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Winning Secrets: How Frisian Flag Indonesia overcame the challenge of finding, choosing, and utilising people data to build actionable insights

Winning Secrets: How Frisian Flag Indonesia overcame the challenge of finding, choosing, and utilising people data to build actionable insights

"By sharing our journey and the benefits we've achieved, we aim to encourage other organisations to leverage technology and analytics in their HR strategies," Vidyadhari Djacaria, People Advisory, Frisian Flag Indonesia shares.

Frisian Flag Indonesia (a subsidiary of FrieslandCampina) has been around for almost 100 years since 1922. 

With more than 2,000 employees across the country, the organisation stays motivated by analysing market patterns and internal data, to prepare effective mitigation and retention plans. 

This is how it was able to take home the bronze award for 'Excellence in HR Innovation' at the HR Excellence Awards 2024 in Indonesia.

Riding high on the team's recent win, Vidyadhari Djacaria, People Advisory at Frisian Flag Indonesia, caught up with HRO to share the excitement, revealing how the team’s passion for innovation and cross-departmental collaboration fuelled its digital transformation journey, ultimately leading it to victory.

Q. What was the motivation that sparked your passion & business case for pursuing your outstanding people strategy?

Our motivation arose from the need to better understand resignation trends and predict them earlier. As our company works towards digital transformation, we saw this challenge as an opportunity to build an innovative solution using existing HR data. By analysing market patterns and internal data, we took a proactive approach to predict resignation trends and prepare effective mitigation and retention plans. 

Through collaboration with our data analytics team, we developed a machine learning model that enabled us to create more accurate retention strategies. This innovation allowed us to identify high-risk employees early and retain our high-potential and performing talents.

Our approach not only aimed to reduce turnover but also to establish HR as a strategic partner in achieving our organisational goals. 

Q. Looking back, can you share a challenge that you overcame in your journey of HR excellence? How did you triumph? 

One major challenge we faced was finding, choosing, and utilising all people data to build actionable insights. Gathering comprehensive employee data across multiple categories, such as employee profiles, professional motivations, performance history, etc., was essential. We collaborated closely with our data analytics team to create a machine learning model with good accuracy. This process involved extensive data collection and analysis, trial and error, and continuous revisions to ensure the predictive model's accuracy and relevance to real-world scenarios. 

The next challenge was bridging the gap between data-driven insights and human perspectives. While our machine learning model could predict resignations with good accuracy, it was essential to ensure alignment with the observations of HR and line managers. We built continuous collaboration by collecting feedback from various stakeholders to refine our model. By combining data-driven insights with empirical research and human observations, we created an approach that effectively addressed our turnover challenge. 

Q. Beyond the recognition, what impact do you hope your feature in the HR Excellence Awards would have on the HR community and manpower landscape? 

We hope that our feature in the HR Excellence Awards inspires the HR community to embrace data-driven approaches and innovative solutions to overcome common challenges. By sharing our journey and the benefits we've achieved, we aim to encourage other organisations to leverage technology and analytics in their HR strategies, building insights from people data that organisations already maintain. We aspire to continuously innovate using analytics as part of our HR practices, helping transform HR from a support function into a strategic partner. We are also scale up this innovation and collaboration to other HR scopes, such as recruitment and learning.

These steps allow corporations to thrive in the workplace. It helps people flex and grow into new skills, capabilities, and roles. Creates more positive and productive relationships between employees, but most importantly helps to reach goals and drive business values. 


Q. Could you share some advice you would give to others aspiring to follow in your footsteps? 

Our advice would be to embrace the power of data and technology while maintaining human perspectives. Organisations looking to start these innovations should begin by identifying key challenges that can benefit from data-driven insights. HR can be the initiator of these innovative projects, proving that innovation within a company isn’t limited to commercial or production processes.  

By leading these innovations, HR can become an impactful partner to sustain the business and achieve long-term corporate objectives. Build collaborative projects where HR, line managers, and data scientists work together toward common goals. Be open to test and learn environment, and continuously refine your approach based on constructive feedback and observations to promote positive change in productivity, performance, or behavior. By combining data analytics with human insights, you can create innovative solutions that drive sustainable success in talent management. 

Q. Let's talk inspiration! Who has been a driving force behind your success? 

Align with our corporate mission, Nourishing Indonesia to Progress, blended in our corporate culture and values, we continually pursue improvement projects, solve challenges, and engage in cross-functional collaborations. This environment encourages us to try new things, ask the right questions, and stay open to ideas.

Through discussions, we realised that the solution to our challenges wasn’t a typical HR practice but rather something that emerged from data analytics.

Our ongoing partnership with line managers provided practical insights that were crucial for refining our approach and ensuring effective follow-up on interventions.

This teamwork and innovative mindset, shared between our HR team, the data analytics team, and supported by senior management, have been key to achieving our goals and making a real impact on our talent management. Most importantly, the talents we have inspire us to continually seek better change, ensure they are valued within the organisation and hopefully can take our role to contribute a positive impact for our society. 


Read more interviews on why organisations have won trophies for their HR practices - head over to our Winning Secrets section!


Photos: Provided

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