Employees

Alliander employs about 7,100 people (FTEs). Together they secure a reliable, affordable and accessible energy supply. We offer our employees a safe and healthy working environment that they can be proud of. In this way, we challenge them to get the best out of their knowledge, expertise and creativity.

This chapter is about what we do for our employees. Our colleagues have indicated that they most want to read about 'safe and healthy working practices' and 'training & development'. This report therefore sets out our results on these issues. For information on how the most important topics were identified, please see the Materiality analysis.

Objectives and results related to employees

Lost Time Injury Frequency (LTIF)

2.0 or lower
1.4
2.0 in 2016

Employee absenteeism

3.9 % maximum
4.2 %
4.1 % in 2016

Employee survey score

75 % minimum
71 %
70 % in 2016

Active safety culture percentage

30 % minimum
25 %
34 % in 2016

Women in leadership positions

27.0 % minimum
24.9 %
24.7 % in 2016

People at a distance from the labour market

100 minimum
102
104 in 2016

The energy transition is in full swing. Demands from customers and the market are increasing in volume and complexity. As a result, we must handle more work and resolve evermore challenging issues. An agile organisation is key to keep up with this evolving landscape. Our employees, too, must be flexible and open to change. Last year, Alliander welcomed more than 150 new technicians. However, this is by no means sufficient to deal with our growing workload. That is why we, as an organisation, must also become more effective in the way we perform our daily work. Through more efficient working methods, better planning and more accurate forecasting of the work coming our way. We are actively learning how to make smarter use of each other's professional expertise and skills. Added to this, we have made the recruitment of new technical colleagues a top priority. Recognising that further development of our leadership skills is crucial to achieve our objectives, we are investing in five leadership competences that we consider important. All these measures are necessary to ensure that our customers can consume the energy they need every day, both now and in the future.

Recruitment of technical talent

For several years now, we have been actively conducting recruitment campaigns on several fronts (both internal and external) to highlight and address the shortage of technicians within our company. This includes closely involving colleagues in our recruitment efforts and participating in an energy jobs platform (www.jobsinenergy.nl). We notice that a technical job is not high on the list of preferred career options. We are therefore strengthening our ties with educational institutions and schools to introduce children and young people at an early stage to the fulfilling and challenging field of energy technology. Examples are the WATT.nl platform and the Peta Academy, in which Rijkswaterstaat, ProRail and the energy network operators are working together to make young people enthusiastic about the energy transition and renewable energy generation. The shortage of technicians is not just a problem within the energy sector. It is a challenge facing the whole of the Netherlands.

Ready for a new future

Alongside the acceleration of economic activity and the challenges arising from the energy transition, technological developments also impact the way we do our work. Robotisation and digitisation, for instance, are visibly leading to the disappearance, creation and redefinition of jobs. To ensure that we, and our employees, are prepared for this new future, Alliander needs to continue investing in a culture that encourages everyone to freely and openly discuss the new reality and to invest in their lifelong development. Irrespective of age, work experience or training.