REO Regionalentwicklung Oberland KU

Future-Proofing HR Work

Industry: Public Sector

About the company: The public-private partnership REO Regionalentwicklung Oberland KU (REO) has one key mission: the future-oriented development of business and community in its district. With a carefully coordinated package of initiatives, it aims to implement multidisciplinary projects designed to close gaps in infrastructure, connect people, and create added value for the region.

Team-2019-Coworkerei
Bahar Yilmaz
Bahar Yilmaz

Office and Event Management Trainer

REO Logo

The Challenge

The REO (with its three shareholders: Landkreis Miesbach, Kreissparkasse Miesbach Tegernsee, and Unternehmerverband Landkreis Miesbach e.V.) focuses on project work, networking, and events in nine areas of the public sector, including mobility, start-ups, training, and sustainability.

This is a time-intensive, highly concentrated, and above all, flexible business for the REO team. “For HR, this meant we had to make sure that all the HR admin was kept as under control as possible,” explains Bahar Yilmaz, office and event management trainer at REO responsible for HR work.

“This was the only way we could make more time for the important project work and then invest it strategically in individual projects.” Remote work, digitalisation, and new work are additional areas that REO wants to make attractive and applicable for companies in the Miesbach region.

However, during the pandemic, these topics suddenly also became a challenge in their own organisation. “Luckily, we had already put some tools in place shortly before the Covid-19 outbreak that allowed us to organise digital team meetings and appointments with external partners.”

And so REO was able to meet the challenge of setting out the future topics for the region within their own organisation. “For example, working from home has rapidly become much more prevalent in our company over the last 24 months,” reports Yilmaz.

To free up more time for project work, we needed to future-proof the administrative aspect of HR.

As the employees’ daily working routine is generally shaped by their many onsite appointments throughout the region, a uniform and flexible means of tracking attendance would not have been possible without a digital HR tool. Each employee maintained their own individual schedule.

“Additionally, the fact that we as a company are supported by public funding and hence have to record our working hours for each project meant that making the switch to digital HR was unavoidable,” says Yilmaz. For example, REO projects are supported by the funding programs of the German Free State of Bavaria and the European Union.

It was also the case that onboarding would unleash a flood of documents needing to be signed, and HR admin, in general, was the source of a great deal of mail to HR. Thus: “We needed and wanted to bring all aspects of HR together in one holistic tool and create a basic digital infrastructure.”

  • Very limited digital HR processes

  • Inconsistent and inflexible attendance tracking

  • Increased organisational work due to slow processes

15
15
employees
1
1
office location in Miesbach
1
1
HR manager

The team was very enthusiastic from day one.

Decision and Implementation

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, many in-person events had to be cancelled in the Miesbach district. This gave REO time to focus on finding the right HR tool for their needs. “We found Personio very quickly and soon made the decision to go with it,” remembers Yilmaz, looking back on the process.“Personio was able to fulfill all our key requirements – and did so within one holistic tool, which was just what we wanted.”

During the entire decision-making process, I always felt secure and in good hands.

“As well as the excellent explanatory videos and webinars, we particularly liked the personal level of support that we received from our contacts at Personio. It was all very professional. I always felt secure and in good hands – and in my experience, that is not always a matter of course. We received fast and specific help with absolutely all of our questions,” says Yilmaz, describing the decision-making process.

There were no problems during the six-week implementation phase. This was an important factor for REO’s continuously ongoing project work. “We were ready to get started straight away, and my colleagues were very enthusiastic from day one,” recounts Yilmaz with a smile.

The Result

All employees enter their own attendance and absence data, as well as their vacation requests. Personio is also able to support HR with adjusting salaries based on public sector pay agreements. In the past, this always required careful tracking of the time each employee spent on each pay grade, along with manual administrative work.

“Now, the software automatically notifies me when an employee reaches a new public sector pay grade, and then their salary can be adjusted,” explains Yilmaz. Payroll data can be sent to the external payroll office with a simple mouse click.

Personio automatically notifies me when a new public sector pay grade has been reached. There is no way I can forget anything now.

“To put it in a nutshell, I can say that the quality of our HR work has developed very positively, and I can now work in a much more strategic and content-focused way,” says Yilmaz.“ Next, I’m going to focus on building up the area of training for employees – and now I have enough time for this. I’m looking forward to discussing this with Personio.”

After almost a year of using Personio, Yilmaz sums up: “The greatest strength of Personio is that it makes me more professional and efficient. I find the automatic calculation of overtime, additional hours, and vacation days to be especially useful, and my colleagues are also very enthusiastic about it. And the app is an everyday favourite with the team because it can be used from anywhere.”

In the near future, REO will be introducing project-related attendance tracking, which had not been possible when they first started using Personio. This will allow them to benefit from automated reporting. A DATEV integration is also on the agenda. These are all elements that will save time for HR.

“Personio contributes to the further development of our corporate vision. We see ourselves as a future-oriented company, and with Personio, we are using a state-of-the-art product. We do not just want to shape the future in our region; we want to live this philosophy on a day-to-day basis.”

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