The insurance industry in digital transition
AXA Völkening und Behrendt OGH is an insurance agency in Neustadt am Rübenberge. Thomas Völkening founded the company 34 years ago. Nico Behrendt has been supporting him for several years now. With nine employees, they have specialised above all in corporate clients and industrial business, with their own in-house claims department. That takes them right across Germany, looking after a large number of companies in this field.
“Our industry is in constant digital transition at the moment, and the challenge is to adapt to new digital processes and changes as well as we possibly can”, says Nico Behrendt. It is not only the ever-changing external conditions of the industry that call for modern, more digital ways of working. Solutions for the team and for internal processes and organisation must not be forgotten either.
That is why, more than two years ago, the two owners decided to introduce digital time tracking with clockin.
Why a change was needed
“In the past we had two big problems with time tracking”, Behrendt explains. “First, it was not efficient, and second, it was not fully digital.” Hours were recorded in all sorts of different ways: sometimes in Excel spreadsheets, sometimes purely manually with tally lists on paper. “Of course that led to enormous chaos.”
And not only that: there was no dedicated solution for employees working in the field or from their home office.
A lot of time was lost collecting and transferring the data. On top of that, overtime was not stored the way you would want it to be. The result: no proper overview – neither for the employers nor for the employees.
In field service in particular, documentation is important and time-consuming. Here too, the lack of a digital solution meant falling back on tally lists and Excel spreadsheets.
Automated and transparent processes thanks to clockin
While looking for software that offered exactly the solution they needed, Nico Behrendt came across clockin. During the free trial they set the software up for themselves and realised fairly quickly that clockin was precisely what they needed. “At the start we got very good input from customer service. Whenever we had a question about setting up the app, we got great support from the customer service team.”
“Digitalization for us also means bringing our employees on board.” The concern that employees might not take to the new solution the way they hoped fortunately came to nothing very quickly. “In the end I really have to say that everything worked brilliantly from day one”, says Behrendt. Thanks to the simple user interface, the employees were confidently using the time tracking app within a few days.
Time tracking that keeps employees happy
Since then, employees have clocked in directly on the tablet terminal in the office. Sick leave notifications and vacation requests also run through clockin. A request is created in the app in just a few clicks, and Nico Behrendt then receives an e-mail. The calendar function lets him keep an eye on absence management at any time.
For employees in the field and in the home office, the app was installed on their phones. That way they can clock in and out from anywhere, which makes life far easier on the administrative side.
What used to be done manually and came with a lot of stress and chaos has now turned into purely digital, automatic processes.
Clean processes and transparency for both sides
But it is not only the administrative side that has had a positive effect on work processes – the employees are relieved too. They can now view the hours they have worked without any trouble. “Because working time tracking is recorded without gaps, we can essentially clear up mistakes and misunderstandings before they arise. It creates transparency, because everyone can now see their own data.”
clockin has even done away with entire work processes in the company, Nico Behrendt says. “Beforehand we kept having conversations about working hours or working time tracking, and since we introduced clockin, I have to admit, things have gone completely quiet on that subject.”
Digital change in the insurance industry calls for action
In the insurance industry there are many agencies working out in the field. And home office working is becoming more and more common too. “In our area in particular, I can only recommend that many colleagues introduce clockin”, says Nico Behrendt. “clockin is the right solution for creating transparency and simply saving yourself a great deal of work.”
Asked whether they worried about the time investment such an app would require, Nico Behrendt nods. “Yes, of course we had reservations at first. But I can take that fear away. We came across clockin and installed everything with very little time spent. When we had questions, customer service came to our aid. And in the end I can now say that it has let us simplify many, many processes and that we more or less no longer have any manual clutter. With working time tracking, we have now truly arrived in the digital age.”
Why not try it out for yourself. Take the first step into digital transformation with clockin. Simple and self-explanatory.
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