Boskalis Sustainability Report 2020

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tracks for Fleet Management and Finance will be added in 2021. Each track has four different levels. We encourage employees to use the framework in close consultation with their manager and HR, in order to explore their possibilities, choose their direction and determine their own path. The Boskalis Development Guide will support employees in their further career path. In addition, our Structural Based Learning allows employees themselves to indicate their interest in a particular role and request appropriate training. We also hold internal career markets every year where employees can, for example, participate in workshops that help them to define their ambition and profile themselves. In 2020 we also redesigned and simplified our approach to Performance Management (PM). Human Excellence is one of the three pillars of our Business Plan and our redesigned approach to PM supports this pillar with its focus on talent development and engagement. The redesign is based around the idea that employees take the lead in their own development and that PM conversations focus on one or two themes directly related to development. The PM process will be simpler, easy to use and administer, and support effective dialog. The improved system was finalized at the end of 2020 and went into pilot in a few selected projects in early 2021. SUSTAINABLE EMPLOYABILITY Supporting the continued employability of our employees is an important theme for our business and our employees. We do this by helping to enhance staff skills for the future and by looking at ways to keep people healthy, safe and motivated through to their retirement. We aim to create an environment in which people stay committed and connected. We encourage employees to shape their own career and, if necessary, retrain for a position that is fitting in their stage of life. For instance, through our training and development programs, employees can request to be trained for a different or less physically demanding job. At Boskalis Nederland, the SamenFIT (FIT Together) program that was launched in 2017 is now a well-integrated concept. In 2020 our COVID-19-related Vitality Portal (see page 10) added some important elements to Boskalis’ greater goal of contributing to the health and wellbeing of our employees. In the past years a main focus of the SamenFIT program was the health of our older employees in the field, which has resulted in a significant decrease in sickness absence. WAVEJUMP INNOVATION CHALLENGE Periodically, Boskalis launches its Wavejump Innovation Challenge (WIC), an opportunity for our ingenious employees to develop their innovative ideas and inventions. The initiative provides a mechanism for Boskalis to develop solutions to the challenges our teams face on projects in the field. Not only is this an excellent platform for employees to share their ideas, but it also means we will have a more powerful offer to make to our clients, and help us manage the impact of our work on the environment. In 2020 we realized two of the seven shortlisted ideas from 2019: a remotely operated cutting tool and a self-moving traffic barrier.

care for our people SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2020 – BOSKALIS to continue to work for Boskalis on subsequent projects in that part of the world. Our employees and agency staff can mobilize from their home and deploy to a project anywhere in the world. However we also take steps to invest in their sense of belonging to Boskalis, for example by ensuring that project managers and HR staff meet them regularly and create space to build trusting and open relationships. EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT In 2020, with so many of our employees working at home, or away on ships for longer periods than usual due to the COVID-19 travel ban, we undertook a range of initiatives to keep our employees motivated and engaged, listed below. Details of all these initiatives can be found under the special COVID-19 section of this report on page 10; they include online trainings, the Vitality Portal, remote leadership modules, COVID-19 survey, COVID-19 test street, the Stay Connected activity program and live event. INTERNAL MOBILITY & DEVELOPMENT A key theme for our employees, which we translated into our strategic human resources plan, was a desire for more career development opportunities. In 2020 we set ourselves the target of improving internal mobility and retention, and reviewing and refreshing our approach to performance management and talent development. As a result, we created development tracks for employees involved with primary processes, giving them a clear overview of the opportunities available. We also introduced a 360 Feedback form; the feedback obtained can be used in combination with or in addition to other new HR tools we created in 2020 such as the Personal Development Plan (PDP) and the new Development Framework. The PDP is a way of exploring and developing employees’ skills and talents; the aim is to make a mid- or long-term plan for an employee’s development and personal growth. The Development Framework is an initiative we introduced this year to assist employees who are specifically looking to add to their current skill-set. For those who want to progress in their careers, we are developing talent management programs on all levels. As well as personal leadership skills and function-specific capabilities, the programs will have a strong focus on soft skills. A WORLD-CLASS WORKPLACE In January 2020, Boskalis was recognized by Effectory, a leading provider of employee engagement solutions, as a World-class Workplace. This award is given to companies based on their employee survey score. Boskalis scored higher than the global benchmark average based on the global employee survey of 2019. The Development Framework currently outlines four tracks: Commercial, Tender, Engineering and Project & Operations;