Brewed for efficiency: How Maister Brewery transformed HR processes

A brewery known for the names of famous Slovenians

“If a company needs a lot of different time and attendance records in its daily business, it makes no sense to fool yourself that such solutions are not necessary”, says Janez Skok, owner and director of Maister Brewery.

Maister Brewery from Kamnik is one of the small, craft breweries. There are no medium-sized breweries in Slovenia, but Maister Brewery is among the six largest craft breweries. According to Janez Skok, owner and director of Maister Brewery, there are about a hundred registered companies with brewing activities in Slovenia.

They employ five employees. Their specialty is their connection with Slovenian history, as they name their beers after famous h

istorical Slovenian figures, including naming the brewery itself after General Maister. They brew their beer in Kamnik, where there is quality water for this operation. They therefore rely on tradition and quality.

Recently, as they do every year, they sent their beer for evaluation to the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Slovenia (GZS). This year they received gold awards for the non-alcoholic beer Vega and the dark beer Noordung. In the past, other of their beers have been awarded at the GZS. They also received an award for their beer abroad at a competition in Ireland.

They sell most of their beer on the Slovenian market. In the past, they have occasionally exported some beer to Italy, the Netherlands and China. Currently, however, it seems that more serious exports to Hungary have begun, as new orders are coming in. “We’ll see what happens,” says Janez Skok, aware that entering the brewing markets is not as easy as many people think.

Among their beers, the strongest are Vega (named after Jurij Vega), Gallus (named after Jakob Gallus) and General Maister. The non-alcoholic beer Vega has been selling very well recently. All their beers are made from indigenous Slovenian hop varieties.

Challenge: an outdated system that required data transfer on a USB stick

They introduced SPICA’s All Hours solution a year ago. Before that, they had an internal solution. They registered via a clocking terminal. But when they wanted to access the data, they had to physically go to the terminal and look at the data.

“The biggest challenge was the insight into the data, both mine and the employees’ insight. A year ago, we still recorded with badges, but the clocking terminal was not connected to the Internet, so the data was transferred to the computer via a USB stick,” explains Tina Žibert, who is responsible for administrative, human resources and financial matters at Maister Brewery.

Since Tina Žibert works from home, she always had to drive the manufacturing premises to collect the data and transfer it to the computer with a USB stick. Then she had to process it, analyze it, check if anything was missing, etc. “It was very annoying,” recalls Tina Žibert, emphasizing that of course she had no insight into the current, real situation.

Up to date data and advanced time and attendance analytics were the first reason to introduce SPICA All Hours. The second reason for introducing SPICA’s solution was new legislation. Tina Žibert: “These days, such matters have to be in the cloud.”

The solution: 90% less time spent on time and attendance

Now, she has access to all time and attendance data at any time with only the Internet connection. In addition, employees submit applications for approval of various absences through the system, which their superior can then approve. Of course, the guys coordinate their vacations with each other first, because it is a small team.

“It is much easier for them. Before, there was a lot of dissatisfaction. The guys wanted to know what their time and attendance balances were at all times. Now, there are no such questions anymore,” explains Tina Žibert, emphasizing that she now spends 90 percent less time on these purposes.

The transition was simple. They set up the system themselves. Employees are clocking in and out only with the use of the mobile application. Among the five employees, there is also a colleague who spends most of the time in the field.

“This was also one of the challenges we had,” says Tina Žibert. A person who works in the field does not come to work every morning. He starts from his home location. He may not return from work until the afternoon or even the next day. That is why they decided on a solution with mobile registration for everyone.

Maister Brewery did not need much support from SPICA. But Tina Žibert says that she knows SPICA from another business environment and has a lot of experience, so she knew that the support was excellent.

“When an inspection comes, you have to look through the papers. How much time will the company lose if errors are found? It is better to keep up with the times and take advantage of the technology that is available,” says Janez Skok.

Why can SPICA's solution also benefit a small company?

Why did a small brewery decide on such a solution? “We kindly invite you to our brewery so that you can see how important it is to keep up with the times. People who think they do not need such solutions do not know what they need. We are one of the few breweries that has a really good IT solutions in all the processes, including for monitoring stocks, recipes, etc.

It is better to keep up with the times and take advantage of the technology that is available. If a company needs a lot of different HR records in its business, it makes no sense to fool yourself that IT solutions are not necessary and beneficial.

Advantages

Saved:

• at least 90% of the time for collecting, checking, analyzing and processing time and attendance data for payroll processing;
• no more time needed to respond to employees regarding their balances.

Advantages by area:

• for employees: they have access to their own balances on their phones, they can report vacations via the application, and clocking from the field is also possible,
• for administration: significantly less work to prepare data for payroll,
• for IT: full compatibility with SPICA's solution for transmitting data to accounting system,
• for work organization: no time-consuming work with paper documents or outdated solutions.