“We ask more often: what do you need?”

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Happy employees perform better. Because they feel welcome, are seen and heard, receive a decent salary and have the means to do their job well. They contribute ideas for improvement, are focused on cooperation and are absent less often. In short, they are the best business card you could wish for. How do you get them there? Develop an attractive employee journey together. Because employees also want an experience. Cendris is fully committed to it.

Ingrid Hiemstra, HR manager at Cendris, has the tide on its side. While organizations are fully committed to far-reaching digitization, more customer-friendly processes and proactive, relevant service moments, increased attention for employees is inevitable. After all, the labor market is also tight, which means that employees can make higher demands on a job. What they can't get from one, the other might offer.

What does this do to the Cendris organization?

“In our view, a successful customer journey is not possible without an attractive employee journey. This is widely supported within the organization, and is not just my job. Customer contact employees also want an experience that makes them enjoy their work. We are gradually changing into an organization that considers it normal for employees to provide feedback and that we actually do something with it.”

“We are in constant dialogue, ask more often: what do you need to function better? Previously, working in customer contact was mainly process-based. The focus was mainly on efficiency, with more attention being paid to achieving commercial goals and less to the personal needs of the employees.”

And that is no longer possible?

“You have to respond to their wishes and individual needs. Employees mainly want to have a good time, consciously choose a specific employer. Because they also want to feel at home there, but also want a better work-life balance, for example. We have tailored our contracts to that. The workload is still decisive. But we adopt a flexible attitude in contact with the employee, do not simply ask for availability and then impose the hours to be worked. Of course, that is a challenge for the planners, but it is better suited to the service employees. We started doing that half a year ago now.”

What does the employee journey look like?

“It already starts with the onboarding. We used to outsource branding and recruitment only to temporary employment partners, but now we are more in the lead ourselves. In addition to recruiting part ourselves, we have more control over the vacancies that we launch and we are more focused on the image sketched by our temporary employment partners, and we are also increasingly focusing on real partnership. We now notice that we ourselves are best able to speak the Cendris language unambiguously and know how to evoke the right expectations in candidates.

After the onboarding, the selection phase follows. We have aligned the test method more closely with the individual new employee. We said goodbye to the one size fits all approach and are now increasingly tailoring the training modules to individual needs. We also rely more on our own input, and want the employees to take control themselves and select e-learnings that we offer from the Cendris Academy.”

That makes them feel more welcome?

“We focus on that during preboarding. On the first working day we show that we are happy with the new acquisition. After all, we know that this is his or her first day at work with us. So we make sure that a nice welcome package is ready, that everything is arranged and that the employee ends up in a comfortable bed.”

“After the first week of work, we ask for a satisfaction survey to find out what can be improved or what needs to be done differently. We score very high in this. They really feel part of the club and welcome. I'm super proud of that. Even after the first month, we will now do such an interim measurement. After all, the entire employee journey has to be right.”

“Development and growth are the next phase of the journey. The point here is that the employee can make optimal use of his talents. And that we provide a range of work that is sufficiently diverse. We also believe it is important that employees are able to grow both within and outside their position. Become a coach or manager? A management development program provides for that.”

“In addition, we have a TalentLab, in which we post vacancies for jobs. For example, you may need a photographer for a meeting. There may be talents in that area among our employees. We use the TalentLab for such jobs, with which we do not overlook the somewhat introverted employees. People have all kinds of passions besides their work. How great would it be if they could also give substance to this at work?”

What gets her wildly excited about?

As a self-proclaimed Chief Happiness Officer, Ingrid has a passion for organizations that excel in creativity and sound consistent. Tony Chocolonely is one such company that makes her mouth water. The creative ideas that the organization implements in all expressions, an unpopular chocolate flavor that is ritually buried…..

The often mentioned Coolblue is another exemplary organization, the strong brand experience, the wink in the expressions, that also appeals to her. Or take ABN AMRO, which has abolished the traditional assessment system. “The dipstick in it three times a year, that is no longer of this time. You have to be in constant dialogue with each other. Ask each month what stimulates the employee and ask him or her to provide feedback on your own performance. For that reason, I would also like to take the next step in our own Continuous Dialogue by adjusting the assessment structure.”

Is the employee journey now complete?

“No, don't forget the outflow phase. We want people to leave with a good feeling. We strive for them to be our ambassadors. We also ask employees for feedback after they leave. Are we there with that? No, next year it will remain a challenge to find the right employees. We are, however, convinced that a strong brand with its own ambassadors contributes to good positioning. We also have to respond quickly and flexibly to a changing labor market. With pop-up branches, for example. In the past year we have now also opened branches in Rotterdam, Zwolle and Den Bosch.”

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