With a vast share of our employees working in various factories all over the world, we are committed to creating safe and healthy work environments. Our workforce spreads across two continents and, as an employer, we strive for gender diversity and social inclusion. The IROs found during our double materiality process are described in the following table. 

Since 2018, we have professionalised our employee development program through the implementation of performance management. We started with our largest share of employees in the Netherlands, gradually expanding to Western European countries and, in 2025, we will implement these HR systems in Central and Eastern European countries and Asia. 

In the coming years, we will have a more international focus to standardise our HR approach and collaboration between HR departments globally. Our policies will be reviewed and standardised across all entities.

Employee experience

In 2024, we measured the employee experience for the 7th time among all Royal Ahrend colleagues globally, providing valuable insights into satisfaction, experiences and recommendations. We truly believe that a company is the sum of its employees who are working, innovating and creating together. The results of the survey are followed up with our managers and individual teams to determine areas of improvement.

Employee health and wellbeing

In recent years, we have invested in health and safety for our employees. All our production locations are ISO 45001 certified and we have further improved our health and safety management system. Internal and external audits on occupational health and safety provide us with valuable insights into how we can further improve employee health and well-being.

All factory colleagues are trained on occupational health and safety at work on an annual basis. During our toolbox sessions we include all relevant topics. These sessions are organised several times per year. Toolbox sessions are organised by team managers and facilitate a dialogue around one or two topics per session. In addition, local Health Safety Quality and Environment (HSQE) managers ensure that we inspect workstations in our factories to determine improvements and prevent accidents.

We also report so called ‘almost accidents’ to prevent actual accidents from happening. When accidents occur, they are always evaluated and corrective actions are implemented and reported back to the local HSQE manager.

Vitality program

The vitality program is one of our initiatives to improve employee health and well-being. This program does not only focus on occupational health and safety. In 2024, we experienced our first full year of the Ahrend Vitality program. This program aims to create awareness around four themes throughout the organisation. ‘Move it’ facilitates active sports initiatives such as padel, running and cycling, ‘Love your food’ gives employees insight into healthy foods, ‘Happy & Healthy’ focuses on mental health and lifestyle and ‘Future proof’ supports employees’ development for future employability, retirement and a healthy work-life balance.

In addition to raising awareness on vitality and health, the program is expected to have a positive impact on absenteeism, employee satisfaction and involvement. It also aims to keep employees healthy and fit. Furthermore, we believe that investing in our employees’ vitality enables us to attract and retain talent within our company.

Engagement and collaboration

With our growing international organisation, we have intensified collaboration initiatives to create a better connection between departments globally and establish a collaborative DNA. Locally, we have organised various inititiatives to enhance employee engagement through works councils and employee committees. 

Training and development

Each year, our colleagues go through an individual performance cycle with their manager to determine development areas and career growth. Employees can attend in-company training courses or apply for external ones. With the introduction of our online training platform, Ahrend Learning, we support our employees through a wide variety of training courses.

We set up an onboarding program for all new employees in order to get them acquainted with our company, our way of working and market propositions. This is a major improvement, because all Royal Ahrend employees are now being onboarded on all important topics.

In 2024, our overall employee experience score was 72,6, a positive change compared to 2023. In 2024 we also had the highest response rate thus far of 83,4%, exceeding last year’s response rate of 81,1%. The result of the Employee Engagement Survey 2024 shows that our employees find leadership, communication and working conditions very important. These topics are included in our 2025 follow up plan to further improve our employees' experiences at work.

In 2025, we will focus on employee engagement with our international employees to facilitate knowledge sharing amongst teams and to anticipate topics that are important for our employees. Furthermore, we will initiate a global leadership development program in the second half of 2025. This includes online and offline development training courses, which will also be included in our Ahrend learning platform. 

In 2024, we offered voluntary health checks at various locations. This anonymous check is based on vitality, work-life balance and lifestyle. Employees receive tailored advice from an independent and external party. Through these checks we aim to reach sustainable employability past the retirement age and decrease illness rates. Absenteeism prevention is high on the agenda in order to reduce absenteeism and even prevent employees from quitting their job. In 2025, our goal will be to reduce absenteeism rates below 4,5%.

In 2024, all our operations were covered by our occupational health and safety management system (ISO 45001) or through legal requirements. All employees and non-employees are covered by this system. Eight work related incidents were reported, of which 6 involved own employees and 2 non-employees. Our goal for 2030 is to have zero severe accidents on the workfloor. This is defined as medical treatment cases (MTC) and fatalities as a result of work-related injuries and work-related ill health. In 2024 we reported one MTC.  

Gender diversity is an important subject for Royal Ahrend, as the company has traditionally had a predominantly male workforce. To build a more diverse team, we have adopted two key approaches:

• Setting gender balance targets for our Supervisory Board, Board of Directors, and sub-top management.
• Actively encouraging the recruitment of women in specific teams and roles to strengthen overall diversity.

In 2024, we achieved our 2027 target for the Board of Directors, which now includes one male and one female member. Workforce-wide, gender diversity remained stable, with at least 33% male and female representation. Currently, 14% of our sub-top management positions are held by women. Our goal is to increase this to 28% by 2027. However, due to limited turnover in recent years, this percentage has remained unchanged. By the end of 2024, 11% of our overall workforce was differently abled. This percentage is similar to year end 2023.