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    COMPANY

    Colgate-Palmolive

    INDUSTRY

    Consumer Goods

    Colgate-Palmolive

    Colgate-Palmolive and One Model: Building a Data-Driven People Strategy

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    “We needed expertise in this space. One Model has centralized our workflow, allowing our people to reduce time spent hunting for data and more time acting on it. It’s the efficiency engine that powers our daily decision making.”
    – Courtney McMahon, Head of Global People Analytics, Colgate-Palmolive
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    The Challenge

    Inconsistent Data and Inefficient Tools

    As Colgate-Palmolive initiated their People Analytics journey, they identified several challenges that needed to be addressed.

    One of the primary concerns was the lack of consistency in calculations. Reports across regions or divisions often differed because local HR teams calculated key metrics independently, creating inefficiencies as well as inconsistencies in data presentation.

    “There were limited standardized calculations for what people were presenting to a global audience, so data across regions didn’t necessarily match.” – Edwin Aiken, People Analytics Manager, Colgate- Palmolive

    Colgate-Palmolive laid the groundwork for change by building an internal solution using various systems to achieve an initial level of success standardizing key metrics. However, they recognized that expanding beyond initial data sets, providing on-demand visibility and improving the user experience would require significant resources, so the team pivoted to a partnership model to accelerate the journey to a unified People Analytics capability.

    “I ask people, ‘Do you remember running the Active Employee Report?’ It took so long, and you’d have to clean everything independently just to get something usable.” – Edwin Aiken, People Analytics Manager, Colgate- Palmolive

    Colgate-Palmolive’s team came to the conclusion that a successful People Analytics strategy required a tool with greater flexibility, accessibility, and real-time performance. This insight drove the decision to seek an integrated solution powerful enough to support their people strategy.

    The Solution

    Empowering HR with One Model

    Colgate-Palmolive began working with One Model in 2020 following a proof of concept in 2019. The implementation addressed several key priorities.

    1. Centralizing and Standardizing Data

    Establish a unified platform that integrates data from disparate systems, including SAP SuccessFactors, SAP HCM, and ATS, LMS and survey platforms to provide a unified view into people data and drive consistent data definitions across teams and regions.

    “We see that people are consistently leveraging One Model as their first point of HR data access.” – Courtney McMahon, Head of Global People Analytics, Colgate-Palmolive

    2. Enabling Self-Service Analytics

    Provide Business HR, Centers of Excellence, finance leaders and division presidents with access to tailored dashboards and storyboards. This eliminates bottlenecks, improves agility, and boosts data literacy and decision making across the organization.

    “For leaders like the SVP, Global Inclusion & People Relations, this access has been transformative—revealing a depth of insight that made her feel truly prepared to drive meaningful change.” – Courtney McMahon, Head of Global People Analytics, Colgate-Palmolive

    3. Improving Talent Planning

    Enable standardized talent review processes and visibility into people manager progression to generate insights to support proactive leadership development. For example, knowing when employees became first-time managers allows Colgate-Pamolive to distinguish between new and experienced managers and cross-reference data with other metrics. This insight revealed that lower-tenure managers were more likely to face steeper learning curves, prompting targeted support efforts for this population.

    “One Model helps us identify new people managers and track areas needing development earlier. That kind of insight wasn’t possible before, and helps us develop our talent more effectively.” – Courtney McMahon, Head of Global People Analytics, Colgate-Palmolive

    4. Driving Data Governance

    Identify inconsistencies in job codes, compensation, and other foundational data to enable better governance and cleaner downstream analytics.

    “Surfacing inconsistencies is a good thing – we need clean data.” – Edwin Aiken, People Analytics Manager, Colgate- Palmolive

    Impact

    Data-Driven HR

    Colgate-Palmolive’s HR team, supported by One Model, has transformed the way they work with data. All of HR has access to real-time data, visualized through intuitive dashboards. Leaders are able to validate their instincts with facts, and the People Analytics team is seen as a strategic partner.

    Key outcomes include:

    • Democratized data to enable decision makers and operations teams within HR and business teams, enabling them to answer complex questions without relying on a central team. This reduces turnaround times from days or weeks to minutes and leads to faster, more confident decision-making across the business.

    • Data driven, consistent decision-making, driven by standardized metrics and centralized data access. Leaders can access trusted data instantly and align on a shared understanding of key metrics. This has streamlined everything from talent reviews to organizational planning and ensured that leadership teams are making better decisions grounded in data, not guesswork.

    • Increased data governance maturity, enabling smarter and more secure data usage. One Model has helped Colgate-Palmolive enforce better practices across data entry, structure, and analytics.

    “We needed expertise in this space. One Model has centralized our workflow, allowing our people to reduce time spent hunting for data and more time acting on it. It’s the efficiency engine that powers our daily decision making.” – Courtney McMahon, Head of Global People Analytics, Colgate-Palmolive

    Colgate-Palmolive continues to deepen its use of One Model across talent acquisition, compensation, and learning. As the company refines its data strategy and governance, One Model remains central to enabling visibility, agility, and continuous improvement in its people strategy.

    fast
    Faster Decisions at Scale from Weeks to Minutes

    Colgate-Palmolive gave HR and business teams direct access to trusted people data, reducing turnaround times weeks to minutes. With self-service analytics in place, decision makers can answer complex workforce questions faster and act with more confidence.

    source of truth
    One Source of Truth for More Consistent Talent Decisions

    By centralizing data and standardizing key metrics across regions and teams, Colgate-Palmolive created a shared foundation for decision-making. Leaders can now align on trusted data instantly, streamlining talent reviews, organizational planning, and other critical workforce decisions.

    data governance
    Better Data Governance for a Stronger Workforce Strategy

    With improved visibility into data quality issues and stronger governance practices, Colgate-Palmolive has built a more reliable analytics environment for HR. That foundation helps the company spend less time hunting for data and more time using insights to support talent planning, leadership development, and business growth.

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