Vitality
Fresh fruit is always available at all our locations and we organise weekly boot camp training sessions in Nijkerk, which employees can actively participate in. In 2024, Gorinchem will also start this. We also encourage our employees to participate in various sports events. These include a running race in Nijkerk with various distances, a cycling tour for the climate and various skating clinics. For a duration of three years, Vreugdenhil Dairy Foods has become proud sponsor of the women's marathon speed skating team in the top division in 2023. Together with VGR Sport, we are co-principal sponsor of the skating team. Playing sports gives energy and a shared sports experience creates connection. Vitality and a healthy working environment are paramount at Vreugdenhil. To emphasise the importance of exercise, we distributed Vreugdenhil sportswear to our employees. In this way, we want to encourage a healthy lifestyle and create a positive working environment in which vitality is central.
TipTrack tool
For employees covered by the dairy CLA, the TipTrack tool was also available last year. To increase sustainable employability, TipTrack offers training and coaching on four themes: vital, agile, skilled and financial insight. Employees can choose how to use their available budget. It has been noted that the sustainable employability budget, as agreed in the CLA so far, has not led to the success hoped for beforehand. During the CAO negotiations, it was therefore decided that this would be dropped and converted into a 1% pay increase from 1 January 2024.
Sickness absence
What we see throughout the Netherlands and also within the dairy industry is that in recent years, sickness absence has been significantly higher than in the past. Unfortunately, this trend is also noticeable within Vreugdenhil. However, compared to 2022, sickness absence has fallen from 7.4% to 6.1%. This puts us slightly above the CBS annual figure for the food industry of 5.8%; in 2022 it was 6.7%. Long-term absence (> 6 weeks but less than 1 year) was 2.8% and additional long-term absence (> 1 year) was 1.2%. These figures are approximately at the 2022 level. As the total absenteeism for 2023 is significantly lower than in 2022, this means that short- and medium-term absenteeism has been reduced significantly. We hope this trend will continue in 2024 and translate into further reductions in long-term and additional long-term absence. Our goal remains to be 1% below the Dutch industry average absenteeism rate.
Preventive medical examination
This survey, consisting of a questionnaire and a physical consultation, was conducted on a voluntary and anonymous basis. The physical measurements consisted of cholesterol, glucose, weight, fat percentage, height, BMI, vision and hearing tests, as well as more extensive blood tests for some functions. The results showed that participants scored well on a number of themes, but there were also opportunities for improvement. Overall, employees are satisfied with the working environment and we score average when it comes to working ability compared to other companies. A large proportion of our employees are proud of their work and feel happy while working.
We follow up on the results by offering a consultation with the occupational health and safety service for high-risk employees and a consultation with a vitality coach for all over-50s.In addition, we hold workshops for all employees, where people can indicate which topics they prefer per location, and there is the opportunity to still take part in the survey for those who have not yet participated.