Strengthening employee engagement

Measuring employee engagement provides us with valuable insights into how connected and passionate people are with their work, and it is an important indicator of how people experience the company's labour practices. 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.

Steering on people engagement

PostNL Employee engagement Share of engaged employees
2022 - 2023

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Employee engagement fell to 68% in 2023, as measured by our independent service provider, below our 78% goal. The continuing very tight labour market increased pressure on some areas of our business, particularly Mail in the Netherlands, which dealt with a shortage of mail deliverers in many parts of the country. At the same time, we implemented a range of business changes within this part of the organisation, including extending efficiencies across delivery routes. We believe these factors had a clear impact on engagement levels. While our Mail in the Netherlands business will continue to have to adapt, in 2024 we will place additional focus on addressing how we change, ensuring that we do not launch too many adjustments at the same time, drawing on the experiences and feedback our people shared in the survey.

At our Parcels business, the survey highlighted differences between departments. While employee engagement at our Parcels Commerce and Operations departments was 72% and 73% respectively, below our goals, we were pleased to see that people at Operations reported an increase in the enjoyment and energy they derive from their work – an area in which we have placed a great deal of attention recently. Company-wide, people also mentioned they are proud of their work and the contribution their department makes to the company. Feedback is followed up departmentally and falls under the responsibility of (senior) management, and management discuss scores per team.

Monitoring satisfaction of delivery partners

Within Parcels, we work with delivery partners across more than 70% of our routes. In 2023, more than 95% of delivery partners in the Netherlands and around 85% in Belgium employed 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. Throughout the year, we continued to develop solid partnerships with the more than 200 delivery partners we work with in Belgium, including periodically discussing their compensation with them, adapting their compensation, and reviewing their compliance on several relevant social laws. Through our annual collaboration barometer we measure the satisfaction of both delivery partners and their deliverers.

In the Netherlands and Belgium, we saw a slight increase in the percentage of satisfied delivery partners, who said they remained positive about working with PostNL. The main areas for improvement, which we will continue to work on, were listening to our partners, focusing on information sharing, and the ambience at our depots. We were happy to note that the number of satisfied deliverers increased in Belgium compared to 2022, although a slight decrease was noted for deliverers in the Netherlands.

In the Netherlands, 65% of delivery partners said they were (highly) satisfied with PostNL as a customer (2022: 63%), while 68% of delivery partners said they were satisfied with the cooperation with the PostNL depot they worked with (2022: 71%). In Belgium, 69% of delivery partners said they were satisfied with PostNL as a customer (2022: 67%), while 77% said they were satisfied with the cooperation they had with their depot (2022: 72%).

PostNL Collaboration barometer percentage
2022 - 2023

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