People, Leadership & Culture

Culture Development

HR & People Analytics

The impact of a corporate culture without psychological safety: causes and consequences

The impact of a corporate culture

What happened at Boeing?

Over the last three weeks, I've talked about how a positive culture can help an organization succeed. However, a poor culture can have the opposite effect and harm the organization. In this article, I will explain how problems with Boeing's corporate culture led to their recent setbacks. 
In case you missed what happened: a Boeing-manufactured Alaska Airlines plane door panel blew out midair over Portland, Oregon, on January 5th, forcing an emergency landing. Now there are a lot of concerns about safety and quality at the airline, as this was not the first time something went wrong with a Boeing plane. So, what happened and what role did their organizational culture play?

Niek Klaver

Organizational

Summer Tradition at Highberg: New Summer Director Takes the Helm!

Summer Tradition at Highberg

04ab164c b12d 4672 b28a bd286afe2351

Solaiman Boubkari (26) is stepping in as the summer director for Highberg Digital. With the theme #PowerofDifference, Solaiman aims to emphasize the importance of recognizing and embracing differences among employees to enhance collaboration.

Enhance your organizational culture with best practices from industry leaders

Enhance Your Organizational Culture

Joakim nadell K67s B Vq L Luw unsplash

<a href="https://highberg.com/insights/enhance-your-organizational-culture-with-best-practices-from-industry-leaders-decision-making-values-and-rituals-traditions">Last week</a>, we discussed best practices for the organizational from industry leaders, specifically focusing on decision-making, values, and rituals &amp; traditions. In this article, we show how some of the biggest companies improve their organizational culture, through psychological safety, leadership, and DEI.

Netherlands

Enhance your organizational culture with best practices from industry leaders: Psychological safety, leadership & DE&I

Enhance your organizational culture

<a href="https://highberg.com/insights/verbeter-je-organisatiecultuur-met-best-practices-van-marktleiders">Last week</a>, we discussed best practices for the organizational culture from industry leaders, specifically focusing on feedback, collaboration and learning &amp; development. In this article, we show how some of the biggest companies improve their organizational culture, through decision-making, organizational values, and rituals &amp; traditions.

Enhance your organizational culture with best practices from industry leaders: Decision-making, values, and rituals & traditions

Enhance your organizational

A strong cultural identity is essential for businesses success. It helps to keep employees happy, encourages new ideas, and leads to overall success. But what makes the best companies stand out? The secret lies in how they build and maintain their workplace culture. In this article, we explore some of the successful strategies used by top companies. You can apply these practical tips and examples to enhance your organization’s culture and achieve excellent results.

Enhance your organizational culture with best practices from industry leaders: feedback, collaboration and learning & development

Transforming Culture: The Key to Psychological Safety

Transforming Culture

Afbeelding6

Have you ever silently questioned your boss's decisions but chose to keep your thoughts to yourself? In many organizations, people feel unsafe to speak up due to the prevailing culture. Unfortunately, this can lead to serious consequences. What if your input could have prevented a mistake or inspired your boss to find a new solution? When employees don't feel safe to speak up or take risks, it can result in preventable errors, missed opportunities, and a lack of new and innovative ideas. This hesitance to share his concerns and ideas often comes from not feeling psychologically safe, which is really important for creating a productive and innovative work environment.

Strategy & Change

Risk, Resilience & Compliance

Eight Things You Need to Know About NIS2

The European Union (EU) is deeply concerned about the cybersecurity of organizations within vital sectors. The EU has introduced the Network and Information Security 2 Directive (hereinafter: NIS2) to enhance the cyber resilience of these organizations. Organizations within vital sectors are obligated to comply with NIS2 from October 18, 2024. Organizations belong to the vital sector when their service provision (temporarily) disrupts and has a significant impact on the economy and society.
In this Insight, you will read about the eight things you absolutely need to know about NIS2.

