hagebau Schneider

Knowing the company
hagebau is a network comprising approximately 250 medium-sized companies providing services in the building materials, timber and tile trade as well as the retail business. With over 900 sites in Germany, hagebau has an almost nationwide presence. The Soltau head office provides assistance to members in procurement, marketing and services functional areas. hagebau Schneider, based in Erlstätt, was founded in 1896 in Traunstein and has been a member of hagebau for 30 years. Today, the company operates eleven building centres between Vilsbiburg, Freilassing and Bad Tölz with a total staff of 350 employees.

Defining the strategy
Before Torex Workforce Management was introduced, the HR managers of hagebau Schneider's eleven building centres used to plan the employees' working times separately on paper. They had to account for the respective stores' customer footfall and the service requirements without any technical assistance. This often resulted in over- or understaffed shops or in employees performing duties not ideally matched with their skills.

The flexible opening hours made planning staffing requirements an even harder and time consuming task and given that high-quality service is central to hagebau Schneider's business success, the company decided to modernise their staff scheduling approach. Management needed a central, fully IT-based system to be able to schedule the right employees at the right time in the right store.

Choosing the solution
After careful evaluation, in 2005 hagebau Schneider decided to introduce Torex Workforce Management, the Torex solution for optimised staffing. This product was chosen, among other reasons, due to its flexibility and simplicity of operation. It now allows the company to plan their staffing flexibly and according to company-specific requirements. The solution offers reliable forecasts of staffing needs based on POS, customer and product information, automated staff scheduling and management as well as the precise capture of attendance times and hours worked. In addition, comprehensive reporting features enable managers to make sure that employees with the right skills are always at the right place at the right time. "Variable business hours make efficient staffscheduling particularly difficult. This problem can be overcome with a central, fully IT-based system such as Torex Workforce Management. It even allows us to take bad weather into account," says Max Schneider, Managing Director of hagebau Schneider, Erlstätt.

After a quick and smooth installation phase, hagebau Schneider was immediately able to profit from these benefits. The staff scheduling module significantly reduced the time required for planning thanks to automatic creation of staffing plans, which are generated by the system down to the minute based on customisable parameters.

Better account for employee preferences
Since the solution seamlessly integrates with the company's existing POS system, historic sales data can also be considered for calculating staffing levels. This combined with current information on seasonal special offers and requirements - for instance in gardening - provides an ideal foundation for drafting detailed staffing plans. What is more, the needs and preferences of employees can be taken into account much better than before. The user-friendly interface of Torex Workforce Management offers predefined forms and templates, providing for simple and quick creation of staffing plans. There are also functions for the graphical display of the employees' absences, overtime, contractual working hours as well as their skills and shift preferences.

In addition Torex Workforce Management offers the flexibility required to take sudden changes or local events into account. This enables hagebau Schneider to plan special events or offers at the store level or even to account for bad weather. The system centrally manages and stores all employee data, thus guaranteeing that up-to-date information is available in every store in a timely manner. Also, owing to fast and secure data exchange capabilities, the solution can be easily integrated with existing systems, doing away with redundant data entry.

Achieving return on investment
Highly detailed yet flexible staff scheduling allows the company to better and more rapidly address customer demands, thus helping them strengthen their competitive position. Personnel administration also benefits from the Torex solution, which now takes care of calculating time accounts, overtime etc. "Thanks to Torex Workforce Management our entire staff scheduling processes have become much more efficient. The solution helped us to optimise labour costs and at the same time improve our service and sales figures," comments Mr. Schneider.