Employee satisfaction and retention
In 2021, Kuehne+Nagel experienced unprecedented challenges in global supply chain demands. This also resulted in huge expectations and demands towards employees. Following the 2021 survey results, we already learned that we needed to place a specific focus on addressing the inclusivity challenge, support mental health issues and better manage work-related stress. Consequently, tremendous efforts were put into targeted communication with our employees, by equipping our leaders to address these challenges and helping manage employee expectations. All this needed to be achieved, while most of our employees had to work remotely. The following approach was taken:
- We developed a Leadership Library that our managers could access. Specifically, we supported them in addressing the leadership challenges of best managing teams remotely, focusing on communication and inclusive management of teams.
- We trained many of our employees to become Mental Health First Aiders and equipped managers to better recognise first signs of mental health issues amongst their employees. Also, we offered training to manage work-life balance-related challenges better and asked managers to proactively communicate with their teams on these topics.
- We used our global platform Care, dedicated to our Kuehne+Nagel culture, to communicate with employees on topics identified in the 2020 Future of Work survey. Within each country, the organisation then specifically addressed and communicated with their employees on the issues highlighted using dedicated Care tools for optimal implementation.
- We developed a standardised global approach to remotely onboard new employees, already weeks before their first day of joining Kuehne+Nagel. Now, every new employee who signs an employment contract can access the new Onboarding App. Thanks to this app, we start to communicate with the new joiners even before they join, connect them with their teams and introduce them to our company culture. The new joiners' first feedback on this app is very encouraging, with a favorable rating of 4.6 out of 5.
Another huge success in 2021 was the active involvement of all our employees in addressing our recruitment challenge. With the rise in logistics challenges, we needed to recruit new employees in a difficult employment market. A global ‘Referral Programme’ was developed and launched. Now employees worldwide can refer candidates to any vacant position, using their networks to communicate with candidates.
Target 2022
Given our bold company goal: to be the best company to work for and with, our ambition to create a unique candidate and employee experience remains unchanged.
With all Human Resources initiatives, we will introduce in 2022, creating the best employee experience possible is at the core of everything to:
- Provide easy-to-use digital services as well as more sophisticated data-based HR-services to the business.
- Strengthen our Balance+Belonging agenda further through three defined initiatives.
- Introduce our new global behaviors model and
- Support implementation of enhanced working platform in 2022,
- Implement a modern, country-based holistic plan of a high-performance organisation.
Employee satisfaction and engagement will be measured again in our 2022 employee engagement survey, and we aim for a further improvement of our Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) of 2% points. We will also conduct an engagement survey for all our operational colleagues for the first time. The efforts on employee satisfaction should reflect on our unwanted attrition rate, which we aim to reduce overall by 5% compared to 2021.
Our new onboarding App aims for a satisfaction level of 4.5 and higher from the feedback of all new employees. This, together with the newly introduced ‘Buddy-concept,’ will, in return, impact the level of unwanted attrition amongst new joiners.
