Hiring and retaining the right people

The continuing tight labour market in the Netherlands has created a range of challenges for PostNL, from filling mail delivery vacancies to attracting and retaining parcel deliverers. While this is a sector-wide issue, with an estimated shortage of 15,000 people across the transport branch in the Netherlands alone, the issue impacted our people and the company in a number of ways. Working with a shortage of colleagues put our people under greater work pressure, which we are obviously unhappy about and worked to remedy throughout the year. The shortage was also one factor that impacted the delivery quality of mail (more information on the issues affecting delivery quality, as well as PostNL's position on the future of Mail in the Netherlands, can can be found in the 'Our operating context' and the'Financial value' chapters).

We continued to put a great deal of effort into the hiring and retention of the right people during the year, introducing a number of initiatives across the company to target new employees and keep existing ones. These are explained in greater detail later in this chapter.

Managing employee attraction and retention

PostNL Employee turnover In percentage
2022-2023

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While we were already experiencing a labour shortage, in 2023 the turnover rate also increased compared to 2022. The continuing tight labour market is a primary cause, leading to greater competition among employers within the sector. The greatest number of vacancies was for mail deliverers, and we run distinct programmes and support mechanisms to help us attract and retain the right people.

Attracting and retaining parcel deliverers

In 2023, the turnover rate among newly hired parcel deliverers reached 50%, which is around 10 percentage points higher than we have seen in the past. We recognise that parcel delivery is a physically demanding job, and employees are often attracted to positions outside the company that are perceived to have more attractive employment conditions. However, it is vital that we boost retention and ensure our people remain motivated.

To address this, during the year we increased training for current and new employees. This starts at the moment people join us with a central onboarding programme. Because the first few weeks are crucial to retaining delivers, we now employ additional trainers at the depots who help and guide new recruits during their first weeks on the job. We also introduced targeted training and instruction, including on safety and health, and began a phased increase in the number of delivery stops deliverers make when they begin working. Additionally, we matched the deliverers with a permanent trainer who acts as a 'buddy'. We are monitoring the success of these measures while intensifying our efforts to attract the right people through the following initiatives.

More flexible working hours

We created a range of propositions to appeal to a broader target group, such as evening delivery requiring fewer hours and part-time propositions.

Broadening our recruitment campaigns

We broadened and intensified our recruitment campaigns, with the aim of hiring drivers from a wider demographic. We also began recruiting at local job markets, organised open days, and used flyers to gain attention for our vacancies.​

Receiving a permanent contract earlier

We began offering new parcel deliverers a permanent contract after seven months, which we expect will lead to more deliverers staying with us for longer.​

Starter's premium

At depots that have the most trouble filling vacancies, we introduced a starting bonus for parcel deliverers of €250 net after three months employment.

Increase in 'Tip a winner' bonus

In 2023, we continued the increased bonus parcel workers are offered for recommending a new colleague, which was €250 (this was previously increased from €100).

Attracting and retaining mail deliverers

The labour shortage in the Netherlands is impacting mail delivery quality, which affects both senders and receivers. In 2023, over 90% of the work carried out at our Mail in the Netherlands delivery operations was by our own employees, 98% of whom were on permanent contracts. At 25%, the turnover rate among mail deliverers remained virtually unchanged year-on-year (2022: 24%). We began holding telephone interviews with mail deliverers who chose to leave the company, to discuss their reasons and help us introduce improvements, where applicable. Previously, this was done via a digital form. This new way of working has given us more personal insights into why postal deliverers choose to leave and enabled us to examine how we can incorporate their feedback into learning opportunities for the company. We will translate these insights into actions.

Despite hiring over 7,500 new colleagues to fill our vacancies in 2023, the ongoing tight labour market continued to make it challenging to fill more than 1,000 vacancies for mail deliverers. However, we continued to work hard to fill the vacancies and retain staff, running or launching fifteen programmes, which we highlight below. These will continue into 2024.

Pilot evening mail delivery

We launched a pilot programme that extended mail delivery times until 8 p.m. By extending delivery times till later in the day, we provide mail deliverers with more control over their own schedule, promoting a greater work-life balance.

Attracting pensioners to the company

We launched a recruitment campaign across the Netherlands to actively attract pensioners to the company.

Offering permanent contracts

Since 1 August 2022, postal workers have received a permanent contract from the moment they joined us, while all mail deliverers already working with us have had their contracts converted (with their agreement) to an indefinite period. Drivers now receive a permanent contract after one year working with us, and we also approached all temporary workers with the offer to continue working as postal workers with a permanent contract. After reaching state pension age, postal deliverers are now also eligible for a contract for an indefinite period. This applies to both current and newly recruited deliverers.

New collective labour agreement for mail deliverers

In mid-May 2022, we agreed a new collective labour agreement with the trade unions for mail deliverers for a period of two years, including a structural pay rise of 4% effective 1 January 2022 and another 4% effective 1 January 2023. Mail deliverers’ wages increased even more during this period due to significant increases of the statutory minimum wage.

Youth wage allowance

We began offering postal workers up to 20 years of age a supplement to their hourly wage upon joining.​

Starter's premium

In those areas most impacted by labour shortages, we began offering postal deliverers a one-off gross premium of up to €250 three months after starting employment.

Increase in 'Tip a winner' bonus

We increased the bonus postal workers are offered for recommending a new colleague to €250 from €100.​

Hiring English speakers

After a successful pilot, we began hiring English-speaking mail deliverers.

Guidance for employees who are at a distance from the labour market

Working alongside a number of specialist agencies, we recruited mail deliverers with a distance from the labour market, who are then supervised by job coaches. We work closely with sheltered workplaces and through our own job coaches to offer jobs to people with a distance to the labour market. Currently, close to 7% of total delivery hours is done by people that fall into this category and our aim is to increase this number to 7.5% by 2025.

Incentive premium for contract extensions

We continued to offer mail delivers a one-off financial premium to extend their contract, from a minimum of one hour per day up to three hours or more per day.

Employee delivery

From September, non-mail delivery employees were able to 'adopt' a neighbourhood to help provide delivery support, and they were also able to offer their help during our busy end-of-year period.

Newspaper deliverers and postal deliverers pilot

We established a pilot programme with DPG Media, a media company that publishes newspapers, where PostNL mail deliverers also delivered newspapers, and DPG Media's newspaper deliverers also delivered mail.

Greater cooperation with temporary employment agencies

We intensified our cooperation with temporary employment agencies, in a bid to boost the number of temporary workers we employed as mail deliverers.

Local flyers and career fairs

We distributed vacancy flyers across various towns and cities in the Netherlands to advertise mail delivery vacancies, and also attended job fairs and placed recruitment stands at universities and colleges in a bid to attract and offer students part-time delivery work.

Second chance interviews

Employees with a PostNL contract that was about to expire were interviewed by a recruiter to offer them the chance to continue working at the company as a mail deliverer.

Targeted office-based FTE reduction

While we continue to experience labour shortages in some areas of the company, such as mail deliverers, the challenging market conditions in 2023 meant we maintained our focus on improving efficiency across the organisation. One aspect of this was a reduction of 200-300 staff-function FTEs at our head office and Parcels, to further reduce indirect costs and improve efficiency. We will achieve this reduction in 2024, with the desired €25 million - €30 million cost savings. The majority of those who left were voluntary redundancies.