Emporiki Group

The issue

Emporiki Group of companies operates in diverse sectors from banking to real estate. In an effort to unify and harmonise its HR policies and procedures and to manage its people more effectively, Emporiki Group decided to diagnose the level of readiness of its subsidiaries in implementing an integrated Human Resource Management Information System. Through this diagnosis Emporiki Group would establish a clear picture of the HR systems used by both the Holding company and its 12 subsidiaries, compare these against market best practice, and then either re-design or improve existing HR practices.

Emporiki Group wanted to:

• identify areas for improvement in the HR systems of all the 12 companies belonging to the Group
• design an appropriate action plan to facilitate improvements and identify quick wins
• implement an Integrated human Resource Information System to more effectively manage its people.

Our approach

PricewaterhouseCoopers Human Resource Services was appointed to carry out the HR Diagnostic Review on the Group's 12 subsidiaries, following a similar diagnosis which we conducted on the HR function of Emporiki Bank, the Group's biggest subsidiary. The project started with meetings between the PwC and Emporiki Group project teams to finalise the goals and methodology for the project. We then interviewed the HR Managers from each of the 12 companies using structured tailor-made questionnaires, to collect information and data on policies and procedures in each of these areas:

• HR administration
• HR planning
• Recruitment and selection
• Training and development
• Performance management
• Career management
• Reward management.

We analysed this information and produced a report on each of the companies, providing a comparison of each of their HR systems and procedures against best practice, highlighting areas for improvement and proposing the necessary steps to achieve this.

The outcome

By the end of this project, Emporiki Group had a much better understanding of the HR systems used by each of their companies, how these compared against market best practice and how they could be improved. The Group also had an action plan to facilitate improvements and quick wins.

The most important issue, however, was to enhance the strategic role of the Human Resource function as a whole. Some parts of our recommendations have already been introduced, such as implementing best practice from some of the subsidiaries in order to improve weaknesses in others.

For example, certain HR systems that were developed and already used by some of the subsidiaries were introduced into others with limited alterations to meet their present needs.

The Group intends to continue and intensify their efforts, in improving, re-designing and implementing various human resource systems in the near future.

For further information about this case study, please contact Mary Georgiadou by email or on +30 210 6874475