Employees first at Aethon
Aethon, a temporary employment and secondment organisation active in the social sector, serves around 500 clients from ten locations across the Netherlands. The company is engaged in a serious digitisation effort to prepare the organisation for further growth. "Both in our front and back offices, we put our employees first and focus on experience", explains former CFO Thijs Burgerhout, who now supports Aethon with his company Engation in the digital transformation process.
Social sector
Aethon is active in municipalities, housing corporations, care, education and child care institutions. The company mediates in work for studying talent, young professionals and professionals. "What distinguishes us from other parties in this market is that we don't just put employees in place to fill vacancies", says Thijs Burgerhout. "We want to train our people so that they can participate fully and really contribute at our clients. We add talent to the labor market and thus contribute to solving staff shortages. We have an entire concept for this purpose, with coaches and training institutes. So our employees are properly prepared for the workplace. In addition, we make sure the benefits are mutual: we don't work with on-call contracts, which means you having to be available a lot of the time without knowing whether you will be given work. With us, employees are given fixed hours, and that means that if we don't find work for them, we still pay them. A concept that deals with employees correctly, invests in them, pays them a fair wage and offers enjoyable assignments. In the end, that's why employees stay with us."
CFO with digital affinity
About two years ago, Thijs Burgerhout arrived at Aethon. He met an organization that had quickly outgrown the startup phase, but still had a startup management. Above all, a company that was on the threshold of the next phase and needed a CFO with digital affinity. "Because Aethon felt and saw that there was still a lot to be gained in this respect, but did not yet know how best to do it", explains Burgerhout, who previously worked for PwC, ING, Efteling, SBM Offshore, Unit4 and Cegeka. "At Aethon, I was introduced to an incredibly inquisitive organisation. Practical colleagues who wanted to get things done very rapidly. An enormous drive, but sometimes a bit chaotic. That generated a lot of energy, but at the same time energy was lost. A first organisational change within finance and HR was to ensure that everyone had a very clear focus as part of their role. The first step in building a solid foundation for a more digital structure."
Obstacles to growth
Basically, Aethon still has a lot of growth potential: expanding existing concepts and entering other markets that also lend themselves to a successful roll-out of the Aethon concept. "But before we can get started, we have to remove various obstacles to growth", Burgerhout continues. ‘For example, we wish to fully deliver on our promise of talent development. Any company can claim that, but when you see what it really means in practice, it's a rude awakening in a lot of cases. The use of many separate systems and manual processes and the lack of reliable and integrated control information is often partly to blame. Most systems are also focused on processes and production, while we want to put our employees at the heart of our business and be truly distinctive in that respect. A cleaner and more data-driven administration and organisation also ensure that you shift from mere reporting to analysis and forecasting based on data and experience. We believe that traditional ERP and HR systems must merge into one integrated digital back office to achieve this."
"Where at first Aethon was mainly occupied with placements, the company is now much more concerned with the experience, both in the candidate and in the employee journey."
Warehouses full of data
Aethon went to work energetically and first and foremost structured the finance organisation. "One half now focuses on business control", explains Burgerhout. "Those employees are a sort of caddies to our business managers. The other half focuses on the pure accounting aspect, which we are making increasingly simpler and more transparent. We use an overarching data model, with which we can report end-to-end. Not only on turnover and margins, but we start on marketing leads and the recruitment funnel. Companies are generating warehouses full of data and the finance department is pre-eminently suited to linking those data and ensuring that the business makes the right choices. The better the data with which we can support the business, the better the decisions with which we as a company can create value. I'm not sure whether a CFO really has to go to this level these days, but a CFO of the future will certainly have to be data and digital savvy, more than just someone who has the books in order. In ten years' time, you won't succeed as a CFO if your department is only capable of financial reporting."
Workday and PwC
Phase one of the digitisation process was characterised by an incredible pace of work. "In a couple of weeks we actually mapped out our entire data model, even before we had a list of applications", says Burgerhout. "By simplifying the process, we soon knew what kind of system we needed and finally we opted for Workday. In this system, all employees can find the things they need in a single environment. After a large number of reference meetings, we selected PwC as an implementation partner. The cooperation has been excellent. I don't think many clients go into the requirements to that extent before they sign. The fact that we did so was definitely beneficial for both parties. Once we signed the contracts, we had such a clear picture of what everything was going to look like that we also knew what we were getting into and with what timelines. On the one hand because we had the courage to simplify things during that period, and on the other hand because there were people on the Aethon and PwC team who said 'that's how it's going to work well, so that's how we're going to do it'. In this way, we were always able to work towards workable solutions, which we were able to put into place quickly. We implemented the system in four months, after which we have 2,500 employees onboard in two and a half weeks. The adoption went reasonably smoothly, the foundation of the digital platform is in place and in many places in the organisation the increased efficiency can be clearly felt. It also made a huge difference that we had completed the basis for the digital backbone when the coronavirus struck. The Netherlands entered the intelligent lockdown within one hour. Thanks to the digital platform, Aethon had arranged the continuity of its business within one minute. This allowed Aethon to continue to focus fully on its services. The further roll-out of the platform is planned for the coming period. We are well aware that we are not there yet, but we are taking the next steps with phases two and three."
Experience
With the same speed as Aethon deals with the digital back office, the company also focuses on its digital front office, where it is building on Salesforce. In this way, Aethon's services are provided via the cloud from a single central point. "Where at first we were mainly occupied with placements, we are now much more concerned with the experience, both in the candidate and in the employee journey", says Burgerhout. "We always try to immerse ourselves in the target group we serve, and that's what we challenge our employees to do. To get inspiration, we visited the Efteling theme park, in 2019 the most customer-friendly company in the Netherlands. Every Efteling employee looks at things from the visitor's point of view. We also want to trigger this creativity - to imagine what a visitor, an employee or an applicant is going through at a certain moment - and thus create awareness of our new approach in which candidate and customer experience are central. In the months that followed, we saw various changes and initiatives in the field of experience in many places in our organization. For example, an Aethon magazine and an Aethon passport were added during onboarding and important changes were made to our recruitment process and our way of training and education. If we continue to do this and anchor the experience deeper and deeper in our organization, it will really end up in our DNA."
Satisfied employees
"In the end, satisfied employees are Aethon's most important goal", emphasises Thijs Burgerhout. "Employees who feel good about themselves, feel appreciated and enjoy going to work. The first phase of the implementation has now been completed and employees have been introduced to the new system. In the coming period we will be working on the next phases, which hopefully will provide even more new opportunities and mutual involvement. And making Aethon even better prepared to follow the intended growth tracks with confidence."
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