SAE Institute

SAE Institute

The all-round carefree package for HR processes

Industry: Education and research

About the company: For four decades now, the SAE Institute has trained the creative minds of tomorrow – with state-of-the-art technology, consummate instructors, fun, and a passion for the job. The SAE has 12 offices and almost 350 employees in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland alone.

Willi Woeber

Willi Wöber
Human Resources Manager

Logo SAE

The Challenge

As a part-time HR manager, Willi Wöber was solely responsible for managing almost 200 employees in 12 offices using Excel files. “This took up a great deal of time and was simply unnecessary,” explains Willi.
The error rate was high because our HR processes were too convoluted.
However, it was with the Excel files that Willi finally reached his limit. “Our processes were very convoluted, which made it very difficult to carry out HR work. Reporting became impossible and data protection involved an incredible amount of work,” Willi says. “It took several days to prepare the payroll.” These inefficient HR processes caused an increasing lack of transparency and a higher error rate.

Cumbersome processes caused by distributed information

Ensuring data protection

Impossible reporting

Duration of preliminary payroll

employees in DACH

offices in DACH

times more employees with Personio

The Decision

One important criterion for Willi was that the implementation should take place quickly across all offices. Many providers were tested, but in the end, Personio’s speed (the implementation would take only 10 days), price, and ease of use won out. “In our comparisons, Personio was the only tool that worked from day one and was intuitive to use.”

Additionally, the software needed to be able to cover all the core HR processes. The one thing that Willi wanted to avoid was bringing in several incompatible tools. “Personio takes care of all our core HR processes. All our data is in one place, which gets rid of a great deal of stress. We can involve our employees in HR processes and thus increase transparency and information density across the whole company.”

SAE Institute

We can now supply figures we have not had for ten years.

The Result

In the meantime, Willi has been able to focus his creativity on conceptual and strategic HR work again. “Personio is the central platform in our company. It is where all the important personal data is stored and all HR processes converge. This saves me an incredible amount of stress because I always know where to find the information I need.”

Willi now uses the roles and access rights system to involve employees in HR processes, for example in recruitment. Personio makes it much easier to coordinate and collaborate across different offices. In addition, Personio simplifies HR administration, which has become even more important as the number of employees has almost doubled over the last few years.

Data exchange is also easier with Personio, and data protection is no longer an issue. Reports can simply be shared with the appropriate colleagues. “We can now supply figures we have not had for ten years, for example, an overview of salary development at individual offices or the turnover rate (employee fluctuation rate),” Willi reports.

Additionally, we save an enormous amount of time, for example on the preliminary payroll. All employee data is stored in one place, and it is easy to get an overview of any changes. Exports to the payroll accountant are a matter of one simple click. “It used to take me days to prepare the payroll. Now I can add employee data to Personio on an ongoing basis and just check it at the end of the month,” says Willi.

All employee data in one place

More efficient HR processes

The preliminary payroll practically runs itself

What do you appreciate most about Personio?

“Willi values Personio not just as all-in-one software but also as a partner. “When you have a partner like Personio, who a) understands what is important and b) provides a service in a very short time, this builds an incredible level of trust. The customer onboarding process was excellent and the support team would answer queries in no time at all.”

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