Good employment practices

Our policy

Our employees are our most important capital. Without them, we would not be able to make our wonderful products. It is therefore important that we manage to attract, retain and train employees. As an employer, we also have the responsibility to guarantee the safety, health and welfare of all our employees.

Safety, health and welfare of our employees

Creating a healthy and safe working environment for all VanDrie employees by continuously improving safety, welfare and working conditions.

Maintaining and promoting the safety, health and well-being of our people is a key principle. One indicator to determine how our employees are doing is sickness absence. In 2022, this absence rate stood at 6.0 per cent. By comparison, this was 6.2 per cent in 2021 and 6.1 per cent in 2020. This tells us that sickness absence in our organisation has decreased slightly. Two serious injury accidents occurred in 2022. This is impactful for the victims and also affects colleagues. Needless to say, these accidents have been reported and external investigations have taken place. We must report all accidents, near-accidents and high-risk situations to the authorities. By means of our own Risk and Inventory Evaluations (RI&E), we deploy actions to effectively prevent accidents and risks thereof.

A considerable part of the work in our production environments involves heavy labour. We are therefore investing in robots and automation to take over routine tasks. As a result of this, we can reduce the physical burden on our employees. In 2021, we created two PhD research positions in collaboration with the University of Twente to identify the opportunities and possibilities of automation in our meat production. That research continued during the course of 2022.

Compass

A good working environment is characterised not only by safe working conditions, but also by working together with committed colleagues who enjoy going to work. You should also feel safe in the workplace and be treated with respect. We actively share our compass with employees. The compass describes what the VanDrie Group is and what we do, but it also says something about the rules of conduct that we want to apply with each other. We expect all our employees to act in accordance with our values: committed, one step ahead, responsible and with an eye for quality. This does not include bullying, discrimination, sexual harassment and other unlawful behaviour. Confidential advisers have been appointed in our companies and potential abuses can also be reported anonymously via the SpeakUp line. In 2022, 4 reports were made to confidential advisers and 0 reports were made to SpeakUp.

Attracting, retaining and training our employees

Attracting, retaining and appreciating employees (and agency employees) by offering attractive working conditions and sufficient training opportunities.

By offering attractive terms and conditions of employment and sufficient training opportunities, we want to attract, retain and train professional employees.

In 2022, 4,350 employees worked for us, both permanent staff and agency employees. There is a lot of knowledge and expertise within our companies, but that is also needed on a permanent basis. We are encouraging this, by offering custom-made courses and training programmes to employees or by supervising young people in training and employment schemes, in collaboration with vocational training organisations, such as SVO vakopleiding Food.

Approved work placement company

The Adult and Vocational Education Act requires upper secondary vocational students to undertake the practical component of their training course at an approved work placement company. The four meat processing companies in the Netherlands are recognised as official work placement companies, as well as Labora, Navobi, Alpuro, Alpuro Breeding and Schils. We find training students to be an enjoyable and rewarding way to bring in staff who are motivated and eager to learn. Many students continue working for our organisation after their training programme. Students bring a fresh outlook to the company, as well as up-to-date knowledge and new insights. That is why we offer plenty of work placements. In 2022, we offered places to 47 trainees.

An additional end-of-year allowance was provided to employees at the end of 2022 to meet rising energy costs and inflation.