Bechtle: Unravelling HR Data Complexity
How SD Worx Insights helped Bechtle streamline HR analytics
Bechtle is one of the most successful IT service providers in Europe. The Bechtle Group offers end-to-end IT services and solutions, from hardware and software products to expert strategy advice, and managed services that support IT operations. The approximately 85 IT system houses and 24 e-commerce companies in 14 European countries make Bechtle a unique, future-oriented IT partner for medium-sized businesses, corporations, and public sector clients.
Maarten Dullen, HR & Legal Advisor for Bechtle Management, the shared service center for all Dutch Bechtle, shared his experience working with HR Data and Insights at SD Worx.
Difficulty accessing HR data
"In the Netherlands, the workforce now consists of more than 800 people spread over various companies," says Maarten. "We received more and more requests from our internal organization to perform various analyses on HR data. This information is necessary to justify certain policy choices. A good development, of course, but to be able to do that well, you need an overview and the right expertise."
The HR department has wanted to gain better understanding into the HR data available for a long time. However, Maarten points out that until now colleagues often lacked the specialist knowledge or data analytical skills needed to unlock the insights. As well as the difficulty to organize the data in a clear and concise way, through one tool, rather than pulling data from various sources. Overall, a high threshold to get started.
Rollout of an easy-to-use visualization tool for HR analytics
The wish was clear: a visualization tool for HR analytics that would make it easier to access HR data in a clear way. The most important criteria, according to Maarten: accuracy, user-friendliness and ease of maintenance with regard to the integration.
"Our contact person at SD Worx told us about 'SD Worx Insights – Insights Cloud' and that's how the ball started rolling," he says. "We started the pilot in 2022, but since the beginning of 2023 we have been running Insights Cloud completely independently. By linking the SD Worx HR & Payroll tool with Power BI, the threshold for unlocking HR data has become so low that I am perfectly capable of visualizing HR insights and, if present, observing trends."
The complexity at the start of SD Worx Insights – Insights Cloud was primarily in establishing the connection, a one-time action that has to take place before you can get started with the application. Previously, the HR team at Bechtle mostly worked with Excel exports as a source for analytics. It was a relatively large amount of work and also error-prone to periodically updating the source data. After establishing the link with Data & Insights, the data is always automatically up-to-date.
Due to the confidentiality of the data, Bechtle has deliberately chosen to keep the team working with the solution small. Moreover, Maarten's prior knowledge in the field of data analysis is of course a very big advantage to get this project off to a good start.
"Now we can be confident that the data is always up-to-date. It is liberating to be able to work with all the data that is available in SD Worx's HR tool. This offers me various possibilities that are not feasible with ad-hoc reports or standard overviews, for example. As a result, the tool absolutely meets my expectations."
Extend dashboards and automate administrative HR processes
"Initially, the goal was to 'get started' with HR data." Says Maarten. This started in a low-threshold way, with the help of the team within SD Worx that supervised the pilot phase. They converted the reporting requirements into a few simple dashboards that Bechtle's HR team could start using immediately.
The longer Maarten and his team worked with the solution, the more complex functionality, with increasing unique dashboard and intricate reports. From the first dashboards, they are now developing several new dashboards (including dashboards in which HR data is combined with non-HR data) themselves, completely according to their own needs. Maarten: "In the meantime, we are working on automating certain administrative processes using the tool. For example, we are working on automated absence and leave dashboards."
The limitations at the moment lie mainly in the lack of time and the complexity of the data/analysis they want to perform. "Internally, there has already been a lot of progress in the available knowledge of Power BI in a short period of time," says Maarten, "we also hope that we will soon see an increase in the demand for HR data to substantiate certain policy choices."
"Our experience with SD Worx Insights has been very pleasant.” says Maarten. "There were a lot of resources available, and we are very pleased with the way we were guided in the pilot phase. We also think it's fantastic that we are constantly working on expanding the available tools. Tasks that used to cause challenges are no longer an obstacle thanks to technical developments such as SD Worx Insights."