Focusing on sustainable employability

Five years ago Ewals Cargo Care carried out the first employee satisfaction survey in collaboration with Integron. In 2015 this survey took place again and the most recent employee satisfaction survey was held in 2017. The most important theme of this survey was sustainable employability. The European Social Fund (ESF) has facilitated an allowance for the implementation of the research, specifically intended for this theme. The research was conducted among employees in 16 countries and in 11 languages.

The reason to focus on sustainable employability is that Ewals Cargo Care is a growing organization with currently 2200 employees spread over 17 countries. Director People & Organizational Development Sjoerd Ewals: "As an employer, we feel obliged to work on a vital organization that gets the best out of employees. With the speed of change nowadays, for example economically and technologically, healthy, committed and well-developed employees are needed to keep the company future-proof. We want to know what the employees expect from us and what they think of our efforts to achieve this. "

The opportunity to focus on sustainable employability came to life when the focus on quality in previous studies started to pay off. Working on a more professional appearance and the further development of leadership qualities were the highest priorities at that time.

The employees of Ewals Cargo Care can be subdivided into three function groups, drivers (45%), office (45%) and warehouse (10%), each with their own wishes and needs in many areas. This segmentation has also been used for the sustainable employability research. An internal benchmark provided insight into how the research results of employees working in the different function groups, but also in the various organizational units, departments and countries relate to each other.

In order to give employees the opportunity to develop themselves within the framework of sustainable employability, conscious efforts are being made to create slack in the organization. The extra capacity enables employees to focus on improvements in the work process and to devote time to training and education.

Another initiative to promote sustainable employability is the "fit-to-perform" project. Because drivers have to deal with deadlines but have to feel fit behind the wheel at all times, we have launched a pilot in which drivers are equipped with "fit-bit" watches that measure their heart rate and blood pressure. This data can be monitored real time and then periodically discussed with an external vitality coach.

Sjoerd Ewals is proud of the results in the latest research. "A response of 65%, and an average satisfaction of 7,72 in a growing organization reflects the involvement of our colleagues. The fact that we are actively going to work with the results so employees will see the impact, makes the employee satisfaction survey a fixed instrument for the future. The difference between our results and the transport and logistics benchmark of Integron, indicates that we are doing better than the market average. For example, when recruiting new employees, we see an increase in candidates that contact us because of positive recommendations from existing employees. Recommendations in which sustainable employability is being mentioned more and more”.