Boskalis Sustainability Report 2020

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They indicated a strong interest in sustainability, which led us to intensify our efforts and communications around the updated sustainability strategy as an important cornerstone of the corporate business plan. We also introduced new tools to assist employees with more clarity and support around career paths and opportunities, a need indicated by the survey. These are further outlined below. ATTRACTING TALENT The race to attract and retain the right talent was particularly intense in 2020 as the pandemic limited our access to people with the strategic competencies we need to expand our horizons in growth areas such offshore energy. After a brief halt to our trainee program at the beginning of the pandemic, we resumed our activities to successfully create a pool of new trainees whose profiles match the strategic workforce plan of our Employer Brand Campaign, launched in 2019. We have continued to evolve our recruitment process to attract the next generation of engineers and specialists, recognizing that innovation and sustainability resonate with the talented individuals we want to join our organization. This year we welcomed 1,752 new colleagues. Alongside our digital campaign, we have always maintained a campus recruitment approach to hiring trainees who are graduates of both academic and vocational universities, inviting them to our campus in Papendrecht as part of in-house days. These give prospective employees the opportunity to get to know the company and find out more about what working for Boskalis involves. This year, in light of the pandemic, we moved these activities online, creating ‘e-house’ days instead of in-house days, and promoting them through social media. By digitally interacting with potential new employees, we were able to conduct conversations with candidates from all over the world, broadening our reach and our access to strategic competencies. We expect to keep this element in our approach to recruitment, developing a hybrid of online and face-to-face hiring opportunities. This year’s digital events, like our events in Papendrecht and in universities, focused on specific themes, such as sustainability and innovation. INTERNATIONAL RECRUITMENT AND RETENTION As the proportion of our international employees continues to grow, we have strengthened our familiarization program. This is designed to ensure that those moving to the Netherlands from abroad receive the support they need, including finding suitable housing, handling work visas, and help settling into a new community. We are furthermore increasingly trying to retain good local employees with a project contract tenure beyond the duration of that specific project. These colleagues are often keen

YOURIZON – OUR NEW INTERNAL NEWS PLATFORM Yourizon is a new internal news platform that was introduced in February 2020. The online platform was developed with the intent of making it easy to share interesting Boskalis developments with colleagues around the world, in part in response to one of the 2019 Employee Survey findings. The name Yourizon is a direct reference to the Boskalis mission of Creating New Horizons, but it can also be read as ‘your eyes on’ Boskalis, and that is exactly the goal of this platform. Yourizon is a way to share our successes and experiences with each other and to make it clear how our strategy is being implemented. The platform complements the internal media in place such as Cohesion, Yammer and Bokanet. With the benefit of hindsight, the timing was perfect as Yourizon served as an ideal tool to communicate internally throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Since its launch more than 350 news items have been posted and the platform has received more than 175,000 views. In 2021, the communications team behind Yourizon will look to implement a mobile app version and further increase the cohesion and proud feeling about Boskalis among colleagues.

SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2020 – BOSKALIS

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