BRAX Leineweber replaces paper personnel files with the electronic personnel file from 2B Consulting.

More efficient processes at BRAX Leineweber through smart implementation of the electronic personnel file by 2B Consulting GmbH.

BRAX Leineweber

BRAX is a key player in the premium casual segment, founded in 1888 by Bernward Leineweber in Berlin. BRAX’s head office is located in Herford. Since 1971, the supplier of premium casual clothing has specialized in trousers for men and women. Based on its many years of success in this core segment, BRAX is now expanding its strengths to knitwear, shirts, blouses and outdoor wear. BRAX presents its products at all major specialist retail partners worldwide via shop-in-shop concepts and free-standing stores in Germany, Europe and Asia.

The human resources department at BRAX Leineweber manages a total of 1300 employees—and until 2015 this was done in the classical manner, with paper personnel files that were maintained by hand. “There was a lot of room for improvement, since our paper files had several disadvantages compared to new solutions,” says Marion Gruffke from IT Process Management at BRAX Leineweber. “For example, hard copy personnel files can be given out only once, and detail searches are more difficult and cannot compete with the convenient options offered by digital files,” says the IT expert. Another problem was that the decentralized locations found it more complicated than necessary to access the personnel files of their own employees. Together with her colleagues, Marion Gruffke looked at many solutions and held intensive discussions about updating their personnel files to a digital system in order to make HR processes simpler and more efficient in the future.

Impressed by the expertise of 2B Consulting

In its search for a service provider, BRAX Leineweber was impressed by the expertise of 2B Consulting from Nordhorn, Germany. In Herford, the 2B team demonstrated their solution for a digital personnel file (ElPa) based on the d.3ecm system and also presented an impressive interface to the human resources software VEDA. “We went into great detail, had many questions—and 2B Consulting always came up with possible solutions. In the end it was the competence of the project managers that convinced us,” says Marion Gruffke.

While BRAX Leineweber worked with a service provider to digitize almost 100,000 pages, 2B Consulting set about implementing d.3ecm and adapting the system to the requirements of the fashion brand, with impressive results. Today their personnel file 2.0 serves as the first point of contact for all important information: Managers and HR staff have extremely convenient access to all data at the click of a mouse—and without compromising data security. “With precisely defined security settings and access levels, we can now define much more precisely who is allowed to see which details of personnel files. This provides us with a much better way of preventing unauthorized access,” says Marion Gruffke.

Digitization makes processes smarter

An employee has keys for a store or the main building? A colleague at a branch office received a camera? Even though such tools are issued in a decentralized manner, responsible employees can now add this information to the personnel file with just a few clicks. Intermediate steps such as telephone calls or e-mails are no longer necessary. Thanks to the full-text search function, the persons in charge can also quickly trace who is using which hardware. The same applies, for example, to the provision of company cars. For a quick overview, the file also includes a specially designed cover page, which summarizes the most important data in the personnel file and is updated daily.

Workflows to make your work easier

The era of tediously searching for detailed information is finally over; for employees, this means significant time savings and improvements in their work, according to Marion Gruffke. But she and the IT Process Management team have even more suggestions for improvement. Soon, custom-defined workflows will be used to automate processes: in the case of fixed-term employment contracts, for example, reminders will be automatically emailed to decision-makers so that they can react in time. Further workflows are also being planned, for example for processing time-off requests.

Do digital personnel files mean that you can’t meet with employees without a tablet in your hand? “No, not at all,” says Gruffke. “Face-to-face meetings are still indispensable in HR,” emphasizes the IT expert. “You can’t just look at an iPad.”

The project at a glance:

• Digital personnel files based on d.3ecm from 2B Consulting replace paper personnel files
• VEDA HR system connected to d.3ecm

Implementation partner 2B Consulting GmbH

The mission: 2B Consulting creates digital solutions to make your work easier

As an experienced IT service provider, 2B Consulting focuses on Enterprise Content Management (ECM and DMS) solutions. Its mission is to eliminate paper from companies as much as possible and to provide digital solutions that make your daily work easier, more efficient and better prepared for the future. 2B Consulting specializes in simplifying, accelerating and safeguarding business processes through the electronic processing of documents and information.

In addition to the portfolio of d.velop AG, the team relies on its own developments and on implementing interfaces between d.3ecm and specialist applications. The company builds on its many years of past expertise with AS 400 from IBMi.