Nino van Leeuwen

Shankar Sahtie

Digital

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Gender Mobility

The gender balance in the inflow, through-flow and outflow of employees says something about the Diversity and Inclusiveness of an organization. Thus, a good understanding of the mobility patterns of men and women is crucial for any organization that is serious about Diversity and Inclusion. Indeed, understanding these patterns helps to formulate answers around the questions below.
<ul><li>Are enough women coming in to maintain diversity?</li><li>Do women have the same opportunities as men to be promoted?</li><li>Is there a glass ceiling?</li><li>Does the organization have more/less difficulty engaging women?</li><li>What is the likelihood that diversity goals will be met?</li></ul>

Henrieke van Bommel

People Analytics Transformation

Calculate employee turnover (Employee turnover analysis)

Calculate employee turnover

Structurally high employee turnover is problematic for organizations. Excessive employee turnover incurs significant costs and can even impact issues such as business continuity and customer satisfaction. An employee turnover analysis, through advanced statistical analysis, identifies risk groups, helps to understand the causes of turnover, predicts how employee turnover will develop and predicts where turnover will occur.

In short, deploying HR Analytics on the topic of employee turnover gives organizations the tools to prevent employee turnover!

Irma Doze

Employee Experience

Labor-market positioning

Having the right people in the right place at the right time is critical to an organization's success. To effectively bring in the right people, it is essential to understand how your organization is viewed from the job market.
Are potential employees familiar with the employer brand? What positive and lesser associations do they have with the employer brand? To what extent is there an employer brand preference?
Answers to these and other labor market positioning questions will help you reach the right target group with an appealing message.

Employee segmentation

Every employee is unique. Yet some employees have more in common than others. Employees who are more alike often want similar things in their work. So it is useful to distinguish such groups within your workforce. This can be done through employee segmentation.

Strategic Workforce Planning

The Intelligent Fleet Scowl

The Intelligent Fleet Watch

Often the immediate supervisor assesses the quality of employees by determining, on the one hand, the performance in the recent past (performance) and, on the other hand, the expected potential contribution in the near future (potential) on a scale and thus identifies the top talents. But when do you speak of moderate, sufficient or excellent potential? The intelligent fleet review offers a solution!

Recruiting bias check

Does everyone have an equal chance of being considered for a job? AnalitiQs' Recruitment bias check analyzes whether there are significant differences between groups of applicants and the ultimate probability of being hired for a job.
The job market is upside down and every organization does its utmost to attract good staff. Nevertheless, there is a large group of people in the Netherlands who want to work (more), but ultimately do not get this opportunity. CBS calls this unused labor potential.
In an organization, this can mean that certain groups of people, for example women or people with a different or bi-cultural background, have less chance of being hired. Alternatively, they may be hired but have to prove themselves first and are therefore lower graded. A direct cause of pay differences.

Fueling Growth: The Power of a Strong Feedback Culture

The Power of a Strong Feedback Culture

Employees truly are the backbone of every company. How successful a company is, comes mostly down to how well employees are performing. And for employees to perform well, they require feedback. 
In an organization where receiving feedback and giving is the norm, individual and organizational performance as employees feel more engaged and valued when they receive constructive feedback. This helps them identify areas for improvement and grow. As a result - greater organizational success. 
But how can your organization build such a feedback culture? 
This article explains:
▫️ the benefits of a strong feedback culture ▫️ provides practical steps to achieve it 
Keep reading to discover how feedback can fuel your workplace success.

Build your own CIA

Portfolio Performance Measurement #3

Portfolio Performance Measurement #3: Build your own CIA

Many business school classrooms echo with lectures on the value of precise, analytic approaches to management. Yet when we look at what’s happening all around us, there is a big gap between what we are taught and what we do in our own organizations. 
Measuring the value of we are delivering, and how we are delivering it, is not always obvious to leadership teams. A reason can be found in the varying opinions on measurement effectiveness in the first place. Some organizations are doing just fine without too much measurement. To others, these systems might seem more like a luxury than a necessity given their day-to-day worries. It is not seen as critical for survival, yet.

Koen Harbers

Government and Public Sector

Case study 'Redesign HR Operating Model' NS

Highberg collaborated in a transformation with the HR Department of Dutch railroads on improving the HR service delivery model. Subsequently the HR Target Operating Model was newly developed. Read below about the context, approach, and the results which were achieved.

