Nordic Leisure Travel Group (NLTG) is a conglomerate of travel, leisure, and hospitality companies. Their vision is to enrich life by giving their customers the best weeks of the year.
Nordic Leisure Travel Group (NLTG) is a conglomerate of travel, leisure, and hospitality companies. The company is based in Stockholm, with employees both throughout the Nordics and at several destinations around the world. Their vision is to enrich life by giving their customers the best weeks of the year.
“In order for us to succeed with our goals, we need to work as one company,” says Fredrik Wessel. Fredrik is NLTG’s Chief HR Officer. “Whether you work in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, at our airline or at our destinations or hotels, we need to ensure that the employee experience is as similar as possible throughout our company.”
The company had found it difficult to have an overall understanding of their staff.
“We have previously had different systems, different spreadsheets throughout the group.” says Vanessa Eriksson, NLTG’s Head of Lean Management. “It was difficult to get a clear picture of the entire organisation.”
They found similar pain points in their company training. “Everyone had their own training approach,” says Vanessa. “They used different slide decks. They made courses independent from one another. This meant training quality was inconsistent. We couldn’t keep track on whether we were actually communicating the message we wanted to communicate.”
Not only did NLTG need a clear overview of their organisation and staff, but they also needed to unify their processes to create a consistent employee experience. This included automation.
“We had a goal to automate identity management in the IT environment,” says Viktor Ekelund. Viktor is a solution architect at NLTG, focusing on identity management. “While we had made several attempts to automate, we were unsuccessful precisely because we did not have the proper master data to automate on.”
Photo: Ving/Matina Tsogas
The company began researching Human Capital Management (HCM) systems. The ideal system would be able to handle employees spread across the globe and different types of operations.
“In order for us to succeed in our work, we needed an HR system where we could work with all our employees in the entire group,” says Fredrik.
The company felt this could be achieved through digitalisation. “We were looking for an HR system provider which could help us digitise all our HR processes. It was a key part of unifying both the employee and leadership experience,” says Vanessa.
The team eventually landed on CatalystOne. They were impressed with the automation features of the HR Master Data module. “An important reason why we chose CatalystOne is workflows, because our organisation is spread out,” says Fredrik.
They also were relieved by CatalystOne’s ability to integrate with their existing way of working. “We chose CatalystOne because we felt it was a flexible and user-friendly system that had high IT security,” Vanessa shares. “It was so incredibly adaptable to our processes. We felt that we don't need to adapt to a system, but the system adapts to our needs.”
Viktor agrees. “CatalystOne's API fills all our needs for easy integrations,” he says.
Photo: Ving/Agneta Renebo
“CatalystOne helps us create an employee experience that is consistent throughout our organisation. It also helps us get much more data and gather data in a clearer way,” says Fredrik.
The team found that the flexibility of the platform enabled a consistent, yet adaptable, employee experience across NLTG.
“As we can adapt and build the system so that it fits different parts of the organisation, we can also make it specific for certain parts. At the same time, the overall employee experience is the same,” says Fredrik. “The effect is that people recognise themselves no matter where they are in a company.”
As a result, CatalystOne has been an enabler in spreading NLTG company culture.
‘We can offer training to all employees that we have in the system,” says Vanessa. “We have development talks in the same way everywhere. We can better communicate our strategies and values. We now spread our culture in a new way. It unites all of us.”
“It really seems that it has made some processes and some work easier. The managers in particular find that there are much clearer processes.”
This is Zacharia Lamnaouar, People Development HR Specialist at NLTG. Zacharia was heavily involved in implementing CatalystOne in the company.
“My favourite functions in Catalyst One are clearly the ones that are most process oriented,” Zacharia shares. “I work a lot with workflows and appraisals. I’m a huge fan, mostly because they define processes much more clearly. They also are a big part in automating what we do in the company.”
Those automations have significantly improved how some teams work now.
“For example within the airline we conduct security checks,” says Vanessa. “Before, we sent a lot of emails to many different departments to collect everything we needed. Now we have built workflows where all key people who need to be involved are present and get what they need. It’s an automated process that was incredibly easy to build.”
The workflows have proven valuable throughout the employee journey.
“It is much clearer who will do what and when,” says Zacharia. When an employee starts, when an employee has changes, or when it comes to just general processes, there are always clear roles.”
