UKG Announces Aspire EMEA Innovation Award Winners

UKG Announces Aspire EMEA Innovation Award Winners

12 organizations, including DHL, L'Oreal, McAfee, Sainsbury's, and Sodexo honored at UKG Aspire EMEA for advancing workforce innovation with the AI-powered UKG Workforce Operating Platform

UKG, a leading global AI platform unifying HR, pay, and workforce management, today announced the winners of its UKG Aspire EMEA Innovation Awards, recognizing customers who are using the UKG^® Workforce Operating Platform to drive data-led decisions, transform the frontline worker experience, and streamline operations across their enterprises.

"These award winners are leading a fundamental shift from simply managing work to intelligently orchestrating it," said Russell Howe, Group Vice President EMEA at UKG. "With the UKG Workforce Operating Platform, they're moving beyond automation to leverage AI and real-time data to understand workforce dynamics, reduce cost leakage, and anticipate what's next, so leaders can make faster, more confident decisions based on foresight, not hindsight."

The winners were recognized this week at UKG Aspire EMEA in London across six categories:

Exceptional Implementation

• DHL Supply Chain transitioned to the UKG Pro Workforce Management™ suite to unify workforce operations for more than 150,000 employees across 800+ global sites. Using an automation-driven approach, DHL executed on-schedule deployments across North America, Latin America, Europe, the U.K. and Ireland, and Asia Pacific, which has equipped leaders with AI-driven insights and immediate visibility into workforce data, enabling better decision-making, consistent payroll delivery, and improved performance at scale across its global network.
• Sodexo completed its UKG migration across six segments, 1,721 sites, and 30,000 employees, while also deploying the UKG Talk^® communications platform within its prison services. Through the migration, the team maintained payroll continuity, minimized disruption, and established a scalable platform that supports future growth and operational efficiency, making it easy to surface real-time workforce data to inform labor strategies and business decisions.
• AS Watson successfully launched the UKG Pro Workforce Management suite, UKG Talk, UKG People Assist™, and UKG Document Manager services simultaneously across two major retail brands with a largely deskless workforce to create a mobile-first people platform that delivered immediate value, improved adoption from the first pay period, and established a scalable foundation for long-term workforce transformation.

Frontline Worker Excellence

• Sainsbury's partnered with UKG to rapidly transform how its thousands of store colleagues plan and manage their working hours. In the first week alone, 92% of colleagues used UKG self-service tools, helping to process thousands of time-off requests and enabling colleagues to pick up additional overtime shifts. The grocer also introduced availability-first scheduling and flexible shift management, improving cover during busy periods such as public holidays while giving colleagues greater control over when and where they work.
• Les Ambassadeurs created a more transparent and empowering employee experience in its luxury hospitality environment with the UKG Ready^® suite by improving scheduling fairness, giving workers greater control over their work patterns, and reducing administrative burden - ensuring frontline employees have the schedules and hours that meet their needs while aligning labor to demand to deliver exceptional service.

Global Payroll Excellence

• McAfee, through a long-standing partnership with UKG, successfully implemented and has leveraged the UKG One View^® platform to transform its global payroll operating model. This transformation was delivered during a period of significant organizational change, resulting in a standardized, strongly governed global payroll framework across more than 30 countries, delivering greater than 99% on-time payroll accuracy, and a resilient solution proven over time.
• H.B. Fuller modernized payroll operations by unifying UKG One View and UKG Pro Workforce Management, consolidating payroll across 30 countries and approximately 80% of its global workforce. This created a more standardized, automated, and insight-driven payroll framework that improves compliance, reduces manual effort, and supports future growth.

Data-Driven Impact

• Aurobindo Pharma transformed the HR function of its European operations with UKG Ready, moving the global pharmaceutical manufacturer's European workforce management from manual, process-driven operations to a data-driven model with analytics and automation that delivers real-time visibility into workforce trends for faster decisions, stronger compliance, and more accurate workforce planning without compromising the agility of HR operations.
• EE leveraged the UKG platform to connect workforce data with commercial performance across its retail locations, giving leaders near real-time visibility into scheduling, attendance, and labor impact while embedding UKG data into the mobile network operator's 'My Store' performance hub to create predictive insights that support smarter decisions and improve ROI across its retail enterprise.

Next Gen HR

• L'Oréal implemented UKG Document Manager as a global solution for HR document management, standardizing processes, strengthening governance, and reducing manual effort at scale through the "L'OréalGPT" AI-powered automation. By embedding UKG within its broader HR ecosystem as a unified hub for HR documents, L'Oréal now supports the entire employee lifecycle - from onboarding to offboarding - which has accelerated turnaround times and improved the employee experience for its 95,000 global employees through more connected, data-driven HR service delivery.
• TÜV Rheinland modernized HR service delivery with UKG People Assist and UKG Document Manager by creating a single point for requests and automating document generation to improve consistency and transparency, leveraging AI to process more than 58,000 HR requests in the past year and delivering efficiency gains, stronger governance, and a scalable foundation for future automation.

ROI/Measurable Results

• Camira Fabrics transformed its workforce operations with the UKG Ready suite, reducing pay costs by up to 30% through improved absence management and cutting payroll preparation time by 50%. By replacing manual processes with automated workflows and real-time data, the textile manufacturer also achieved 99% global adoption, saving time, reducing risk, and delivering measurable ROI.

"These organizations understand that when you improve the way work works for people - especially those on the frontline - you unlock better outcomes everywhere," said Bob DelPonte, Chief Customer Experience Officer at UKG. "By leveraging AI and real-time workforce insights in the UKG Workforce Operating Platform, our customers are creating more connected, responsive experiences that meet employees where they are, making work simpler and more flexible, while helping their businesses move faster and operate more efficiently."

About UKG

UKG is a leading global AI platform for HR, pay, and workforce management. Unifying award-winning solutions with the world's largest collection of workforce data and people-first AI, UKG delivers unrivaled insights into today's workforce, helping organizations in every industry turn data into decisions that elevate productivity, culture, and the customer experience. Trusted by more than 80,000 organizations across 150 countries, tens of millions of employees - from small businesses to global enterprises - use UKG every day. To learn more, visit ukg.com.

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