Mariëlle van Tilburg

Heiko van Eldijk

Case study: Redesign HR Operating Model for NS

Would you like to change your organizational culture?

Change your organizational culture

Culture; a fairly vague concept, yet everyone manages to give it a description. You probably recall the observing attitude that arises when you enter another family's home, visit another country, or experience the dynamics of a group for the first time. (Un)consciously, you take note of what is or isn't customary. What is being discussed here? What is valued? Or what isn't? What behavior or story can you expect a positive reaction to? In addition to families, countries, and groups of people, organizations also have their own culture. (Un)written rules set boundaries for employees' behavior in the background. If you want to develop your organizational culture, you must bring these unwritten rules out of the shadows and make them explicit. Therefore, Highberg's approach is aimed at converting the versatility of culture into behavior and concrete roles, creating control over the desired cultural change and the implementation and support of this change.

Riet Smits

Lianne Swenne

Would you like to change your organizational culture? Make desired behavior explicit and bring unwritten rules out of the shadows!

Leaders underestimate culture and their own impact on it

Leaders underestimate culture

This article was originally published on <a href="https://chro.nl/artikel/leiders-onderschatten-de-factor-cultuur-en-hun-eigen-impact-daarop/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">CHRO</a>.
Culture and behaviour are inextricably linked, but what about that? What influence does culture have on behaviour within organisations? In this blog I share some results from our most recent research and I draw attention to culture.
An organisational culture is an elusive thing. It determines which basic assumptions employees use to deal with internal and external issues. It affects how people perceive, think and feel things. This refers to the behaviour of employees and how they interact with each other. In addition, an organisational culture has a strong influence on the extent to which employees identify with a company.

The pinnacle of employee satisfaction

<a href="https://chro.nl/artikel/de-overtreffende-trap-van-medewerkerstevredenheid/">This article was originally published on CHRO.</a>
Just measuring satisfaction seems to be outdated for good. But what's smart to measure now?
On Sunday, March 20th, it was the International Day of Happiness. That prompted me to take another look at everything that is being measured around employees nowadays. It all started with 'just' employee satisfaction. But now, various new terms have emerged that we 'must' uncover, such as: engagement, workplace happiness, job satisfaction, involvement, vitality, and so on.
I see a similar development to what we experienced 20 years ago in marketing analytics. Just measuring satisfaction eventually proved insufficient, as satisfied customers were also found to leave. Therefore, many organizations now opt to measure the extent to which customers recommend the supplier (and/or the products), known as the Net Promoter Score (NPS).
Similarly, the Employer Net Promoter Score measures the recommendation of the organization as an employer; the 'pinnacle' of employee satisfaction. The goal of the Employer Net Promoter Score (eNPS) is primarily to learn from both the promoters (with a high eNPS score) and the detractors (with a low eNPS score), understanding the reasons behind their scores. This 'why' helps the employer continuously make improvements to enhance the work and working conditions for employees.

It's high time for data-driven inclusiveness management!

Data-driven inclusiveness management!

It is high time for data-driven inclusion management!

<a href="https://chro.nl/artikel/hoog-tijd-voor-datagedreven-inclusiemanagement/">This article is originally published on CHRO.</a>
Anyone who wants to increase the diversity of the workforce must simultaneously manage for inclusiveness. This can be measured very well, says analytics expert Irma Doze.
Do you believe that your organisation thinks and works in an inclusive way? That there is room for everyone, that employees feel at home? Practice is often less rosy than many people think. I see many organisations focussing mainly on increasing diversity in the workforce.

This is how you listen to your employee

The voice of the employee

The voice of the employee: How to listen to your employees

In the marketing world, actively listening to customers to meet their needs has become standard practice. Irma Doze, co-author of the book 'HR-analytics', now sees the same trend emerging among employees. But how do you actively listen to your employees, and why is it valuable?

Gido van Puijenbroek

How do you measure the impact of a culture change?

