Daniel Burgener - 20 years at HR Campus

Dani, you've been with HR Campus for almost 20 years now. That's a very long time! You must have a lot of great and crazy stories to tell. What's the craziest experience you've had during your time at HR Campus?

Actually, my attitude was already crazy. I've known Marek and the Dutkiewicz family for a long time as we were neighbours. My mum approached Marek at the post office to see if he had a job opportunity for me. I had just finished my apprenticeship and was looking for something new. I prepared myself carefully for the interview, chose appropriate clothing and brought my CV and all my certificates with me. But Marek wasn't interested in any of that. Instead, he simply asked me what I liked. As I have always enjoyed working with computers, I answered accordingly. His answer was simply: "Great, we need someone for our IT - you're hired."

The early days were generally a bit crazy and can no longer be compared to how we work today. There were only about 20 of us. Each consultant had their own laptop from the brand they preferred. I installed the laptops at the consultants' homes and also took care of repairs and private printing facilities. I still remember one incident where a consultant accidentally spilt water on his laptop in the morning and it was badly damaged. At the time, we didn't have a warehouse, so I quickly travelled to MediaMarkt, got a new laptop and installed it as quickly as possible so that the consultant could use it for an important customer meeting in the afternoon. Back then, our consultants had external storage devices and had to perform their own backups once a week. That's almost unimaginable today. Start-ups are the closest we can get to that. Everyone just did everything. Today, we have clear responsibilities and processes - but it was very exciting for me to have experienced this change.

Is there a project or experience that you see as your greatest success?

After my military service, I wanted a career change and so I went into consulting. I have particularly positive memories of the many pilot projects that I carried out, i.e. projects that were completely new to HR Campus. For example, I carried out the very first e-dossier project and was involved in the first talent projects. That was a huge challenge, because if nobody has experience with a new Software, nobody can help or show you exactly how to implement it. We had to figure it all out ourselves. One very great project was the implementation of the interface between SuccessFactors and SAP HCM. That was one of the first in the world (the third, I think). I was heavily involved in this project, so it was a great sense of achievement for me.

Is there also an experience that may have left you with a negative memory?

Of course there were many night shifts and weekend assignments that I can remember. I don't have any really negative memories - it's just part of life as a consultant. I learnt a lot from this time. We tried out a lot of things. Testing innovations is very important for the Development of a company. Sometimes you are on fire for a solution and believe that it is "the next big thing" - and it still doesn't take off. Either the market is not yet ready or the interest is not as great as we estimated. That's always a shame, but as I said, it's just part of the job. What I have learnt during this time is that it usually takes more time than you think. This is always underestimated.