Bringing structure to a flexible world of work

Our mission

Give every organisation the technology to master flexible work.

We believe the way people work is fundamentally changing. Work is becoming more flexible, more decentralised, and more data-driven. Yet most organisations are still stitching together spreadsheets, siloed platforms and disconnected tools. They react to yesterday’s planning instead of planning of tomorrow.

Our vision is to build the infrastructure that connects it all. For the staffing agencies who fill it, and the organisations who need it. A world where workforce planning is no longer reactive, but predictive. From ad hoc decisions to structural control. Where companies don’t manage people, they master their workforce.

bookU aims to make flexible work flow across Europe. Intelligently, efficiently and at scale.

Be real

We tell each other the truth: kindly, clearly, and on time. No politics, no sugar-coating, no exploding either

Think big and bold

We chase ambitious things and aren’t afraid to question the path, but we know who we are, and we don’t bulldoze others to get there.

Make it happen

We take responsibility, clear the hurdles, and don’t let go, but we do it together, each from their own strength.

Build for impact

We solve the right problem, the best way, not the fastest. We are forward-thinkers who iterate to keep moving, never to look busy.

Founder story

“I built it because I needed it myself.”

Dieter Vanthournout is not your typical tech entrepreneur. He ran a hospitality business and built his schedules in Excel: twenty student workers, rotating shifts, and a spreadsheet that got more unmanageable every week.

Around 2014 he decided to fix it himself. bookU was born: a planning tool for flexible workers in hospitality. Simple, intuitive, built from first-hand experience.

When hospitality shut down during the 2020 pandemic, bookU had almost nothing left. Dieter turned the setback into an opening.

“When you lose everything, you also have nothing left to lose. That’s when you dare to pivot.”

bookU pivoted and pointed its technology at vaccination centres, handling their scheduling at scale. That’s where bookU came to know the payroll landscape, and where the foundations of today’s company were laid.

House of HR saw the potential, and the partnership took bookU to a different level. At House of HR’s request, the team built a planning tool for its staffing subsidiaries — companies still scheduling thousands of people a day in Excel. bookU Staffing was born.

More than ten years later, bookU serves clients in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. The technology has grown beyond recognition. The heart of the story hasn’t changed: solving problems the founder runs into himself.