Inspiring workplace

We very much enjoy welcoming work placement interns and trainees to the office. Working with students and educational institutions is exciting and helps us master new technologies and implement new knowledge.  We offered internships in various departments in 2022, with one placement culminating in a permanent position. The target for this component was at least two internship positions filled and this was amply achieved.

In the spring of last year, we replaced an employee who was temporarily away with a consultant from Passwerk. Passwerk works with individuals with an autism spectrum profile and normal-to-high talents. Dorssen, who came to us from Passwerk, turned out to be the dream software tester, working with a keen eye and great attention to detail.

Healthy workplace

For the past few years, DNS Belgium has operated a policy focused on the mental and physical health of all its employees. To do this, we work with our external workplace prevention service (IDEWE). We believe our office should be a psychologically safe environment for our employees. One of the measures we take to ensure this is the presence of our health and safety adviser and two persons of trust, or confidential advisers. These persons of trust report conducting four interviews in 2022. In addition, our employees are also able to call on the services at all times of a specialist centre for psychosocial wellbeing at work (Pulso). They do not have to give a reason for doing so. Pulso’s services were used three times. In 2022, there were no employees on long-term sick leave and there were no industrial accidents.

Our employees are given a high degree of freedom to organise their work themselves. In doing so, they are encouraged to schedule regular participation in sporting activities. One of the measures for maintaining a good “work-life” balance is the ample opportunity we give them to work from home. In fact, 65% of the hours worked were from home in 2022.

Each year, the health and safety adviser and HR manager draw up an annual action plan, based on a risk analysis of mental and physical wellbeing. Working with the communications department, a survey is sent to all staff members on a regular basis to gauge mental wellbeing. Based on this data and action plan, we implement a number of programmes focusing on mental wellbeing and the feeling of connectedness.  And the KPI for implementing at least six programmes promoting wellbeing is reached every year.

There is no collective labour agreement applied by our Joint Representation Committee 335. But through CLA90, the conditions are determined for compensation that is not results-related. To enable us to take a neutral approach to assessing and valuing jobs, DNS Belgium has chosen to classify all roles into job evaluation categories, using Hay 14 to 22. These categories are assessed using the Korn Ferry methodology. This ensures objectivity, consistency and independence in the assessment process. By using the Korn Ferry methodology and applying a carefully thought-out remuneration policy, DNS Belgium is able to offer salary packages to employees that are in line with the market. All permanent employees are also entitled to the following fringe benefits: cafeteria benefits plan, hospitalisation insurance, Internet allowance, meal vouchers, eco-vouchers, a net allowance for homeworking, net allowance for mobile phones, group insurance, a training budget, bicycle allowance, 32 days of holiday per year, free parking and a mobility budget or commuting allowance.

All of which contributes towards attracting, retaining and motivating talented staff. The pay gap ratio at DNS Belgium is calculated using the following formula: the ratio of the annual total compensation for the highest paid person in the organisation to the median annual total compensation for all employees, excluding the highest paid person. The ratio for 2022 was 2.71. To calculate the percentage growth of the pay gap, we use the following formula: the percentage increase in annual total compensation for the highest paid person in the organisation divided by the median percentage increase in annual total compensation for all employees in the organisation, excluding the highest paid person. The growth figure for 2022 was 0.81%.

Lifelong learning and coaching

We aim to have each employee attend 12 days of training each year. This KPI was not achieved in 2022. One of the reasons for this is that more informal workplace learning (i.e. colleagues coaching each other and sharing knowledge with each other) was not recorded properly. A total of 1705 training hours were recorded during the year.

For several years now, we have no longer carried out annual assessments between employees and managers. Instead, we operate a system of continuous feedback and coaching, conducted by both the employee’s manager and by the learning and development manager in HR. Approximately one-third of our employees follow a personal career coaching programme in which, among other things, personal development plans are monitored. In addition, a mindfulness course and an inspirational coaching course are in place for all employees. 

KPIs

The following Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) were set for “Inspiring Workplace”. First of all, there is a target of providing employees with 12 training days annually. Currently, though, we are only achieving a score of 214 of the required 408 days.

Another important KPI is ensuring critical knowledge in at least two employees. At the moment, the score for this KPI is 68%. Although there is still room for improvement in this area, we have already laid solid foundations. In addition, we aim to undertake at least six programmes covering mental wellbeing, as well as to employ a health and safety adviser and two persons of trust or confidential advisers. The latter point is our KPI for the impact on business ethics. For 2022, we achieved these targets by organising six programmes and employing a health and safety adviser and two persons of trust. In terms of diversity and equal opportunities, we stated that we would also publish our vacancies on the websites for diversity organisations. In 2022, we published two vacancies, thereby meeting the objectives.

Finally, our aim is to accommodate at least two internships or thesis students each year (Innovation of technology and processes). We exceeded our target in 2022, with a score of eight. Our R&D manager supervised four research theses on fake web detection, the open source website crawler, predicting the probability of a domain name renewal and the automatic classification of websites. For employee engagement, we have defined the following as a KPI: there must be a minimum of three CSR committee meetings each year. This target was met in 2022, with the committee meeting four times.