The charisma of Continental Hotels employees is supported by TotalSoft
The database is unique and therefore accessible from anywhere, but we set the application configurations at the headquarters, and the colleagues from other subsidiaries cannot change them. This is a real advantage because we eliminated inconsistencies, we can perform analysis and generate reports at any time.
The company
Founded in 1991, Continental Hotels is the first hotel chain in Romania. At the moment, it has a chain of 14 hotels placed in the most important cities of the country and a team of more than 1,000 employees. According to the development strategy that includes increasing the number of locations, it is assumed that the number of employees will increase, even to be double in the next 3-4 years.
The situation
The company was using another software solution that didn't work in centralized way, each hotel had it's own database and the HR team in the headquarters was wasting a lot of time by centralizing them. Therefore, the problems were related, on one hand, to the duplication of human effort involved in the HR and payroll operations, and, on the other hand, to data inconsistencies (e.g. the databases of hotels within the country were encountering functions that could not be found in the master table, being impossible to get a consistent situation).
The work volume required by all these routine tasks prevented the human resources department from focusing on really important tasks such as: organizational development, initiating training programs, performance assessments, etc.
The solution
As far back as 2000, Continental Hotels has implemented the human resources management system - Charisma HCM. This application integrates with Charisma ERP system, the company benefiting from an end-to-end solution to manage the entire hotel chain business.
Charisma HCM includes both the modules dedicated to the department (human resources, payroll, access - timesheet) and HCM Portal module, dedicated to the employees (Web application that facilitates the communication between the HR department and the employees who can directly access their personal data).
"Back then, we have analyzed several solutions, and, if regarding the payroll part, which is predictable, we could choose between many software solutions, for the human resources one, which was our main concern, the best solution was Charisma HCM” , Ms. Hurdubeţiu remembers.
The results
From the moment of TotalSoft system implementation, the company started to focus more on the human resources part through performance assessments, employee data centralization and consolidation, common reports execution, headcount turnover analysis and all kinds of other situations related to human resources that couldn't be performed before.
Interesting is that, although the hotel particularity requires only for a small part of the personnel to have access to a computer, this didn't prevent the implementation of the new mean of communication enforced by HCM Portal - the web application that facilitates the communication between the HR department and employees who can directly access their personal data.
"In some locations we have laid out an area equipped with a computer where we have installed HCM Portal for the employees to be able to access their data at any time" Iulia Hurdubeţiu.
At the moment, the HR department structure includes 7 people at the headquarters, of which 4 are in charge with recruitment, and one in each location, all of them working with Charisma HCM system.
"Charisma HCM is helping us a lot in our activity and we never felt the need to change it, the more so as the company is working with TotalSoft's ERP system, as well" Iulia Hurdubeţiu.
There have been configured two common cost centers for the task automation and personnel relief - HR with the accounting department, payroll data for example, is going directly to the budget, and the company has a permanent overview upon it. Moreover, because the two solutions are integrated, the HR department can also take over other Charisma ERP expenses, which are not specific to it but are passing through it, being able to perform all kind of analysis and reports required not only for the management, in a very short time.
Starting with the second part of 2008, the department took over all of the employees' employment records. The work volume has increased, as well as the information Charisma system processes, it performance being extremely important.
"I personally have big plans regarding Charisma system. For example, I want to link the application to our Website, to be able to automatically retrieve the resumes posted there. Moreover, regarding the training and assessments, I want us to exploit even more these aspects, both regarding the software and the organization."
After many years of using the system and collaborating with TotalSoft, Mrs. Hurdubeţiu concludes: "I think that the collaboration with TotalSoft team was the most important during these years, because it is in fact the source that makes the information system work."
Case study revised in 2008.