Leading organisations like CONA Services demonstrate why prioritising employee experience helps build significant competitive advantages. As a strategic partner supporting North America’s Coca-Cola bottlers with their IT infrastructure, CONA (Coke One North America) Services proves how integration, collaboration and technology can transform workforce management.
Raquel Simpson, IT Manager at CONA Services, highlights how this organisation builds robust engagement using modern workforce management technology.
“The ability to be flexible and nimble in this changing market, technology-wise, is critical.”
RAQUEL SIMPSON | IT MANAGER AT CONA SERVICES
Reimagining the Employee Journey With Workforce Technologies
CONA Services has made substantial investments in improving key touchpoints of the employee lifecycle, with particular attention to the onboarding experience to enhance engagement and retention for frontline workers. “We are really trying to improve our onboarding experience for the bottlers, for those frontline workers that show up. That welcoming into a company has to be as great as it can possibly be in order to keep spirits high.”
To support this need, CONA implemented “CONA HR 2.0,” transitioning eight bottlers to a unified cloud-based SAP SuccessFactors system to enhance the candidate’s experience from day one. This move aimed to align business processes, introduce automation and consolidate HR platforms, improving user adoption and reducing complexity. The goal is clear—create a seamless process that instills purpose, motivation and productivity from the moment an employee joins the organisation.
CONA Services also focused on understanding the priorities of younger generations like Gen Z, who place significant value on work-life balance and rostering flexibility. Acknowledging these shifting expectations creates a more supportive environment that allows their diverse workforce to thrive. Raquel says, “A company needs to know and understand these priorities so they can adapt and make a great work environment for this generation. This is going to inevitably allow the company to thrive as well.”
The Power of Cross-Functional Collaboration
At the heart of CONA’s success is its commitment to breaking down organisational silos between the departments like HR, IT, Finance and Operations that touch workforce management processes every day. Raquel highlights that workforce management cannot succeed through isolated departmental efforts.
She says, “For these organisations to be able to collaborate is critical to the strong health of an organisation because if one is not aligned, that can pose a problem. So, frequent collaboration and cross-functional touch bases, whether that be biweekly or monthly are important. I’ve seen that this is a growing trend that’s very much needed across a healthy organisation.”
This philosophy has led CONA to establish structured collaborations to help ensure that HR, IT, Operations and Finance work harmoniously to build a supported, engaged and equipped workforce for future challenges.
Embracing Digital Transformation
Simpson emphasises that making strategic employee management software investments that align with quality workplace experience requires robust data and analytics capabilities. “Analysing the data is going to be very telling on what kind of changes will need to come from an organisational standpoint. So, making those types of investments from leadership down, funding these efforts is pretty important.”
By leveraging data insights, CONA Services identifies trends, anticipates needs and proactively addresses challenges before they impact employee satisfaction and performance. CONA’s commitment to exceptional experiences extends beyond their workforce to their customers. The company recently launched a refreshed version of myCoke, a digital platform enabling customers to order products, make payments and request services online. This enhancement reflects CONA’s holistic approach to creating positive experiences across their ecosystem.
As Raquel Simpson and CONA Services demonstrate, modern workforce leadership needs a delicate balance of technology, collaboration and human-centered design. By focusing on these elements whilst staying adaptable to changing workforce dynamics, organisations can create environments where employees thrive—ultimately driving business success in an increasingly competitive marketplace.
See Raquel’s full interview and see how CONA Services’ cross-departmental collaboration helped them to transform employee experience and drive business success.
