Wilhelm Hubele sees the hours as soon as they are booked

When payroll had to be reorganised

Wilhelm Hubele GmbH in Ludwigsburg has been around for more than 180 years. The company works in road building, civil engineering and earthworks, as well as demolition. Around 60 employees are deployed for this, sometimes on two or three projects in a single day.

Working hours were recorded on paper for a long time. Employees handed their timesheets to the site manager every day, who checked them and passed them on to payroll. There, the details were typed by hand into the payroll program.

When internal payroll had to be reorganised at short notice, a quick solution was needed. The contact to CrewCenter came through Hilti: the company already had plenty of Hilti equipment in use, including drills.

The collaboration began in May 2025. After a joint meeting, the site managers and managing director Herr Jenner agreed on a trial phase. An on-site introduction by Hilti was followed by the official start with CrewCenter in September 2025.

The product was still at an early stage of development. The site managers and Ms. Kovac took part in the trial from the start and contributed their practical experience. Several adjustments that Hilti has since implemented came out of that.

After early skepticism, time tracking became routine

The biggest challenge was winning the employees over to the change. People who had worked with paper timesheets for years first had to get used to the new routine. “You have to move with the times, and with the regulations anyway”, says Ms. Kovac.

In the beginning colleagues regularly came to the office with questions. They got support from the site managers and the office staff, depending on who had a minute.

Daily use was quickly explained: “Pick the site, log in, enter breaks, log out, done. That's it.”

The initial setup took more effort, since no data was stored at the start. Employee data, projects, different working-time models and company-specific time types, for trucks for example, first had to be created. Bad-weather season came on top during the changeover. Vacation, sick leave, vocational school, training, bad weather and other absences also had to be set up in the system.

The company was in close contact with Hilti throughout. “We were in close contact with Hilti during that time because we had a lot of questions. And it helped us.”

After two to three months, digital time tracking had become part of the daily routine. “It runs smoothly for the crews now. It's just normal for them.”

Checking and releasing hours, and handing over to the payroll office

Today the site managers check the recorded hours by Monday at the latest, release them and close them. Ms. Kovac also looks into the system every day so she can make corrections promptly when needed.

She enters sick notes, vacation and the apprentices' vocational school days early. That way all site managers have timely insight into planned and reported absences. From the released data, Ms. Kovac then creates the file for the external payroll office.

One of her suggestions has also been implemented: since employees work on several sites in one day, a release for the whole day was not enough. Ms. Kovac asked for the option to release hours for each project individually. This function is now available to all customers. Her reaction: “Yes, great, finally.”

What matters is whether the solution fits the company

Before, processing could only start once the timesheet was in. “Paper can get lost”, says Ms. Kovac. Today the hours are available as soon as they are recorded. The office can check them right away and react when needed.

Whether she would recommend CrewCenter to a similar company depends mainly on its processes, says Ms. Kovac: “I'd first ask: does it fit your company? And if it does, I would absolutely recommend it, one hundred percent.”