Filtermist: Managing absence alongside M&A and business growth

Filtermist is part of the Swedish organization, Absolent Group. They provide an extensive range of products and services, which are designed to ensure the air in production facilities is free from contaminants. Ian Reece, who is responsible for Filtermist’s Group HR wanted a solution that allowed him to continue to achieve the company’s focus on continuous improvement and offer greater autonomy to Filtermist’s workforce.

Ian and his team began to see issues initially due to the company’s rapid growth. Over the course of five years, Filtermist made a number of acquisitions which naturally increased the number of employees that the HR department was responsible for. Ian commented that “our workload practically grew overnight”, and he and his team realized they needed to be much smarter in the ways they worked, so as to manage the situation effectively.

On top of this, holiday booking, absence recording, and noting of training courses were all processes done manually via paper and spreadsheets. The risk here was that individuals might not remember when the holiday was taken, or even when training was completed, which left company records unreliable. These reasons, along with the inefficiencies associated with a manual logging process led Ian his team to investigate new ways of managing absence.

edays began working with Filtermist in February 2020. The system was implemented to allow the team to manage all forms of absence, time management, and training. This has seen the HR team move away from being heavily paper-based, to a team that is able to be productive and proactive with their day-to-day HR tasks.

With much of its workforce working from home during the pandemic, the edays system has offered greater control and visibility to employees. This has led to more flexibility to allow individuals to balance their work-life with other commitments.

The introduction of edays has made the role of recording absence far easier for Filtermist’s HR team. Within the business, the Shared Services Department also uses several online systems to manage payroll, DSE assessments, expenses, car hire, and vehicle checks – all of which are contributing to the aim of becoming a paperless department.

The business keeps track of success via Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), and, now that everything is recorded online in one place, the team is able to access this data far quicker with easily downloadable reports that allow them to identify the important trends they need to be aware of.

The role edays has played during the pandemic has also been of value. Midway through 2020, Filtermist was able to launch its flexible working and remote working policy. “This,” Ian stated, “works perfectly alongside the clocking in and out function in edays.” This function allows remote employees to record their time and clock in and out as needed, which in turn allowed them to plan work around their personal lives. This has been particularly helpful through the pandemic where many of our employees have been juggling work with childcare and home-schooling.