Wirtgen Group is an international manufacturer of machinery for road construction and maintenance. Their absence management journey started with a manual paper-based system, much like many other organizations, which they used to book holidays and log sickness. However, they always found this method to be problematic due to the limited absence of visibility that the paper-based system offered, leading their workforce to rely on their own knowledge of who was out of the office. A situation that often resulted in holiday clashes, negative holiday booking experiences, and limited help being offered to ill employees.

Wirtgen Group then went on a mission to further improve their organization and set up a company intranet. To increase adoption of the intranet, they built a bespoke holiday system that would be hosted on their Microsoft Sharepoint. This system was a vast improvement from their paper-based system and introduced authorization changes, making the process of booking holidays more regulated. Although the bespoke system was an improvement, it was far from perfect. They lacked the ability to see absence within set teams and departments, allowing multiple employees from the same team to take holiday at the same time, potentially leaving their business understaffed.

To face these challenges head-on, Wirtgen Group went out to the market to find an absence management system that could alleviate the headaches their previous system was causing. After some in-depth research, edays Absence Intelligence platform emerged as the solution that could best meet their requirements.

This was because Wirtgen felt that edays people-centred approach set them apart from other platforms on the market. Citing edays ease of use, simplicity, and ability to reveal valuable absence insights as key reasons for their choice. edays and Wirtgen Group then began to start working together, identifying three core project drivers:

The first was to implement a system that could easily integrate with the payroll solution Wirtgen was looking to introduce in the future.

The second was to introduce a system that would provide greater visibility of planned absence within teams and departments, allowing them to better plan their holidays around each other.

The third and final project driver was to utilize a system that would empower Wirtgen to better collect and manage unplanned absence data to help employees in need.

edays Absence Intelligence platform was up and running within four weeks of sign-off and had a significant impact right from the get-go. It was well-received by Wirtgens workforce due to its smooth, user-friendly interface that was easy to use regardless of if they were an admin, line manager, or employee. Managing well-deserved time off has truly become a pleasurable process, with teams now are easily able to see who is in and out of the office, enabling them to plan their time off more efficiently around their colleagues.

Wirtgen Group has also taken their employee wellbeing support practices to the next level, with edays allowing them to easily identify disruptive unplanned absence patterns and prompt early intervention. This has empowered Wirtgen to take a proactive approach to open meaningful discussions with their workforce surrounding their health and wellbeing and offer a helping hand to those in need.

edays has also helped Wirtgen Group to store and manage important employee documents such as training certifications through their HR document storage module. Automatic triggers have been put in place to alert Wirtgen to the expiry dates of these certifications, allowing them to send the employees in question on the relevant training they need before expiration. They also can withdraw valuable information from their system which identifies employees with the relevant qualifications needed to help with a certain tender.

Wirgten Group has some big plans to further embed edays into their organization and is looking to start exploring a potential integration with a new payroll provider, once they have it in place.