How Gardec is bringing HR closer to their employees

Who?

Gardec is the largest shipyard on the Belgian coast. They have a large team of experienced employees and work with temporary contracts when needed. As an expert in ship repairs, dry-outs, on- and offshore installations, steel structures and more, Gardec needed a technological HR solution that could assist them.

Time savings and efficiency

For Leen Lehoucke, HR manager at Gardec, there was a need for HR support in 2018. Gardec was growing rapidly, and with each new employee it became more difficult to keep an overview in the classic, paper-driven HR administration. There were a few requirements: a digital solution, with lots of features, and preferably an open data source so that the data could be used in other ways. That's how they ended up at Officient! There are also significant time savings with the many onboardings. "Before, employees had to stop by our office for all information and documents. If we were in meeting or not in our office for a while, they had to return later. It was all very slow and not efficient," says Julie De Baerdemaeker, HR Officer. The same goes for updating personal data. Employees use the Self Service app and can consult their personal data at any time: salary details, leave, recovery hours,...

We used to have cabinets full of folders, Excel lists, each colleague with his own system... It was difficult to keep up to date and we lost a lot of time looking for things.

Leen Lehoucke

Contact with employees

Leen and Julie now solely use the Communications module to inform their employees. "It used to be a real tangle to communicate with everyone. There is often no time to inform employees via a 'Gardec newspaper', posters or e-mails. Moreover, employees work on several sites. Through the Self Service app, it is easy to quickly reach everyone," according to Julie. Gardec employees are also happy with the Officient Self Service. Leen especially experiences that employees are more engaged in HR thanks to the convenient application. "Because they can take control of their own HR, there is more connection. The threshold is lower to share or communicate more private matters. Employees enjoy keeping their own profiles up to date," says Leen.