Less paper, faster processes: 10,000 payroll and field staff settlements are digitally dispatched

The Signal Iduna Group, formed in 1999 from the merger of the Iduna Nova Group in Hamburg and the Signal Insurance Group in Dortmund, is a conglomerate that offers a wide range of pension and financial services under one roof. The offerings span from traditional insurance to building society savings and real estate financing to investment solutions.

The Signal Iduna Group operates a head office in Dortmund and Hamburg, along with 5 organizational directorates, 34 regional directorates, 21 branch offices, and 3 broker directorates nationwide. Additionally, the group has subsidiaries in Hungary, Romania, Poland, and Switzerland, employing over 11,000 individuals, including approximately 8,200 employees and 2,900 self-employed field partners, who cater to the needs of approximately 12 million customers.

Signal Iduna’s Challenge: Payroll Statements

The Signal Iduna Group has a presence with directorates and branches throughout Germany and parts of Europe. With over 11,000 employees and field partners, they ensure that customers feel well advised and supported in insurance and financial matters. This decentralization posed a significant challenge: the company has always had to expend extra effort to deliver payroll and field staff settlement statements to users.

The Goal: Digitize a Complex Paper Process

“Thousands of letters were generated, printed, enveloped, and either distributed in-house or sent by post to the respective home addresses,” reflects Stephan Weigel, a Human Resources employee at Signal Iduna Group. “We wanted to simply streamline and optimize these processes.” Meanwhile, in the HR department responsible for the internal service, the idea matured to liberate the entire payroll process from paper and to digitize the workflow from start to finish with suitable software.

Signal Iduna specifies concrete Software Requirements

All of this didn’t come out of the blue. On the contrary, the decision-makers already had very specific ideas about what the software to be procured should achieve. “It was very important to us that we didn’t have to build our own permission management system in-house,” Stephan Weigel highlights as a key aspect. “Additionally, retirees and employees who are not on-site should be able to access the documents.” This quickly led to the idea that it must be a product that the workforce can access from anywhere, including via mobile devices.

Additional Criteria: Security, Paperless Delivery, Ease of Use

But that’s not all: Kai Fetting, Business Analyst in the “AD Master Data, Commission, Billing” department at Signal Iduna, adds: “The security aspects associated with a new acquisition and the ability to save money and resources through paperless delivery of field service invoices were also important factors not to be overlooked.” He emphasizes, “The simplicity of the process was also a crucial criterion for the final decision in favour of d.velop.”

Secure Delivery of Digital Payslips

Martin Miehle, Head of Department “AD Master Data, Commission, Billing” at Signal Iduna, completes the required software profile: “The legally secure delivery of digital payslips and field service invoices was, of course, important because we are obligated to do so.” Traditional mail was one such option. The d.velop postbox also met the legal requirements. However, having a dedicated download portal was no longer considered.

D.velop came across very well from the start. They convinced us in a very professional and equal manner. And, what I rarely experience: I didn’t feel like they just wanted to sell us something. We were convinced very objectively with a solution..“

Stephan Weigel
Employee in the personnel department, Signal Iduna

d.velop wanted to present “postbox” to Signal Iduna earlier

With this list of requirements, Signal Iduna began searching for a suitable product. “Initially, we looked within the company to see if there was already software that met our requirements,” explains Stephan Weigel. “Then we looked around the market again.” Eventually, they turned to d.velop because a d.velop salesperson had approached Signal Iduna some time ago to present “foxdox” (now: d.velop postbox). And the software was able to meet all the requirements comprehensively.

Early involvement of works councils in decision-making

However, it wasn’t just the product itself that was crucial. It was important to involve all key parties in the decision-making process. “We considered topics such as data protection and information security very early in the selection process and involved the works councils,” says Stephan Weigel. “This means that during presentations in our company, these committees were always at the table to hear everything from the beginning and to have a say.” In the end, the d.velop postbox won the race.

Signal Iduna convinced by cohesive overall concept

What ultimately convinced Signal Iduna about the d.velop postbox is “the coherent overall concept,” as Stephan Weigel puts it: “I have always perceived the collaboration with d.velop, and I explicitly mean the sales representatives as well, as very positive. They have always responded to our questions, needs, and changes.

More than 10,000 users of d.velop postbox

The usage of d.velop postbox among Signal Iduna’s office-based employees stands at 100 percent, totaling around 7,500 individuals. “In the office, we have established d.velop postbox as the new standard,” explains Stephan Weigel, “and our goal was to convince all employees there of the solution.” In the field, where d.velop postbox is offered optionally, approximately half of the field partners have opted for digital invoicing via foxdox. “We recently launched a major advertising campaign with videos and publications in internal communications,” says Martin Miehle, “and we promoted, for example, the server location in Germany, which is considered particularly secure.”

Encrypted tunnel for documents from Signal Iduna to d.velop

From the awarding of the contract to the implementation of digital mail including salary and field service invoices, it took about six months. “But that was also because we set up our own encrypted tunnel for document delivery from Signal Iduna to d.velop,” Stephan Weigel explains. “Then some technicians and network specialists had to get involved to perfectly align everything regarding data protection and information security, which are immensely important to us, with our needs.” Because the combination of all these aspects, coupled with additional security measures in digital mail reception such as double encryption with a second password, were reasons to opt for the d.velop solution.

Greatest Change: No Printing, Enveloping, and Distributing

Stephan Weigel refers to the “reduction of manual processes” as the greatest change in internal workflows due to the d.velop postbox. “Thousands of sheets of paper are no longer printed, enveloped, and distributed, that’s the biggest change.” And: “There are no more letters returned,” adds Martin Staschick, Head of Payroll at Signal Iduna, “because there are no more misroutes due to the digital route. That has been additional effort that is now eliminated.”

• 3000 Users in the field
• 550000 pages paper saved per year

With d.velop postbox, Signal Iduna saves large amounts of paper

The potential for savings is immense: If in the back office, one envelope and one sheet of paper per person per month were saved (90,000 sheets of paper plus the same number of envelopes per year), the number of paper sheets “in the field was significantly higher,” as Kai Fetting confirms. “We were reaching around 1,600,000 to 1,900,000 sheets of paper annually.” Signal Iduna has since saved approximately 550,000 sheets annually for 3,000 digital users in the field.

High Acceptance, Low Training Effort

The transition to digital payroll and field sales invoicing was very well received by the entire staff and field sales team. The training effort required was minimal. “We communicated this internally through the intranet and also reached out to people personally,” describes Stephan Weigel. “Overall, it can be said that using the d.velop postbox portal is quite self-explanatory. Anyone who has ever created an account on the internet will be able to handle it.”

Shared Process Optimization is well received at Signal Iduna

At Signal Iduna, the staff in the headquarters were provided with pre-configured accounts. “We had already pre-initialized the accounts, created usernames and passwords, and linked the accounts with Signal Iduna,” says Stephan Weigel, explaining: “The service for document delivery was already subscribed to when handed over to the staff.” Some processes were subsequently optimized together with d.velop when issues arose. “That was another point for me where I noticed that we are working together on an equal footing,” Weigel concludes happily, “because they are interested in genuinely improving the processes.”