Applying sound labour practices is vital if we are to retain people working with or for us. This includes ensuring favourable working conditions, for example providing our people with the right tooling to carry out their work, fair compensation, equal pay, managing work pressure and helping our people maximise their potential through people development.
Year ended at 31 December | 2020 | 2021 |
|---|---|---|
Average score | 84% | 84% |
The engagement and passion people have with and for their work is an important indicator of how people experience the company's labour practices. This is why we measure employee engagement, and how we gain insights into areas we can improve upon. We then tailor our improvement measures to the different work dynamic between business units, operational locations and (head) office functions.
Relevant improvement areas include providing the right tools for our people to carry out their job and increase collaboration between departments. Another example is internal communication. One initiative we have successfully launched is regular 'live events' for office staff, where our board of management gives updates on different developments within PostNL in an interactive online setting.
In 2021, employee engagement remained high at 84%, which is just above the October 2021 Dutch benchmark measured by our independent service provider. In the survey, employees mentioned they are proud of their work, teamwork within PostNL and the contribution their department makes to PostNL. Improvement areas relate to internal communication, available systems and tools, and collaboration between departments. Feedback is followed up departmentally, and falls under the responsibility of (senior) management.
How well employees are paid has a direct correlation on their motivation, but this only works if they are treated fairly and equally. Which is why we believe in equal pay for equal work, irrespective of gender. We work on agreeing collective labour agreements (CLAs) with trade unions to ensure that all employees benefit equally and, through salary increases, that they benefit from the company's success.
In October, we began negotiating a new CLA for mail deliverers with the BVPP, FNV and CNV unions. The talks are focused on a range of issues, including compensation, travel allowance, pensions, staffing levels, and wages. Until the new CLA is agreed upon, the provisions of the previous collective labour agreement, which ran until 30 September 2021, will remain in place.
We have a mix of people working for and with us, from internal employees to those employed through logistics partners. This includes people employed by transport partners and external agency staff, both based on hours-worked and executed work packages in our parcel sorting processes.
In recent years we have moved from collaboration based on self-employment to working with professional logistics partners, which improves both the quality of our services and labour rights.
Maintaining good relationships and collaboration with our logistics partners is crucial for our success. This is why we engage with them on an ongoing basis, covering topics such as compensation, workload, delivery quality, and compliance with social and labour laws. This ensures that everyone who works with us has decent working conditions.
Based on learnings from the Dutch labour inspectorate in the past and complexity of legal requirements, for example for smaller delivery partners, we decided to take a more proactive approach to ensure compliance with labour-related laws and regulations. In the Netherlands, for example, we have a number of controls in place to safeguard social compliance and labour rights, including fair compensation in accordance with collective labour agreements. One example is evaluation of formal company registration of new delivery partners. Another example is identity checks for new delivery partners as well as their employees. The Dutch 'Wet Aanpak Schijnconstructies' (WAS) helps protect the labour rights and fair compensation of people employed by our logistics partners.
Year ended at 31 December | 2020 | 2021 |
|---|---|---|
NL | ||
Percentage of (highly) satisfied delivery partners | 69% | 69% |
Percentage of (highly) satisfied deliverers | 72% | 73% |
BE | ||
Percentage of (highly) satisfied delivery partners | 69% | 71% |
Percentage of (highly) satisfied deliverers | 74% | 69% |
Within Parcels, we work with delivery partners across more than 75% of our routes. More than 80% of delivery partners in the Netherlands and around 75% in Belgium employ their deliverers via a labour contract. As these deliverers represent PostNL in their daily work, it is important that we also understand their engagement levels and motivation. Through our annual collaboration barometer we measure the satisfaction of both delivery partners and their deliverers.
In the Netherlands, the results were positive and comparable with 2020, with 69% of delivery partners (highly) satisfied and 73% of parcel deliverers (highly) satisfied with their collaboration with PostNL. As in the Netherlands, in Belgium we were happy with the 2021 results, with 71% of delivery partners (highly) satisfied with PostNL as a client. The satisfaction of deliverers decreased compared to 2020. As in the Netherlands, the main areas for improvement relate to communication, route optimalisation, and process improvements, which we will work on in 2022.
The sharp growth in e-commerce services we provide in Belgium has been reflected in both the number of delivery routes we operate and our exposure in the country. Because we have chosen for a model where delivery partners distribute our parcels for us, this has led to an increase in the number of delivery routes performed by the delivery partners we work with.
Currently, around 80% of the 1,400 deliverers that distribute our parcels in Belgium are already employed. They work for the 220 Belgian companies we have entered into a sustainable partnership with to realise delivery. Clearly, we only want to work with companies that work in accordance with all applicable laws and regulations, and in the vast majority of cases this works well.
We are proud of the loyal delivery partners and deliverers we work with in Belgium. And we believe this feeling is mutual, with over 70% of delivery partners and almost 70% of deliverers saying in 2021 they were (highly) satisfied with the way we collaborate with them. As a commissioning company, we take satisfaction in providing fair compensation and offering sustainable partnerships in a growing sector.
Unfortunately, in 2021 the labour inspectorate in Belgium noted alleged breaches with applicable social laws and regulations while carrying out their inspections. Based on their findings, charges were filed against PostNL for false self-employment, illegal posting of workers, as well as being an accomplice for not paying social contributions in all of these cases. This is despite PostNL not being the employer of the people concerned. The court hearing in these cases is expected in the third quarter of 2022.
Naturally, we had already set up and implemented many controls in relation to the cooperation with our delivery partners. As a result of the inspection, and in consultation with the labour inspectorate, we have further increased our control efforts and have now fully implemented them. Examples include access control at our premises for each delivery partner employee and checking the delivery partners' employees' registration at the government agency for social contributions.
We like to emphasize that the vast majority of our delivery partners are professional and apply the same standards on social compliance as PostNL. When we detect non-compliance, this may lead, but only in a limited number of cases actually has led, to cancellation of our collaboration.
Given the tight labour market and shortage of mail deliverers, in 2021 we worked on increasing the contract length of employees at Mail in the Netherlands, focusing primarily on deliverers. We tackled this in a number of ways. For example, we offered all current employees extensions to their contract at the beginning of the year, and many employees made use of this option. We also offered new hires longer contracts, and provide contracts for an indefinite period sooner. In 2021, in total the average contract hours of around 16,300 mail deliverers increased by 7%.
Office-based workers continued to work from home throughout the year. To keep everyone informed of company developments and help maintain a sense of connection, board members held live video sessions providing company-wide updates, while executive committee members wrote and posted on blogs. We also began using Fizzinity, a platform specially developed for team building. It can be used for on boarding programmes or as a kick-off for a new project group, with team members getting to know each other through informal questions, dilemmas and assignments.
We believe that Strategic Talent Management is key to achieving an inclusive company, allowing room for the sustainable development of talent across all areas. As part of our focus on developing skills, talent and personal leadership, we follow a strategic talent management cycle that involves an annual talent review, talent identification, succession planning, development and recruitment.
To become more agile as an organisation we evaluate the learning agility of office-based employees during their personal review sessions. This helps us maximise employee potential to achieve our goals, as well as facilitating our people's personal growth.
“Agility is a regular topic in our performance reviews”
At PostNL, we increasingly utilise data to help us identify areas where we need to attract a greater range of talent, and how to retain those already with us. After identifying talent based on performance and potential, we connect, develop and challenge them in new jobs, while planning ahead to fill key positions and adapt to the company's digital transformation.
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