Working on their happiness, that's my mission!
Our employees are our greatest asset. Investing in this is therefore extremely important. In recent years we have grown enormously as a company and so there was a need to give more substance to this. HR manager, Anja Van Genechten joined us a little over a year now and she is enthousiastic to tell you about her experience with us.
Anja Van Genechten
HR Manager at Crius Group
Get to know everyone
In 2019 I started my adventure at Crius Group with a lot of drive and enthusiasm. I had the confidence to make something beautiful out of it. The DNA 🧬 of Crius Group is made for me.
When I started at Crius Group, the company had about fifty employees. My first priority was to get to know them all as soon as possible. That is why I took two months to speak to everyone individually. This gave me the opportunity to get more in touch with all individual characters, but also with the company. Because I still had a lot to learn! 🎓
During these conversations, I received answers to a number of important questions, such as:
- Who are my colleagues?
- What does their job entail?
- What are the strengths of the company's current operation?
- Which issues need to be addressed?
That last question was at least as important to me as the others and gave me an ideal approach to get started. What I also noticed was that most employees have been working here for a long time already. The team spirit 🙌 that prevails there is great fun! And I also saw the employees' passion to make Crius Group an even bigger success story. I loved that!
What has been realized?
Based on the input I received from all employees, combined with a list of priorities from management, I was eager to get started. Things like evaluation interviews, flexible working hours, “Crius goes healthy”, being a point of contact for the employees and strengthening the company culture, are just a small selection of all the to-do's that I got on my plate.
Within my first year, we were already able to realize a number of things. The things that stand out for me the most are the following:
- Making working hours more flexible: employees fill in their days / weeks themselves in order to achieve an optimal work-life balance.
- Offering a bicycle leasing program 🚲 combined with an increased bicycle allowance: almost 40% of all employees subscribed to this in the first year. An unexpected success!
- The start of weekly sports lessons less️ in groups such as walking, hiking and fitness.
- Monthly joint lunch 🥪, offered by the company. During these lunches, everyone really sits together, which provides extra dynamism.
- The evaluation and performance interviews were converted into permanent feedback interviews.
HR in times of corona
The corona crisis 🦠 means that we as a company have to undergo many changes and have a great deal of adaptability. This is also felt within my field. Changes and the ability to deal with this, that is what these corona times are all about.
The biggest change for me, of course, was the distance from our employees. Because almost everyone is working at home, daily contact on the work floor is lost. Because of this you miss that short daily chat or you do not notice so quickly when it is more difficult for someone.
We try to be there for our employees by regularly making us heard (an email, a photo, a thank-you card). Every week there are video calls with the team, we toast (virtually) into the weekend or we compete for the first place during a Lockdown quiz. In this way, the contact remains in these corona times.
At the beginning of this year, we also set up a working group within the company to improve the well-being of our employees. We already considered this to be important before the corona crisis! This workgroup has already accomplished some great things, including a survival guide for working from home and tips & tricks to get through your working day in a healthy way.
The future will show which HR challenges the post-corona era will bring, but I am sure they will be there!
At the beginning of this year, we also set up a working group within the company to improve the well-being of our employees. We already considered this to be important before the corona crisis!Anja Van Genechten
Want to work instead of having to
What I would really like to expand further is the employee experience. It sounds like a fancy word, but it means as much as the “daily experience of our employees”. I am convinced that it is the job of HR to continue to work on this in order to create a working environment where our people want to work instead of having to work. I continue to strive for a working environment where there is variety between focus, relaxation and contact with colleagues. But we are certainly already on the right track.
Of course I am and will remain a point of contact for all our employees. Just over a year after I started, most have found their way to my desk. My door is always open and everyone is welcome! If they have a question, I will find an answer. If they don't feel well, I listen to them. Working on their happiness, that's my mission! 😄