General unemployment fund YTK

Finnish General unemployment fund YTK is a non-affiliated unemployment fund employing around 155 people in all sectors. YTK has been going through strong growth thanks to excellent customer satisfaction levels. The organisation wanted to streamline both its external and internal processes, resulting in more agile HR processes and managers being able to work more efficiently.

An HR solution to meet employees’ needs

YTK’s employees are highly motivated and committed to their work, with excellent customer service being their number one goal, resulting in one of the highest customer satisfaction levels in their field. Great colleagues and the opportunity to work efficiently are highly valued in an organisation with a large number of members and a strong growth rate. In addition to maintaining a well-functioning customer relationship management processes, YTK has put the focus on streamlining its own internal processes.

“We find it very important that we have good systems and well-functioning processes – both for our customers and internally,” says Anne Pihlava, Human Resources Manager at YTK. “In addition to efficient customer service, we wanted to create more agility in our internal operations. A common wish was to acquire a good HR solution that would allow us to manage internal processes and ensure that every YTK employee has the best possible conditions to be successful in their work.”

From scattered excels to one secure place

The acquisition of an HR system had been a pending decision for some time at YTK. However, as GDPR was approaching, the acquisition became a must as it would ensure the secure and efficient processing of employee data. After careful comparison between different HR solution providers, sped up by the approaching GDPR, YTK decided on Sympa HR as their new HR solution.

“HR-related issues were very scattered and HR information traveled along complex routes in different excels and via email. Now all managers are able to mark and approve their team’s holiday requests, for example, without having to share secure information to HR by email or via excel sheets. At the same time, all team members have clear visibility into their own holiday planning and absences,” Anne says.

“The admin user function, i.e. the ability to customise and manage Sympa HR completely by ourselves, has been very important to us as it really suits our agile company culture. Sometimes a few mistakes are made, but we always learn from them and this is how the system continues to evolve with us!” Anne continues.

Continuous support from implementation to end-user training

Implementing an HR system can often seem like a daunting and stressful project. However, Sympa’s excellent project team has gained experience from over 700 successful implementations and has a great understanding of companies’ HR and business needs. This resulted in a successful implementation process for YTK. Anne cites the expertise of Sympa’s project manager Toni as one of the most important success factors:

“Our project manager Toni was wonderful. He steered the implementation process forward in a pleasant and steady manner. Our payroll administration was impressed with his comprehensive level of understanding of all HR issues, thanks to his previous HR experience,” Anne continues. Self-preparation was also an important part of keeping the project on schedule, and YTK succeeded in this as a textbook example. “We kept to the schedules ourselves and we were always well prepared in our joint workshops with Sympa,” Anne explains.

The joint HR journey between YTK and Sympa will now continue with networking events online and on-site in the future. During these events, Sympa users from different organisations share their experiences, use cases to learn from each other and exchange tips. “It’s nice to be able to share knowledge with other Sympa users! I look forward to the upcoming Sympa MEET customer events where I can gather tips from other users on using the system,” says Anne.