Napatech

Napatech is a global technology company that develops and manufactures high-speed network accelerators. Most of Napatech’s customers are based in the US, but the majority of the organisation’s 100-strong staff is working at the company headquarters in Søborg, Denmark.

A global setting

In addition to the Danish HQ, the global nature of Napatech’s operations means that it has small teams in the US and Taiwan as well. This brings both exciting opportunities and challenges for the HR department.

“As we have people working in multiple jurisdictions we needed a system that could encompass the very different legal and cultural environments our HR system needs to comply with”, says Heidi Thisgaard, HR Director at Napatech. That’s why the company chose Sympa in 2018 to ensure that HR processes were being supported throughout and in a way that delivers the best combination of local knowledge and global expertise.

Smooth and safe sailing

On top of the global demands, Napatech was looking for a solution that would make it easy both to structure all the company’s HR master data and make it available to the various user groups.

“People need to feel that the processes and their data is safe, whichever country they are working in. We chose Sympa HR because everything is safe in the system and it was easy to define who has access to what data.”

Whenever HR processes or laws are changed within any of the international jurisdictions it operates in, Napatech has to be able to implement the changes quickly within their processes. Sympa HR makes it easy to change processes and align them digitally as well.

“I don’t have to call the customer support all the time,” says Heidi. She really appreciates Sympa HR’s flexibility and user-friendliness. “It’s really easy to make changes to the HR system directly, by yourself,” she says.

Making new friends along the way

Another thing that Heidi appreciates is the personal connection she has established with the Sympa team. “I really liked our HR system implementation consultant at Sympa, who brought with her vast experience of HR and payroll and who could easily see potential pitfalls and problems before they arose”, Heidi describes.

The implementation project, including an integration with the payroll system ProLøn was a success, due, in large measure, to the excellent working relationship within the implementation team that shaped the whole process. “I was particularly appreciative of our consultant’s enthusiasm, willingness to share her experience and her knowledge of both HR and system implementations.”

The road to success

Implementing Sympa HR was not the first HR system implementation Heidi has experienced. “Over the years I’ve seen the same key factors that need to be considered to ensure the project is handled well within organisations. I’m very happy with the outcome: our system, the implementation process, and how easy it is to adapt Sympa HR to our needs.

Top Tips from Heidi

Here is Heidi’s advice for other HR professionals who are about to embark on any system implementation.

1. Recruit key users or ambassadors to play a role in the solution implementation and rollout projects.

   “I co-opted two important people: a manager from one our largest business departments, as he was going to be one of the managerial users, and our payroll specialist, as she had really good grasp of the most important data.”

2. Create user guides and organise hands-on training internally to make sure people know how to use the system.

   “As long as the system works, everything is easy and they have a good user experience, users really don’t care about the rest.”

3. Break the project down into tangible and manageable parts.

   “We started with implementing the solution for the Danish employees, then tackled the US as a separate project. It was a really good idea to take it step by step.”