The added value that Facilicom Group offers can be summarised in the mission we defined in 2017: Working together on an inspiring living environment for everyone. This ‘Why’ gives a direction to our ambition to make the difference for our clients as a facilities service provider. Last year, we translated the mission into a theme that immediately conveys what we are committed to as a people-driven company: happiness at work.

The pay-off Happy People Make Happy People highlights that working together is our central theme in our commitment to creating an inspiring living environment for everyone. This is about the collaboration between Facilicom Group’s divisions. And in particular, it is about our employees and clients working together. If our employees clearly show that it is a pleasure to be at work, this has a positive impact on the pleasure, satisfaction and performance of our clients’ employees. This way, our service provision creates additional value to the core business of our clients.

This annual report sets out how we develop happiness at work. We also show that facilities service provision is more than a commodity and a cost item. Happiness leads to better performance. This is clear from research. Employees who are feeling good about themselves feel more involved in the organisation and perform better. This implies that happiness at work is good for the employees of Facilicom Group - and therefore also for the employees of our clients.

The theme of happiness at work is not new to Facilicom Group, but was raised to a high priority last year. We use a range of initiatives to develop a culture that has structural attention for this theme. Managers put happiness at work on the agenda as a theme in performance assessments. Fifty employees were trained as ambassadors of happiness at work to further flesh out our mission. Various pilots are ongoing to enable employees to more independently decide on how to perform their work, for example by giving them the option of creating their own work schedules.

We have noticed that the theme of happiness at work is very much a hot topic. It is something that is relevant to all of us. In all activities that we perform - whether it is excellent cleaning, reliable security or good care - we wish for our employees to experience intrinsic motivation and sufficient autonomy.

Naturally, in a large organisation such as ours, it takes a while before each employee experiences a cultural change at a personal level. Also, happiness at work does not simply pop up from one day to the next. It is a dot on the horizon that we are working hard to reach in the coming few years.

We are convinced that this course will discern us in the market. In the past year, we have not achieved our financial result targets. Most divisions have achieved their sales targets, but the overall profit of Facilicom Group has significantly lagged behind the overall target. This was mainly due to some social challenges that have a high impact on us as a people company, such as increasing labour market scarcity, increasing payroll costs and increasing sick leave rates. At the same time, we also critically review ourselves. In addition to being focused on our clients and employees, we will need to pay more attention to operational excellence.

Naturally, we already implemented measures in order to ensure we can show a turn-around this year. The focus on happiness at work is a key factor in this effort. This clearly shows that facilities service provision is not a cost item. Instead, it contributes added value to the employees and work processes that are vital to our clients. This is why we are fully confident that our investments in happiness at work for our colleagues and our clients will eventually translate into a healthy profit for our company.