Desotec

Before Personio, Desotec ran its HR across several separate systems and a lot of spreadsheets. Data sat in different places and processes were manual, with little transparency for the employees the records described. Eveline started working with Desotec as an HR and payroll consultant two and a half years ago, first on payroll and then on its first HRIS. She led the Personio implementation from the ground up: gathering data across systems and countries, setting up master data, and building the onboarding and recruitment workflows.

She appreciates Personio for what it leaves out.

"I don't want a system full of features that make it look nicer but don't do the job. Personio does what it has to do, and that's exactly what a payroll or HR system needs."

Payroll, though, was a separate world. Belgian payroll law is unusually detailed, and Desotec's pay runs happen in SD Worx eBlox. Keeping HR and payroll coordinated meant entering the same changes in both systems, which cost time and invited mistakes.

"Nobody likes double input, and it leads to more mistakes."

For the interface between Personio and SD Worx eBlox, Desotec looked at two providers. One had a slicker sales pitch. PeopleSync stood out for something Eveline valued more.

"They're from Belgium, so they know what Belgian payroll and legislation actually involve. They're very hands-on and they know what they're talking about. From the very beginning I was confident they would guide us correctly."

Eveline knows the stakes:

"In payroll, if something goes wrong, everyone sees it and everyone comes to you."

PeopleSync built it for one system in particular: SD Worx eBlox, the platform Desotec runs payroll on. An integration like this has to match the exact payroll product on the other end, which keeps it purpose-built rather than generic. Payroll itself stays in eBlox.

The approach is deliberately selective. Belgian blue-collar hourly wages need four decimal places, and Personio holds two, so Desotec chose to keep those out of the interface rather than force a workaround. PeopleSync also built checks that run before the interface sends data: if someone's marital status changes, for example, the system asks for the partner details payroll will need, so the checks catch errors before they ever reach SD Worx eBlox. The interface sends only changed fields, and the team could see exactly what moved.

"You always have to weigh whether interfacing a field really saves you time. Don't build an interface just to say you have one. Interface what helps, and leave out what doesn't."

After four test runs, go-live was calm.

"I was never nervous about go-live. When something came up in testing, we could talk it through and they helped find the right solution."

Double entry is gone on the synced fields. Eveline estimates the interface, together with Personio's onboarding and recruitment flows, saves about half an hour per new hire and roughly 15 minutes a day on smaller changes, close to two hours a week. In addition to the timesaving, she points to transparency as a core benefit:

• 2 hours a week saved on payroll admin

• 30 minutes saved per new hire

• No more double data entry on synced fields

• One transparent source of employee data

"For me the biggest benefit is transparency. People can see the data behind their pay, and if something like their marital status is wrong, they spot it, because it's the same data that feeds payroll."

Access rights and permissions let each department own its part, which she counts as the real value of an HR system.

"The real strength of an HR system is everyone working in it together. I can give procurement the rights to manage their own fields, so when someone gets a car or a phone, they own it, not the payroll team."

Desotec's shift follows a pattern Personio sees across its base of more than 16,000 organisations: manual, spreadsheet-heavy HR gives way to automation, and the time that frees up goes back into strategic work.

Desotec uses the time they’ve saved for work that moves their organisation forward. The team built its job architecture over the last year, the kind of project that needs real focus rather than data admin.

"The time it frees up lets us work on bigger projects. We've been building our job architecture for a year, and now there's room to focus on work like that."

Eveline's advice to other Belgian businesses still keying payroll changes twice is practical: be strategic about what you connect.