SwissP Defence AG is the successor organization ofRUAG Ammotec AG, a division of the Swiss technology group RUAG Ammotec, whichwas taken over by the Italian Beretta Holding in 2022. Until then, the company used the full range of RUAG Holding’s IT systems. After the sale, are orientation was necessary. Swiss P Defence had to acquire its own systems,including an electronic employee file. Based on the excellent experiencesenjoyed by its one-time sister company in Germany – RUAG Ammotec GmbH, which now operates under the name RWS GmbH – and its own market research, Swiss PDefence opted for Centric Employee File.

In SAP terms, the weapons manufacturer’s HR departmentis currently still working in hybrid mode: It’s partly using the old SAP HCM(payroll and time management) and partly working with SAP SuccessFactors. Thisdoesn’t affect Centric Employee File, which is at home in both worlds.

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The solution is simpleand easy to understand

The first impressions of Centric Employee File werepositive: The company saw it as very SME friendly: It offered a much bettercost-effectiveness ratio than the previous system and, above all, it offered asubscription model, with monthly fees and no need for a large initialinvestment. Specifically, for the Chief HR Officer of SwissP Defence AG thismeans: “The solution is simple and easy to understand, and we don’t have tospend a few thousand francs a year on it.” The team obtained valuable advice fromRWS GmbH on implementing and using Employee File – they were able to go livevery quickly.

During the implementation process, Centric and SwissPDefence’s IT department exactly replicated the register structure of the oldfiles in the new employee files. “During the implementation process, we hadvery good cooperation with Centric, and the data transfer process went offwithout a hitch,” reports the Chief HR Officer.

The seven HR department staff members work indifferent buildings, with many also working from home. One major advantage ofthe electronic employee file is that documents can be accessed from anywhere.The HR team find the new system easy and intuitive to use; there was no needfor lengthy training courses.

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The solution is simple and easy to understand, and we don’t have tospend a few thousand francs a year on it.”

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Speed is a clear advantage

ESS and MSS scenarios are not currently anticipated;at the moment, only HR staff have access. In general, there is a noticeablespeed effect: It’s no problem to quickly view an employee document, be it inthe office, at home, or in a meeting.

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Digitalization simplifies HR processes

The company’s HR department still uses plenty ofpaper, and many outgoing documents are still printed out, especially whensignatures are required. “This is where an end-to-end system like CentricEmployee File is very helpful, which makes it particularly interesting forSMEs,” says the Chief HR Officer. The reason is that it allows printeddocuments to be automatically entered into the corresponding employee dossieror register via a barcode. “This saves us unnecessary steps – a digitalizationeffect that simplifies our HR processes immensely.”

As with companies in other sectors, SwissP Defence issubject to the usual data protection regulations when it comes to the safetyand integrity of personal data. According to the Chief HR Officer, an employeefile solution for the defense sector thus does not need to have any specialfeatures.

The company is not yet using Centric’s HR Workflows,although it would certainly have great potential according to the Chief HROfficer.  However, until electronicsignatures are fully recognized in Switzerland, he’ll have to keep his foot onthe brake. He is already in intensive discussions about it with the legaldepartment. But the need for physical signatures is less of an obstacle atSwissP Defence than in multi-site organizations because all employees are basedat one location. And, as mentioned above, paper documents can be digitized andadded to the file extremely quickly thanks to barcodes.

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Centric Employee File saves us unnecessary steps – a digitalizationeffect that simplifies our HR processes immensely.

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Document Builder automatically generates all standard documents

Swiss P has also introduced Centric Document Builder and already started to create document types. Thanks to its deep SAP integration, this tool for process-supported document creation supports automation and workflows. The text modules and integration of master data from SAP HCM and SAP SuccessFactors lighten the load for staff members, while they can continue to work in Microsoft Word as usual.

The Chief HR Officer can see the tool’s advantages:“We can automatically generate all standard documents based on the employeedata from SuccessFactors. It works well; we’ve set up all the standardizeddocuments in it. After training from Centric, we can also upload our owndocuments and populate them.” Nowadays, from the moment an employee is hired,their entire life cycle, from starting a new job to professional development toleaving the company, is handled using ready-made documents. In combination withthe electronic Employee File, this is a model set-up for modern HR work at aninnovative medium-sized company in Switzerland.

In Centric Document Builder, we can automatically generate all standard documents based on the employee data from SuccessFactors. That works well.

Chief HR Officer

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