This summer we were delighted to welcome bpost, the Belgian national postal service, as our new client. We worked with bpost for two years through a staffing agency. After seeing firsthand the positive results, bpost decided to work with Twegos directly.
We look forward to support bpost with the experience we have accumulated in the logistics sector. Considering the size of the partnership, business newspaper De Tijd dedicated an article to the matter. In this blog, we provide a summary and translation of the key points of the article.
Why go for value fit now?
In the war for talent, it is not only key to find the right people, but also to keep them on board. More often than not, a good match with company culture is of crucial importance. That is why Twegos is partnering with bpost to screen new mail carriers for that exact match.
Bpost – and the logistics sector at large – deal with a structural shortage of labour and high churn. Every year, bpost hires over 5000 mail carriers. To this end, the Belgian national postal service screens tens of thousands of candidates. To increase retention, they have introduced employee experience programs to boost engagement and well-being, and make stress coaches available to all staff.
“But it’s just not enough,” union leader Jan Nyns is quoted in De Tijd. “We’ve been under tension for years and there’s a lot of new developments coming our way. People often underestimate what being a mail carrier means. And then they drop out.” Such drop-outs are a costly affair for Bpost: recruitment, onboarding and training cost money as well as time. And what is more: people leaving so soon after their first day on the job are not favorable to bposts culture and morale nor to its employer brand.
Our CEO Arend Van Itterbeek observes these issues throughout the logistics industry. He explains in the article: “With a bad culture fit, the risk of churn is drastically higher. Because of labor shortage, churn is a big issue as it is. People have plenty of options to work elsewhere. By consequence, the logistics sector or the food and beverage sector, for example, have attrition rates of 50% and up. That’s a huge operational cost.”
How can you measure or predict a value fit?
Recruiters do take into consideration whether or not a candidate will fit with a company. “But,” Arend is quoted, “the question is answered all too often from gut feeling. Managers often go for a candidate that feels right to them personally, but not necessarily to the organization.” When asked if something as fluffy as ‘cultural fit’ even exists, Twegos’ CEO is adamant: “Every company has its own culture. But its values are not always the values you see on the posters in the lobby. We often see this in our research often. Management can be very much geared towards innovation, but if their employees don’t like change, there is a mismatch. There are also subcultures within companies. Awareness and understanding of this fact can make a big difference.” But how to bypass this gut feeling and to measure company culture, then? Twegos’ approach, which it also applies at Bpost, relies on statistics and a solid structural method.
Arend Van Itterbeek: “Based on academic research, we have determined 14 values that are highly correlated with attrition, engagement and performance. Think of the need for acknowledgement, innovation or integrity, for example. We measure these values, with the candidate as well as with the company, team or management – depending on which match will be crucial.” The measurement is done by way of a short standardized online assessment. To these data, Twegos applies its data analytics to predict a match.
Results
By now, Twegos has collected over 200 000 profiles of candidates and businesses. “With every data point”, Arend expands, “we get new insights on attrition, performance, absenteeism or even workplace safety. Think of road incident with truck drivers.”
A top 15 US trucking company using Twegos ValueFit indeed not only saw retention rise with 20%, the also noticed a decline of safety incidents with 17% with drivers that were a good match. In the same industry, DHL Aviation saw retention increase with 22% and time to hire down with no less than 35%. Bpost, as well, is hoping to increase efficiency by using Twegos ValueFit. Bpost Chief Human Resources Officer, Mark Michiels, clarifies: “More engagement and more pride in one’s job translates into a higher motivation and productivity, and ultimately in higher retention.”
Let’s get to work!
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