‘We had been looking for a provider along whom we could develop a long-term partnership by looking at the company’s reputation, maturity of the software solution for provision of services and the quality of the technical support. From my perspective, TotalSoft’s assets are flexibility, professionalism and a very good technical support team.’ - Reward and HR Services Manager Coca Cola HBC Romania
Company:
Coca-Cola HBC Romania, member of the Coca-Cola Hellenic Group, is the leader in the non-alcoholic beverages market in Romania. The company bottles a large variety of Coca-Cola products, ranging from carbonated refreshing beverages (Coca-Cola, Fanta, Sprite, Schweppes), non-carbonated (Cappy Nectar and Cappy Pulpy), to teas (Nestea), water (Dorna, Dorna-Izvorul Alb, Poiana Negri), energizing drinks (Burn) and Ready-to-Drink coffee (Illy). Coca-Cola’s products are bottled in factories that are strategically located in different regions of the country: Ploiești, Timișoara and Vatra Dornei. At the time (January 2014), the company has approximately 1.700 employees.
Situation:
Mid-2011, the HR Department of Coca-Cola HBC Romania decided to externalize various time-consuming activities, specifically salary calculations and personnel management, to a strong partner, that would use a safe, competitive software platform which would not bring unpleasant surprises regarding the business’s continuity.
‘We had been looking for a provider along whom we could develop a long-term partnership by looking at the company’s reputation, maturity of the software solution for provision of services and the quality of the technical support. From my perspective, TotalSoft’s assets are flexibility, professionalism and a very good technical support team.’ - Reward & HR Services Manager, Coca Cola HBC Romania
Solution
The contract came into effect in January 2012 with a timeframe of calibration between Coca Cola’s specific requirements and the services offered by TotalSoft. It was the moment when the working procedures were established between the teams, and in the system as well, so any possible error that could have emerged regarding salary calculations, HR data management or leave approval flow were eliminated.
In this period of time, the TotalSoft team worked at Coca Cola’s headquarters, decision that helped a lot with the rapid clarification of various uncertainties and removed the possible errors or time that would have been lost due to correspondence between teams. Once the procedures had been standardized, things got on the normal flow and Coca Cola’s HR team integrally transferred the salary calculations and personnel management activities to TotalSoft, keeping the attribution of periodically checking on the accuracy of TotalSoft’s activity.
‘I think that at a certain level of business you can only control things up to a point, then you have to trust that the partner that you have chosen will accurately provide your data and that they will learn to do things as well as you do them. The collaboration with TotalSoft is going very well, the best proof being that I only hear about this company on the day that my salary is transferred’ – Reward & HR Services Manager.
In order to manage timesheets for over 1700 employees, located in geographically dispersed areas, TotalSoft has implemented an online system which they adapted to Coca Cola’s requirements. Elements specific to the activity of production were included, so the detailed tracking of different types of absences, various work timetables that the compensation of employees was based on, records of overtime work and their recuperation, was implemented. This solution was integrated with the financial accounting system used by the company (SAP), which allowed the automated transfer of information as well as of the accounting notes necessary for the salary calculations.
Results:
- Offloading the HR specialists of the routine activities and switching their focus on management activities. Through the externalization of the salary calculations and personnel management, monthly declarations for authorities and payslips to TotalSoft, the HR team gained more time for the personnel management activities. ‘We strongly wanted to externalize 100% and to eliminate various internal flows that prolonged the response time to employees’ requests;
- Increased data security through the uniformization, simplification and automation of processes;
- Security in terms of audit;
- Elimination of human error. As a result of the implementation of the online timesheet application, the manual retrieval of information, human error and time spent on Excels were removed, the salary calculations getting automatically sent.
The quality of services provided by TotalSoft has led Coca Cola to the decision of extending their collaboration for the branches located in the Republic of Moldova as well. This way, since June 2012, the 200 Coca Cola employees from Chisinau have also been benefiting from TotalSoft’s services.
Case study done in 2013.