Amy Oerlemans is the commercial director of Kloet Onderhoud in Vlaardingen. This brother, a hairdresser, has worked in the family business for four generations, which has been around for 100 years. A few years ago, Amy called and told her about how she’d had her hair changed. The daughters of one of the hairdressing medal winners, Mr. Da Silva, had wild hair at the beach, but the business had never gotten off the ground. Mr. Da Silva was a crucial employee for Amy: “He was standing on the toilet seat, on the floor of the room with Da Silva on his face. He wanted to punch the iconic employee in the face.”
Amy immediately started talking to the employees who were retiring late in the season. Amy says: “When I realized how essential sustainable employability is, we do a lot of physical work on facades and making buildings more sustainable. It’s very demanding to organize follow-up and train new employees in maintenance. It’s important to me that we’re fully engaged in circular construction, demolition, and maintenance, but what do we do as employees? You can’t just throw them away as a piece of used material?”
Sustainable employability is crucial.
Kloet Onderhoud, with an ESF grant, launched a project to further explore the possibilities of sustainable employability for its employees. This project was conducted using Xelfer and 8vance. Xelfer distills employee skills, and 8vance’s AI manages and analyzes the data, allowing for new matches with work. Amy: “With the help of the 8vance platform, we can maintain the right perspective and have flexible incentives. Retaining them and keeping them completely optional for employers creates social circularity. This is always the case for employees who cannot be optimally deployed. There is a role for them in a position they aspire to with their current employer. It’s an HR tool.”
It creates a regional labor market.
Amy wants to see more employees understand how to create a regional labor market as a quick realization. Amy brought up the Riverboard ‘Lifelong Learning’ project: “The Riverboard is a regional seed factory, but it is used in the Schiedam, Vlaardingen, and Maassluis neighborhoods. Many social issues relevant to the work situation are addressed here. The education is linked to enabling students to gain insight into their talents and competencies at an early age. The Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment is supporting the project with a subsidy, otherwise, because timely adjustments can prevent employees from having to rely on unemployment benefits due to economic developments.”
The project is currently in a pilot phase. There are 15 different companies and schools participating to see if we can map out the transition possibilities. Amy wants to be able to use the equipment for a large group of people: “If no one in their job removes it, then the employee will lend it to colleagues from temporary employment agencies. You connect and engage, and prevent people from looking for work outside the region.”
Amy says: “We now have the skills to match people with the people we need to match. 8vance’s AI-based platform helps us achieve enormous things, so that skills and matches between people and people are also possible in the field. We can now analyze the available and available skills in the region. You can help encourage employees to take certain training courses. You give them control over their own careers, based on current labor market data. Can they develop themselves further? “We suggest related activities and professions based on their competencies.”
He leverages the job potential.
Amy thinks even further: “With OnderhoudNL, the organization for 2,000 property maintenance companies, I want to explore which transfer paths we can develop within and outside the sector. For example, in healthcare, where there’s a shortage of caregivers. There’s still no job potential. This started as mobilizing people for Da Silva. We make companies more productive and contribute to job satisfaction.”
Amy concludes: “With 8vance, we can act as a region.”
