Newell Brands started in 1903 when Edgar A. Newell purchased a curtain rod company in Ogdensburg, New York. Just five years later, Newell Brands distinguished itself by focusing on technology and production improvements through investments in machinery that produced curtain rods better and faster than its competitors. From then on, the brand has continued to set trends in the consumer goods space, grow into different markets, and experience great success with acquisitions.
Newell Brands’ strategy is straight forward: Becoming a simpler, faster, and stronger organization. Partnering with Capacity enabled the organization to further hone in on this vision.
The challenge: Scaling down repetitive tasks.
As a holding company that owns some of the largest consumer brands in the entire world, It’s no surprise that Newell’s employee count is more than 50,000 strong. As the company grows, the team expands with it, which means an influx of repetitive yet important questions about benefits, payroll, and other HR topics.
Newell Brands also regularly acquires new brands as a part of its business model, which means there is always a constant and sizable influx of new faces being welcomed to the team. In addition to answering all of the repetitive HR questions, the human resources service center was also responsible for getting new teammates up to speed on the brand, completing the necessary paperwork, and familiarizing them with their new responsibilities.
The HR service center was eventually so inundated with these never-ending questions and tasks that they had no time to focus on the bigger picture. That is, becoming a leading global consumer goods company, led by collaborative people and powered by advantaged capabilities. AI process automation was the answer.
The solution: Leveling up productivity and strategy.
Once the team at Capacity understood the hurdles to overcome, they knew exactly how to start vetting capabilities, processes, and security measures to get Newell Brands in a great position.
When dealing with HR topics such as benefits, payroll, and other sensitive information, Capacity ensured Newell that its employees’ information would be safe. With Capacity, team members only have access to the information they need because Capacity uses OAuth to mirror the permissions of each person in every application they use.
This means that if someone asks for a document or policy they shouldn’t have access to, Capacity won’t give it to them. It also means that Newell’s HR service center didn’t have to manage every team members’ permissions in multiple apps because Capacity respects the permissions you already have in place.
Capacity offers robust encryption, complete data privacy, and is GDPR, CCPA, and SOC 2 compliant.
Once the security was verified, it was time to plan the data migration of Newell’s knowledge base into Capacity’s AI-powered support automation platform. Capacity’s client success team helped assemble all the key resources that Newell needed to get up and running, like key files, access to app APIs, and more (details to come).
When all the information was transferred over, Capacity was deployed across Newell’s intranet and connected to apps that are essential to business, and all of the 50,000 employees had round-the-clock access to level-0 information from a single platform. Whether they had questions about training, onboarding, career coaching, insurance, benefits, payroll, intake forms, HRSD processing, or general information—Capacity could assist.
By answering all of these employee questions, the HR team had the time to focus on more human-centric tasks. Ultimately, enabling Newell Brands to continue with its strategy of becoming a simpler, faster, and stronger organization. Here’s how:
Simpler:
Capacity easily interfaced with Newell’s MS Sharepoint. Benefits of connecting Capacity with MS Sharepoint provided the Newell team with the ability to:
- Access all of the company’s knowledge with simple questions.
- Use natural language to interact with 50+ apps.
- Pull up any type of file from the cloud drive.
- Receive follow-up answers from the Capacity bot for any recently added knowledge.
- Quickly search coworkers’ availability and schedule meetings.
- Provide feedback in real-time to continuously improve Capacity’s machine learning.
This connection provides new employees with the ability to access information from the employee handbook, get familiar with the company logistics, find department-specific information, and more. If they have a question, Capacity is always there to answer.
Faster:
Capacity’s web concierge is available on the Newell Central employee intranet page to instantly answer FAQs for benefits, payroll, and other HR topics. Employees can access the important information they need at any time. Waiting until business hours to ask necessary questions is now a thing of the past, which ultimately means teams can be more productive at work. Oh, and did we mention that Capacity can be implemented on any website with a simple line of code?
Stronger:
By dissolving the time-consuming processes involved with answering FAQS and handling onboarding issues, the team can focus on tasks that require higher-level thinking that set Newell apart from its competitors, such as:
- Corporate social responsibility
- Ethics & compliance
- Overall strategy
Based on the effort that Newell puts into its employees’ and customers’ experiences, it’s no surprise that Newell Brands has been around for more than a century. As the team at Newell continues to create collaborative environments and offer products that enhance the way millions of people work, learn, and play, Capacity is hard at work in the background, supporting the team whenever they need it.