralizing all HR information for 57,000 employees on one system using SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central. This gives every HR professional and line manager complete visibility into each employee’s history, position, performance, benefits and compensation, as well as reporting lines. With full data transparency, it’s easier for managers to identify top performers across the company, including those from acquisitions. They can make development plans or pursue other strategies to help integrate new employees, all the while keeping people engaged and productive in a fast-changing workplace. Markus, who is sharing Teva’s experiences at HR Tech Amsterdam, said that these changes have directly influenced staff retention and succession planning for the better.
“In the past, managers had to go through 10 different people to get that kind of data,” said Markus. “Even if you had global responsibility, you only had access to local information. Having accurate, updated data is a great foundation for managers to have meaningful discussions with their direct reports.”