HR Department Scores the Winning Goal

“Noticeably different”. That's how 1. FC Köln sees itself – and it is. The football club is the fourth largest in Germany, and for many, it’s far more than just a club. This sentiment also applies to its almost 1,000 employees. They keep the athletes free to focus on the game, working in administration, IT, in the fan shop, as trainers, and in the stadium’s catering. The constantly growing club needed to rethink their approach to HR: "Most HR processes ran in parallel in several different solutions," Kathrin Eckes recalls. What they needed was a holistic, digital HR system. 

Dominic Theißen, Head of IT, explains: "We wanted automated, scalable workflows, integrations with existing systems such as Teams and DATEV, and cloud hosting. Four software-as-a-service products came up for selection, and Personio turned out to be a suitable solution."

The software had to be implemented at short notice. In the early stages, some of the staff were asked to use the system before it was implemented."We gave approximately 400 temporary staff from the catering and shops access to Personio early on so that they could record their times,” Kathrin adds.“Through the role-based access control, we were able to define which features could be viewed and used while implementation continued in the background," Kathrin explains."It was great that we had our own Customer Success Manager from Personio. He was always available to us and helped us enormously during the implementation."

Since the introduction of Personio, the HR department has been playing in a new league. This is especially true for the all-important recruiting of various employees: from temporary staff to working students, from interns to specialists in administration such as legal and IT.

The process was restructured by Personio, and the system now serves as a central tool for all stakeholders, describes HR Specialist Annette Pautasso: "After we have outlined the requirements and tasks for a position, we activate the advertisement directly in Personio.” 

“The process is transparent and convenient – we simply publish the ad across all portals using the multiposting function. This used to be time-consuming and laborious. Now it works at the push of a button."The interview planning that followed used to be a coordination marathon via telephone and email. However, the smart interview scheduling feature in Personio led to a significant reduction in workload. Available slots of interviewers are now automatically shown and candidates can choose from them with just one click.

"The selected slot then automatically appears in the interviewer's calendar, optionally with a video chat link," explains Annette."From an IT perspective, features like this are particularly valuable because they allow us to integrate Personio with our entire tool landscape," Dominic adds. 

1. FC Köln is also exploring new approaches to job advertisements. Vacancies are advertised directly in the stadium via posters with QR codes and  via the club's social media channels."With the tracking links generated in Personio, we can track the origin of applications and then target the most successful channels more," reports Annette."That way, we use our resources more efficiently."