Improve Employee Satisfaction

How to Improve Employee Satisfaction After Organizational Change

Changes within an organization, or even a reorganization, can have a significant impact on employees. Sometimes their role changes, they are placed in a different position or organizational unit, or they may need to undergo training to meet new requirements. But even if personnel changes are limited, there are still consequences for employees.
This was also the case with an organization in the cultural sector, where a new director had been appointed. He made several changes and opted for a more commercial approach. Some of these changes caused unrest among employees. The management wanted to address this unrest and therefore sought the assistance of Highberg.
Henrieke van Bommel is an Analytics Translator at Highberg and is eager to share about this process.

Interpreting and analyzing open-ended responses

Voice of the Employee Survey

Guille alvarez Ic I3 Fiz U9 Cw unsplash

How do you truly listen to your employees?
As an organization, you want your employees to enjoy their work. Happy employees ultimately lead to happy customers, and vice versa. Moreover, employees who are satisfied with their work and employer are more likely to stay with the organization longer. This is especially important now as the tightness of the labor market is strongly felt.
One way to measure the level of employee satisfaction is through an Employee Satisfaction Survey (ESS). This involves surveying employees with a set of questions, and repeating this process annually. Although almost every organization is familiar with an ESS, this traditional method of research is becoming less popular. This is mainly because the interval of a year is too long, creating, facilitating, filling out, and analyzing the surveys takes a lot of time, and all of this ultimately yields (too) little.
An alternative to the ESS is a Voice of the Employee Survey. With this approach, you focus on structured and continuous measurement, analysis, interpretation, and follow-up of the 'voice of the employee'. It concerns the experience of employees, or rather, the Employee Experience. When you know what the experience is and what influences it, you can respond accordingly.
This is exactly what a major insurer had in mind with their Voice of the Employee Survey. Alex Hellemons, Analytics Translator at Highberg, has guided this project and is keen to share more about it.

Alex Hellemons

Voice of the Employee Survey: interpreting and analyzing open-ended responses

The importance of the Employer Net Promoter Score (eNPS) in 2024

Employer Net Promoter Score (eNPS) in 2024

Niek

When your employees are at a party, how enthusiastic will they be about your organization? Are your employees so satisfied with you as an employer that they would recommend the organization to others as a great place to work? That is the question that the eNPS examines.

Digital Strategy & Execution

A Highberg customer story: Chain computerization in the immigration chain

Computerization in the immigration chain

Nieuwkomer shane rounce D Nko NX Qti3c unsplash 3

Those who enter our country as aliens or are found to be illegal immigrants go through step-by-step processes that may lead to them being granted a residence permit or visa or being deported from the country. This involves a chain of different organizations: the so-called aliens chain. The Direction Regie Vreemdelingenketen, part of the Ministry of Security and Justice, promotes cooperation between all chain partners.

Wilbert Enserink

Chain computerization in the immigration chain

Efficiently reduce employee turnover with data-driven retention strategies

Reduce employee turnover

Ux indonesia q C2n6 RQU4 Vw unsplash

The labor market is tight and the 'war on talent' is in full swing. Hiring and training new employees not only takes time and money, but the loss of valuable talent can also disrupt business continuity and negatively impact the morale of remaining employees. It is therefore understandable that organizations wonder what the most efficient ways are to retain employees and thus minimize the negative consequences of turnover.
An organization often makes assumptions about employee turnover, for example, mainly younger and recently hired employees would leave and the only way to retain these groups would be to offer them better compensation. However, companies often have no concrete substantiation for these assumptions. A market-leading organization in the dairy industry faced a similar scenario, with the company experiencing significantly high voluntary turnover on a global scale. In this situation, AnalitiQs was called in to work with the client to answer two crucial questions: (1) What is the situation regarding voluntary turnover in our organization and (2) how can we reduce this turnover?

How to reduce the number of employees leaving the company

HR Analytics and Employee Turnover

Employee turnover

Employee turnover, particularly when undesired, presents a substantial challenge to organizations, leading to high costs, disrupted business continuity, and potential customer dissatisfaction. Given the current tight labor market, managing employee turnover is a hot topic within HR, and it's particularly relevant to the insurance company. Anticipating a potential employee gap in the upcoming years, the organization aims to reduce the number of voluntary employee departures. To achieve this goal, they have enlisted the help of AnalitiQs.

