Transforming HR success and strategy at AWT Bavaria with PeopleForce

AWT Bavaria, the face behind iconic brands like BMW, Rolls-Royce, and Aston Martin wanted to do more than just lead in the automotive world – they set out to put their people first. This journey took off with PeopleForce, using automation to transform their work. From managing recruitment to creating smooth onboarding experiences and beyond, the company embraced a smarter way to grow.

Take a closer look at the AWT Bavaria’s engaging success story.

Meet the company

AWT Bavaria operates in the competitive automotive industry, managing iconic brands like Aston Martin and BMW. With 450+ employees across multiple locations, they were determined to break away from outdated management and create an agile, European-standard workplace.

Team’s challenges

Before partnering with PeopleForce, AWT Bavaria faced several challenges across their HR processes, such as:

Recruitment bottlenecks

Their hiring process relied on manual tracking and email correspondence, leading to inefficiencies and delays. Sabrina described it as “time-consuming and frustrating, with recruiters spending more time on paperwork than finding great candidates.”

Unstructured onboarding

The lack of a proper onboarding process with clear instructions and examples led to confusion and high dropout rates during probation. New hires were left without clear guidance, affecting their initial experience and retention.

Lack of performance management

Performance reviews were conducted manually and on paper, resulting in a poor employee experience and a process that was not aligned with the sustainability goals. This approach lacked efficiency and failed to provide employees with a structured assessment or clear growth opportunities. The absence of effective feedback mechanisms also created a disconnect between managers and employees. As a strategic partner of PeopleForce, the company was pleased to co-create a performance review tool that addressed these challenges and improved the overall process.

Limited transparency

Employees criticized the organization for a lack of open communication, especially under previous management. Sabrina highlighted the need to “foster a culture of transparency and trust, supported by tools that could facilitate open dialogue.”

These pain points made it clear that AWT Bavaria needed a holistic, modern HR solution to support their transformation into a people-centric organization.

Recruitment management transformation

Recruitment at AWT Bavaria was once a painfully long and intensive manual process fully packed with lots of inefficiencies; email chains, spreadsheets, and more burdened the team in their process of candidate tracking and communication.

With PeopleForce:

• Pipeline automation: AWT Bavaria replaced manual email writing and tracking with an automated recruitment pipeline. This allowed recruiters to easily manage candidate statuses, schedule interviews, and move candidates through the pipeline without delays.
• Job boards integration: PeopleForce allowed posting job vacancies to multiple platforms, including LinkedIn and local job sites like robota.ua, work.ua, and Djinni. This made the job posting a one-click operation, straight from sending the posting to access for both strategic and technical talent.
• Data-driven hiring: The strong reporting mechanism identified bottlenecks such as candidate dropout reasons, providing further insights for improving their recruitment strategy.
• Recruitment reporting insights: Using PeopleForce’s reporting tools, the team analyzed candidate dropouts to uncover reasons for challenges in filling complex roles like PR managers. This guided strategic improvements.
• Scorecard-based assessment: PeopleForce’s scorecards enabled transparent evaluations, with candidates needing a 75% alignment to advance in the pipeline.
• Recruitment automations: Tagging and automated emails boosted candidate communication, ensuring no detail was missed in the process.

We would like to highlight how the recruiter scorecard feature enabled transparent evaluation of candidates, allowing the HR team to assess the alignment between cultural and skill fit objectively. This tool played a crucial role in ensuring fair and consistent hiring decisions.

Key results

• 50% faster hiring.
• Recruiters now focus on meaningful conversations, not paperwork.
• Improved candidate experience with transparent, efficient communication.

Onboarding process revamp

Before adopting PeopleForce, onboarding was one of AWT Bavaria’s weakest areas. New hires were often left to navigate their roles with little guidance, leading to higher dropout rates during probation. 

With PeopleForce, onboarding transformed into a well-structured, engaging process:

• Workflows: HRs used PeopleForce to design customized onboarding plans, assigning tasks to team members, including IT department, for setting up equipment and line managers for role-specific training.

• Buddy program integration: By assigning buddies to new hires through PeopleForce, employees felt supported and engaged from day one.
• Automated check-ins and surveys: Scheduled two-week and mid-probation evaluations helped managers track employee progress and satisfaction. Feedback surveys provided a clear picture of team dynamics and flagged any areas for improvement.

As Sabrina added that it helped manage the automations on day of probation, all IT setups before the stage of the reviews were carried out and tracked. She also highlighted the role-specific onboarding plans that are equipped with clear and measurable deliverables and evaluations, so that transitioning would be smoother for new hires.

Key results:

• 95% probation success rate.
• Reduced workload for HR teams through task automation.
• Stronger team integration and employee satisfaction during onboarding.

Performance reviews and feedback culture improvements

AWT Bavaria had no formal performance management for years and, because of this, employees had no clear growth paths or constructive feedback. PeopleForce has introduced a more transparent and structured performance reviews system with ongoing feedback:

• Customizable competency evaluations: PeopleForce allowed AWT Bavaria to tailor evaluations to different roles, ensuring fairness and relevance. Competencies like leadership, delegation, and team orientation were weighted based on job requirements with the help of the Performance scoring feature.

• 360-degree feedback: The team utilized PeopleForce’s assessment tools to foster a culture of regular communication. Employees now see feedback as a growth opportunity rather than a critique.
• Fast and productive processes: All evaluations, from probation reviews to annual appraisals, are conducted digitally, saving significant time and resources.
• Probation evaluations: Employees were assessed during the probationary periods using the same competency-based framework as annual reviews, providing consistency in performance tracking.

• Action plans for self-development: The to-do management feature enabled managers to set clear development goals for employees needing improvement, driving progress and accountability.

Furthermore, these reporting features enabled AWT Bavaria to identify leadership gaps and direct training budgets where they were needed the most. Even the task management integrated feature allowed clear setting of developmental targets for poor performers which subsequently drives improvement over time.

Key results

• 20% organization-wide performance improvement.
• Transparent evaluation processes that employees trust.
• A culture shift toward proactive, growth-oriented feedback.

Signing documents with eSignature in PeopleForce

• Bulk document creation: PeopleForce has earned a lot of praise for the remarkable ability to manage document workflows, especially within a bureaucracy environment. One feature that drew much appreciation was the bulk functionality that allowed entities to create documents and add them to employee profiles.
• Electronic signature: The eSignature feature allowed for a transition away from requiring physical presence to sign documents, a crucial improvement for remote work. This not only reduced paper usage but also saved time for the teams, as employees no longer had to travel to the office to sign documents.
• Efficiency gains: Sabrina emphasized how the system saved time and aligned with their goal of being a modern, digitally-driven organization.

Three key highlights from AWT Bavaria’s experience with PeopleForce:

Beyond recruitment, onboarding, and performance management, PeopleForce delivered far-reaching benefits for AWT Bavaria’s HR strategy:

• Compliance and safety: Safe Speak tool with anonymous reporting (whistleblowing) for creating a safer, more inclusive workplace where employees could discuss sensitive issues comfortably and securely. 

• Effective interdepartmental communication: Bulk document creation and eSigning capabilities that could save hours in a paper-heavy environment. 
• Employee engagement: Employees loved the easy-to-access features of PeopleForce, such as the mobile app and news section that pooled communication in a more centralized manner while simplifying HR tools.

AWT Bavaria's interaction with PeopleForce illustrates the all-round capability of the platform in bringing efficiency, safety, and engagement in HR processes. Compliance, having fewer document workflow steps, and better communication improved by PeopleForce helped AWT Bavaria gain a more effective and connected HR strategy.