The Supervisory Board is responsible for the quality of its own performance. As such, the Supervisory Board discusses its functioning and that of its committees and members annually. For 2019, the Supervisory Board decided to perform an internal evaluation following last year's external evaluation. The evaluation process consisted of interviews by the chairman of the Supervisory Board with all Supervisory Board members, the members of the Board of Management and the corporate secretary. The outcome of the evaluation was discussed with the Supervisory Board only in the December 2019 meeting of the Supervisory Board.
As in 2018, the emphasis of the evaluation was put on board room dynamics / board effectiveness and not so much compliance. The Supervisory Board feels the relationship between the Board of Management and Supervisory Board is healthy. The composition of the Supervisory Board is balanced and complementary, making the way of working, its judgement and decision making powers adequate. The Supervisory Board takes due consideration of the interests of all stakeholders of the company. It is positive about the professionalism and quality of the management reports and the information provided by the Board of Management. Discussions are conducted in a way that ensures open communication, meaningful participation allowing for civil disagreement and critical thinking. All members of the Supervisory Board have demonstrated that they have enough time to fulfil their duties as members of the Supervisory Board in an adequate manner.
One of the outcomes of last year's evaluation was the room for improvement in acting as a sparring partner to the Board of Management, and in taking more time for reflection on business developments and strategy (rather than discussing only the contents of the meeting documents). In this regard during 2019 deep dive sessions were held on specific topics with the Board of Management and senior management. Also an informal meeting was held with the Board of Management without agenda. In this session the most important themes for future success of PostNL were openly discussed, in order to learn from each others experiences and and to further ensure alignment between the Supervisory Board and Board of Management. For 2020 a follow-up session will be held. Also, as another follow up of last year's evaluation, the Supervisory Board has taken more time for discussion with the Supervisory Board only by making this a recurring item on the agenda of each meeting.
There is also room for further improvement, for example on following up on execution and having more market insights available in order to prevent there is too much focus on internal insights, and discussions could be held more often in the presence of the members of the Executive Committee to further increase their visibility with the Supervisory Board. Also, taking into account the rotation plan of the Supervisory Board during 2020 attention is required for the composition of the Supervisory Board for the coming years.
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