HR Analytics and Employee Turnover: how to reduce the number of employees leaving the company

Gamification is a scalable change approach to achieve sustained desired behavior

Gamification for behavioural change

whitepaper-gamification-for-behavioural-change

Gamification is a scalable change approach to achieve sustained desired behavior and improve performance in the workplace.

Whitepaper: Gamification for behavioural change

Challenges around organizational transformation within large, Dutch organizations

Organizational transformation challenges

whitepaper-five-challenges-around-organizational-transformation

Five challenges around organizational transformation according to leaders within large, Dutch organizations and our reflections on them.

Whitepaper: Five challenges around organizational transformation

Innovative compliance therefore creates more ethical behavior.

Research compliance and innovation

white-paper-research-compliance-and-innovation

An innovative compliance program makes for an effective compliance program. Innovative compliance therefore creates more ethical behavior.

White paper: Research compliance and innovation

Exemplary behavior of leaders is crucial with integrity issues.

Moral leadership – the theme of this time

whitepaper-moral-leadership-the-crucial-theme-of-this-time

The exemplary behavior of leaders is crucial to reduce the reputational risk of integrity issues within your organization.

Whitepaper: Moral leadership – the crucial theme of this time

For an effective game fulfilling the conditions is crucial.

The 6 ingredients of an effective game

whitepaper-the-6-ingredients-of-an-effecitve-game

To ensure that a game is truly effective and contributes to the organizational objectives, fulfilling the conditions is crucial.

Whitepaper: The 6 ingredients of an effective game

A fair comparison: measuring pay equity

Measuring pay equity

At first glance, measuring the gender pay gap seems straightforward – just compare the average salaries of men versus women, right? Well, not quite. The reality is far more nuanced and often up for debate. Factors like part-time work and job levels skew these averages, potentially masking underlying issues of inequality. To answer the question: are we paying our employees equally for the same work, an organization must calculate the corrected pay gap. A more comprehensive metric that factors in variables such as job level and experience to reveal the true state of pay equity within an organization. It's not just about identifying a gap but understanding why it exists and what actions can rectify it. In this article, Highberg explains their approach to calculating equal pay for equal work, shedding light on the complexities of pay disparity and paving the way for meaningful change.

Shadow IT, how do you deal with it?

Shadow IT appears unstoppable

shadow-it-appears-unstoppable-how-do-you-deal-with-it

Shadow IT is defined as the IT within an organization that does not fall under the responsibility and management of the organization's (central) IT department. There is an increasing presence of shadow IT in organizations, especially due to the wide range of cloud services available and the increasingly adopted bring-your-own-device policy. It seems to be an ever-growing challenge for IT departments to manage shadow IT. IT departments will need to let go of some responsibilities while setting clear boundaries for shadow IT.

Pim Schouten

Shadow IT appears unstoppable, how do you deal with it?

Embracing Polysourcing: Hybrid IT governance for decentralized success

Polysourcing demands different IT governance

polysourcing-demands-radically-different-it-governance-2

In this second blog on the consequences of IT decentralization, I will address how organizations should reshape their IT governance.

Polysourcing demands radically different IT governance (2)

Polysourcing and decentralized IT governance: strategic responsibility balanced

Polysourcing demands for different governance

polysourcing-calls-for-radically-different-it-governance-1

IT is becoming increasingly decentralized. This leads to fragmentation of IT activities. To ensure that IT still contributes maximally to the organization's strategic objectives, you will also need to decentralize parts of your IT governance. In two blogs, I will explain the cause of decentralization, its impact on outsourcing, and how organizations should restructure their IT governance. This first blog focuses on the cause of decentralization and introduces polysourcing, a new sourcing form that goes beyond multisourcing.

Polysourcing demands radically different IT governance (1)

Media and entertainment

Effective growth strategies for media firms

Media growth: Organic or acquisitions?

organic-or-acquisitions-which-growth-is-more-effective-for-media-companies

"Anyone who does what they can already do, always remains what they already are." This quote from the American automotive pioneer Henry Ford is more relevant than ever. Today, innovation and investment are required. Growth is not just an option, but a necessity for media companies.

Hendrik Langen

Germany

Organic or acquisitions – which growth is more effective for media companies?

