An international family business, De Bonte produces quality precast concrete products for rail, sewerage and road infrastructure. Caroline, Head of HR, is responsible for De Bonte’s Walloon entities, which employ some 80 people. A big job, therefore, for which she can make good use of IMPACT’s help in finding and selecting experts.

With years of experience in water and road works and as a production specialist in monobloc railroad sleepers, De Bonte is an established name in countries such as France and Turkey. Caroline is in charge of HR for the various Walloon entities that – spread over three sites in Floreffe, Soignies and Baudour – are part of De Bonte: B.P.M.N, Thio Tube, Lib, Prefarail and De Bonte Baudour.

With a broad but at the same time specific expertise, De Bonte needs quite a few specialists, both blue-collar and white-collar. “These are very diverse profiles, depending on the site. They may be draftsmen, production and project managers or commercial profiles, but also maintenance technicians, electricians or forklift drivers. And then I don’t mention a lot of them.”

In total, Caroline is responsible for about 80 employees. “That is obviously a large volume. Consequently, it is impossible for me to go looking for all those different profiles on the candidate market first and then go through the entire selection process for each applicant. That’s why, since I started working as an HR manager, I started looking for staffing agencies to help us. That’s how I ended up with IMPACT, because the feeling was right from the start.”

Caroline likes the way IMPACT works. “From my first contact, I was given a regular team that looks for De Bonte and a regular contact/end person. With her, the click was there right away. Everything I brought up, she understood immediately. Communication is also very smooth: I get a quick response and solutions are always sought when I encounter a problem. In general, it’s a very positive and spontaneous dynamic and I find that very important.”

And the matching is also excellent. “Just because we are often looking for very diverse profiles, we expect our partner to carry out a good pre-selection. We sometimes have specific requirements for a vacancy that absolutely must be met to be a suitable candidate. It is therefore of no use to us if the first resume that comes in is forwarded to us blindly. That doesn’t create trust, at IMPACT we do find that.”

The mentality of both companies also fits well together. “Despite the relatively large structure with more than 300 employees in total, De Bonte is characterized as a very family-oriented and stable company. That ensures job security. During corona, there was hardly any technical unemployment at our company. This is partly because we operate in crucial sectors, but internally we also did everything we could to draw up action plans so that everyone could stay at work. We share that big heart for our employees and candidates with IMPACT.”

The future also looks bright. “De Bonte launched a new, sustainable innovation this year: sulfur concrete. Sulfur concrete will be the new environmentally friendly material for infrastructure construction. As our first application, we will be working with Infrabel to green Belgium’s railroads. And of course, in the meantime beautiful projects will continue to run and flow in for which we will undoubtedly enlist IMPACT’s help. I already recommend a collaboration.”