The employee process in teamspace

Employees are the core of value creation – and at the same time the biggest cost factor. Even so, those wanting to improve the employee process often buy HR software first – the wrong place to start. teamspace is the tool; it models and automates a process it cannot replace. Good people management is built in layers, from the top down – first the goal, then the sub-goals and metrics, and only at the end the way it is mapped in the system. This process guide first describes that path and then shows the core process in teamspace.

Guiding principle: Bottlenecks and idle time should be made visible early, not just quarter by quarter. And transparent remuneration and structured data are not red tape – they are a lever for staff retention.

Five layers: from goal to lived practice

Before you set anything up in teamspace, clarify the layers above it – and keep one layer below in mind: the people who ultimately live the process. Each one answers a different question and builds on the one before:

1. Goal & core question. At its heart, the employee process answers: How do we steer capacity, skills and motivation? All three together – not just the hours.
2. Sub-goals – three dimensions. The core question breaks down into three dimensions you steer separately:
   • Capacity: availability, working hours, leave, absences – who can work when?
   • Skills: competencies, certificates, languages, tools – who can do what?
   • Motivation: remuneration, commissions, target agreements, conversations – why do people stay?
3. Measurable data. You can only steer what you measure. The metrics of the employee process – utilisation, revenue per employee, realisation rate, utilisation forecast, skill coverage and staff turnover – and whether teamspace delivers them, are set out in Key figures for the employee process.
4. Modelling in the tool. Now – and only now – teamspace comes in. The decisive lever: HR, time tracking and payroll preparation mesh together – contract and weekly working hours give the capacity, booked hours the utilisation, supplements and commissions the payroll preparation. One data basis, no double entry.
5. Rollout & training – the people. A mapped process is still only a promise. Steering only works if the employees themselves book time, supplements and expenses promptly and managers approve swiftly – and if skills are genuinely maintained, not just once on joining. This closes the loop: utilisation and skill coverage from layer 3 are only as real as the data from layer 5. Helpful: Recruiting & onboarding and Rolling out teamspace in your company.

The crux: most people jump straight to layer 4. Then you have HR software – but without a defined goal (layer 1), without metrics (layer 3) and without a team that maintains times and skills (layer 5), people management doesn’t get any better, just more digital.

Stocktake: where do we stand today?

Every improvement starts with an honest stocktake: How do we really manage our staff at the moment? A maturity-level scale helps here – six levels from “not documented” to “live steering”:

Honestly place your employee process at one level. The jump almost always succeeds one level at a time – and the most valuable is from 2 to 3: only once capacity planning, project plan and time tracking are connected does utilisation become continuously measurable rather than retrospective.

Where do we want to go?

The target picture is not “level 5 for everyone”. It’s the level that fits your team size and your business model – and that can deliver the layer-3 metrics you genuinely need.

And an important point about working together: we provide the core process – the stages from master data to pay and development are set up in teamspace and proven. But the details – your working-time models, skill catalogues, supplement and commission rules – we don’t know those, you do. A good approach therefore emerges jointly.

The core process in teamspace

This is what the predefined core process looks like – from joining to pay and development. Every stage has its own article; the list of steps at the top of this page is the short version.

1. Master data & skills. The basis is the personnel file: manage employees with master data and tabs, plus skills & staff development for skills (scale 0–9), certificates and skill search.

2. Working hours & availability. Contract, leave and absence yield the capacity: maintain contract data & working hours, plus requesting and approving leave and managing sickness reports.

3. Deployment & staffing. People are assigned by skill and free capacity: assign people distributes roles and time budgets via resource planning.

4. Capture & approve. In operation the employees book themselves: check in and check out for attendance, plus overtime and supplements; managers approve and lock.

5. Analyse utilisation. Booked hours flow into utilisation: the employee reports show working time, capacity analysis (free vs. planned) and each employee’s contribution.

6. Pay & development. The close is formed by remuneration and development: the preparatory payroll hands hours, supplements and commissions to DATEV; targets and conversations are recorded in skills & staff development.

Cross-link: Utilisation and revenue per employee flow into the cockpit of business management; payroll preparation docks onto the billing process.

Going deeper

These articles belong to the employee process but aren’t needed for every start:

• Recruiting & onboarding – applicant boards and onboarding projects.
• Hourly rates, salaries & remuneration – internal hourly rate and salary components.
• Overtime account – run balances and pay them out.
• Org chart & departments – map the organisational structure.

You’ll find the complete list of all articles on this process at the bottom of the process page under “All articles for this process”.

Related topics

• Key figures for the employee process Key figures Concept
• Personnel & HR – introduction Personnel & HR Introduction
• The employee process on teamspace.de – goals, maturity levels and metrics at a glance