A Highberg customer story: European procurement through green glasses

European procurement through green glasses

Groene bril bud helisson kqguzgv Yrt M unsplash

Every four or five years it comes around again: procurement. The Dutch government constantly has to deal with contracts expiring that then have to be put out to tender again. So too do the Dutch provinces. Their telephony contracts expired in 2018, so in 2017 they joined forces (for the 3rd time) to jointly market their telephony with Provincial Telephony 2017 (PT2017). This is more efficient than each on their own and because of the size, they are an attractive party for the market. This allows them to make serious cost savings, both on the procedure (working together more efficiently) and on the contracts (buying larger). This involved fixed and mobile telephony connections, mobile devices and the construction and maintenance of indoor (in-house) coverage facilities for telephony, divided into five lots.
Cooperation with Highberg (fka VKA) was sought and found early in the process for the additional procurement and telephony expertise for the core team of provinces.

Rick de Rooij

Sustainability

The importance of employee needs in critical positions

The importance of employee needs

In today's dynamic and competitive world, some functions within organizations are critical to overall business operations. At a Dutch financial institution, these critical job functions have been carefully defined, because they play an essential role in achieving the organizational goals. To ensure that these employees can perform optimally and remain motivated, it is very important to understand their specific needs. AnalitiQs has conducted several analyzes on open employee survey data (Peakon) to understand the needs of employees in these critical groups and to determine whether specific policies need to be developed.

The importance of employee needs in critical positions at a Dutch financial institution

The impact of hybrid working

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, many organizations worldwide have had to adapt their ways of working, and hybrid working has become a popular concept. This new way of working has also been introduced at a Dutch insurance company. This raises the question of how hybrid working influences managers' attitudes towards company policy. AnalitiQs has conducted a thorough driver analysis on data from research into employee engagement and hybrid working to find answers to this question. The results of this research have provided interesting insights.

The impact of hybrid working on the attitude of Managers towards the Company(policy)

The Next 5 years decide

Transformation endgame (part 1)

transformation-endgame-the-next-5-years-decide

Newspaper publishers are facing the biggest challenge they have ever faced in their history. The next few years demand radical action. Even if you only hear the wind rustling softly in the distance: the storm is coming, and it is brutal.

Christoph Mayer

Transformation endgame (part 1) - the next 5 years decide

A Highberg customer story: The Nutrition Center's new canteen scan

The Nutrition Center's new canteen scan

The Nutrition Center is the authority that gives consumers reliable and independent information about a healthy, safe and sustainable diet. The 'Disk of Five' is familiar to many people, but in addition the Nutrition Center also provides advice on 'eating environments' and how organizations can achieve a responsible food supply. The starting point is to let the healthy choice be the easy choice.

A Highberg customer story: Cals College Digital, Secure and Transparent

Cals College Digital, Secure and Transparent

Good ICT support as key to flexible education

Due to the increasing digitization of education and the introduction of the AVG, security and careful handling of (personal) data and supporting resources have become increasingly important. This is also observed by the Cals College, a secondary school community with two branches: one in Nieuwegein and one in IJsselstein. The Cals has recently taken a professionalization step in the field of information management, privacy and information security. In this process, Highberg advised and provided and implemented methods to get a better grip on the management of ICT, privacy and information security. In addition, Highberg fulfills the role of Data Protection Officer (FG) and Privacy Quartermaster.

Wim Kok

Equal Pay analysis bij AkzoNobel

Exit-survey-not-late-in-the-day

AkzoNobel is een multinational uit Nederland die gespecialiseerd is in verf en coatings. Het is een van de grootste en meest vooraanstaande wereldwijde bedrijven op het gebied van coatings en verf. Met meer dan 35.000 werknemers wereldwijd wilden ze een wereldwijde analyse van gelijke beloning uitvoeren. Na zorgvuldige overweging kozen ze Highberg als hun partner. 
Vandaag interviewen we Magdalena Guaia, Global Diversity, Equity &amp; Inclusion Advisor, over haar ervaringen met het uitvoeren van onderzoek naar gelijke beloning en Highberg.

Heiko van Eldijk

Partner

Capabilities

Related insights