Marijn van de Poel is managing director of Ciphix. This innovative company's mission is "Take the robot out of the human," he says. "With about sixty specialists, we automate as many routine tasks and cognitive decisions at our clients as possible. Using Hyperautomation technologies, such as Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Process Mining and Low-code, we develop 'digital assistants' so that clients' existing employees can focus entirely on more important and interesting things."

"The latter is crucial. Everyone today is struggling with staff shortages, and that's precisely when it's a waste to have well-qualified employees spend time on repetitive work. People want to get to work on new challenges and customer requests, which stimulates and inspires them. When people spend less time on routine jobs, you keep the work fun and interesting and they continue to choose you. That's what Ciphix is betting on."

Balance between tech and touch

How that works, Marijn explains using the first digital assistants Ciphix introduced at HeadFirst Group: "HeadFirst Group handles tens of thousands of hiring transactions every year. A complex process with an application, publication, matching and finally a contract. With the help of the digital assistant, named Benthe, in 2022 we have, among other things, fully automated the reading of assignments. The process is flawless and much faster, while recruiters now have more time left over for the matching itself. It actually creates a better balance between tech and touch, as they call it at HeadFirst Group."

Streamer

"The process is error-free and much faster, while recruiters now have more time left over for the matching itself."

 

Bring human into the robot

"And we are already looking further together. Artificial intelligence, for example, makes it possible to analyze and interpret the data in applications and resumes faster and smarter, thus providing recruiters with better content support as well. It's just one of the possibilities and the great thing is that HeadFirst Group is completely in the lead. Our technical solutions help with what you want to achieve, but the organization itself has to have the mindset to want to work differently."

"By the way, why do we use real names? It's very deliberate because that way we make our solutions more recognizable and also bring a bit of the 'Human in the Robot.' New software with a techy name doesn't say much to most people. No one really likes SAP or Office, but everyone loves Benthe!"