Fredrik agrees. “Being able to use workflows and follow hirings, moves and everything like that has been an incredible advantage for us,” says Fredrik. “Many work with their leader from a distance, and we now have a structure to follow up the work much more easily. It looks the same regardless of whether you work at a destination, at the airline, at one of our head offices, or at a hotel.”
For IT, Viktor has also experienced a noticeable increase in efficiency.
“Access management has now become fully automated,” says Viktor. “We have eliminated a lot of manual work, and we have much better information about the users in our systems. Onboarding for new employees has become a lot smoother. Plus, we now feel confident that we always have the right active licenses and accounts in the environment.”
Viktor expects this new way of working to continue to deliver results.
“Now that we have HR-owned Master Data in place, we have completely different conditions for being able to automate much more on the IT side.” says Viktor.
“I think the best thing is that we can make changes ourselves when we need to make changes,” says Vanessa. “We’re not dependent on Catalyst One to do the work for us. We build a lot ourselves. It helps that the principles are quite similar between the modules.”
Zacharia agrees. “When it comes to using Catalyst One, it's super easy to be a superuser in the system,” says Zacharia. “Both when it comes to just working in it, and when it comes to advising everyone else in using the system.”
Zacharia credits this to the overall user experience. “For example, you can trigger events for when an action occurs. It's just a matter of going in, making a couple of clicks, and you're quickly on your way,” says Zacharia.
The team has also found the system to be simple to update based on user input.
“It’s incredibly easy as a superuser to accept feedback, then quickly update the system,” says Zacharia. “We’re able to constantly improve and make sure that the system is adapted to those who actually use it.”
This adaptability has also been a boon for meeting IT standards. “The system has been quite easy to adapt according to our needs around master data,” says Viktor. “APIs have fulfilled all our needs for smooth integrations. The system feels like a very modern system, and it feels like Catalyst One has particularly good plans going forward to further develop the system.”
Implementing CatalystOne has encouraged NLTG teams to work closely together. “To this day, I almost feel that I work half in HR and half in IT,” Zacharia shares. “A large part of my work as a superuser includes helping develop our database infrastructure. It paints a clear picture of how HR data and how a system like Catalyst One can contribute to how we work with reporting and automations.”
Managers across departments have found the approach to be both accessible and impactful.
“The fact that managers feel that this is a system that they can influence—and to which they can contribute to improve—means that they gain a close collaboration with us in HR,” says Zacharia. “Feedback is not far from action and update. The managers also have become far more engaged. They’re involved in how our HR system becomes a system designed according to their own needs and preferences.”
Ultimately, the collaboration has generated goodwill between departments. “It has been a lot of fun,” says Viktor. “It’s been successful collaboration between IT, HR, various parts of the business, and CatalystOne. With what we managed to achieve together, it’s a joy to see how well it’s turned out.”
Photo: Ving/Sara de Basly
For companies considering an HCM system, the NLTG team shares some tips.
“My advice, which comes from a positive experience now, is to really involve all those who will work in the system from the beginning,” says Vanessa. “It's important that they get to take part and have their say on how to build up the processes from the start.”
Viktor also believes it’s important to include all stakeholders.
“I think the key is to have all roles and all competencies in the same room,” says Viktor. “This includes both technology and business processes. Together, we have found the best way to solve challenges and be able to deliver business benefits.”
Beyond collaboration, Zacharia suggests frontloading effort to make sure a company’s results are long lasting.
“It's really important to do the work up front,” says Zacharia. “Think about what you want to achieve with your system, and who will be using it. Get in touch and engage with other parts of the organisation other than just HR. IT can be of huge assistance in making the most out of an HR system.”
Nordic Leisure Travel Group (NLTG) sells travel from Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland.
The group includes the leisure travel companies Ving, Globetrotter, Spies, Tjäreborg, Sunclass Airlines, travel retail Airshoppen and the hotel company Resorts & Hotels in which their own hotel chains Sunwing Family Resorts, Ocean Beach Club and Sunprime Hotels are included.
The number of annual holidays sold by NLTG in the Nordic countries is approximately 1.6 million.
NLTG won Herbert Nathan & Co.’s prize for HR System Project of the Year 2022/2023. The award was presented to the region’s leading travel operator during HR System Day in Stockholm in November 2023.
“CatalystOne helps us create an employee experience that is consistent throughout our organisation. It also helps us get much more data and gather data in a clearer way.”
– Fredrik Wessel, Chief HR Officer NLTG
