A business in explosive growth requires a user and access management platform to maintain business effi- ciency, ensure compliance, and keep employees happy. HusCompagniet’s IT and HR Departments tackled that task in close collaboration - with the help of SIVIS Enterprise Security.
“A solution for user and access manage- ment is essential to easily manage emplo- yees and their access to the organization’s resources and data securely, and it must meet the applicable compliance requirements,” said Nicholas Hansen, Head of Group IT at HusCompagniet.
“It’s hugely important to us, as we store valuable and sensitive customer data that we need to protect against unau- thorized access,” he says.
It was also one of the decisive reasons why HusCompagniet chose to implement SIVIS Enterprise Security. However, for HusCompagniet, SIVIS Enterprise Security is more than just an IT solution.
“It’s easy to assume that the use of IT systems is always the job of the emplo- yees in the IT Department, which is not necessarily the right way to do it. If a new system can’t be used to boost the business - and in many cases to be used by the business - then it has no value," says Nicholas Hansen.
“Our use of SIVIS Enterprise Security has been a success - precisely because the imple- mentation has been run in close collabo- ration between HR and IT,” he adds.
HusCompagniet is the largest house-buil- ding firm in the Nordic countries, with divisions throughout Denmark. HR Manager Anna Schøning has had a long career in the firm, but a few years ago, she was at the forefront of building HusCom- pagniet’s HR Department from scratch. It was necessary, and it has paid off.
In recent years, HusCompagniet has grown explosively. Just a few years ago, the firm had 200 employees; today, they have 380 on the payroll, with new ones continually being added. Between 5
and 15 new hires are onboarded every month across the firm’s sites.
HusCompagniet has also launched a B2B venture, one of many initiatives that mean that HusCompagniet will soon have 1,000 employees.
This explosive growth requires the right systems to support the expansion of the business, which is why SIVIS Enterprise Security has been integrated into the HR Department’s work.
HR became directly involved in the early start-up phase, when HusCompagniet began implementing SIVIS Enterprise Security, which was done on HR’s and Anna Schøning’s own initiative.
“My main task when I started the HR Department was to systematize and streamline the onboarding processes. As the rumor of SIVIS Enterprise Security spread internally within the organization, I could really see the trick with it,” says Anna Schøning.
Before SIVIS Enterprise Security became part of HR’s work processes, the creation and administration of employee records took place in an Excel sheet. HusCompagniet’s external partner handled the practical creation and allocation of access to sy- stems and applications. Many challenges and problems arose because employee creation and access management were not fully automated.
“We easily fell into the trap of asking for new employees to be created with a copy of their colleagues’ access, without thinking about how many different and unnecessary accesses might have been compiled over the years. Moreover, there was just a huge amount of manual workflow that lowered efficiency, both here in HR and in the rest of the organization. SIVIS Enterprise Security automated the workflows, and it has really boosted efficiency,” says Anna Schøning.
With SIVIS Enterprise Security , HR has creati- on of employees and access allocation in its own hands. Digital onboarding in HR is coordinated with other onboar- ding processes
“Now, at last, we don’t have to wait for up to five days for a creation to be made. This means that we can get on with our other onboarding tasks right away and, not least, that we can ensure that emplo- yees have access to the systems from their first working day. It guarantees the entire firm’s productivity and results in satisfied employees,” says Anna Schøning.
The process of implementing SIVIS Enterprise Security is an example of a successful and rewarding joint effort between the HR and IT Departments, two departments that otherwise represent two vastly different perspectives in most organizati- ons; one department focusing on human resources, and the other focusing on operations and system resources.
The perspectives met in SIVIS Enterprise Security, and the two departments could work together to establish proper processes to benefit the entire firm.
“I think that SIVIS Enterprise Security has been a success here with us, because HR got involved so early and because IT and HR really complemented each other in the process,” says Anna Schøning.
“IT could certainly handle all the technical aspects, but the practical processes in connection with on- and offboarding would not have been commercially viable without the expert knowledge of the organization that we have in HR. Here we contributed with, among other things, in-depth knowledge of the organizational chart, job titles and roles, which is the core of SIVIS Enterprise Security,” she says.
SIVIS Enterprise Security has helped to stream- line internal processes and saved Hus- Compagniet crucial resources that were wasted in too many manual workflows. Giving HR co-responsibility for SIVIS Enterprise Security has also greatly benefited the IT Department.
“In general, it’s incredibly expensive to have IT staff sit down and create new employees and give them access to systems, data and internal resources. SIVIS Enterprise Security is easy to use, which means that the tasks can also be carried out by a student worker in HR. It optimizes our resource consumption, but also makes tremendous sense, because user and access management are already so closely linked to onboarding new employees and HR’s core tasks,” says Nicholas Hansen.