“Employer branding is an essential spearhead within the current labor market crunch.”

What market developments, in relation to the labor market, does Euroma see coming?

I see three major developments:

• Labor market tightness. The Dutch food industry is and remains
  confronted with an ongoing tightness in the labor market. To paint a picture
  : for the search for an operator for one of our plants in Schijndel,
  a good operator has the choice of fifteen companies.
• Aging. Within five years, a significant portion of our workforce
  will retire as they reach retirement age. This means that there will be many
  job vacancies to be filled, when the labor market is already very
  tight.
• Physical strain. Although we have a hypermodern and automated factory at
  our location in Zwolle, some of the work remains manual and physically demanding.
  You see this particularly at our locations in Nijkerk and Schijndel. Physically demanding work remains
  less popular which sometimes makes it difficult to attract new employees in this area.

How do you anticipate this?

Realizing the importance of Employer Branding, and thus ”winning externally is starting internally”. Last year, for example, we held employer brand sessions with several colleagues from different departments within our organization where you find out why our colleagues choose Euroma. From contributing to the health and taste experience of consumers to the ownership and freedom you can exercise within Euroma to career opportunities. Knowing why you work for Euroma strengthens commitment. You see that current employees really are the most important ambassadors for attracting new personnel. We see this in an increase in Referral Recruitment, sharing vacancies or content on our Linkedin page.

In recent years we have gone through quite a few (positive) developments as a company. With the growth objectives Euroma has in mind, we are re-branding our Corporate Brand Identity & Strategy with a core team. 2025 will be set aside to shape this further, which are great opportunities for us in external employer branding to meet the challenges of the current labor shortage as much as possible.

What does this require of you as an HR Advisor/ the role of HR?

When it comes to Employer Branding, we at HR know very well what the (internal) developments are and how we can best respond to them. For example, we strive for a smooth application process and our onboarding for new employees is solid with a familiarisation schedule, several onboarding meetings with your manager, but also an onboarding bingo and an employee lunch.

We also have the role of working with executives to look for flexibility in the
hiring process by looking at soft skills, potential and whether the applicant fits the position/company but may not quite have the experience yet. The number of years of work experience is less of a dealbreaker.

In addition, we try to keep our unwanted employee turnover as low as possible. From 2022 to the present, we have already seen a decrease of more than 50%. One of the projects we did at HR last year was the rollout of PMO, with a focus on vitality &
health, making physical workplaces less demanding with tools and reducing psychosocial workload. Pulse meetings are scheduled at all locations this year.

Other than that, I mainly see opportunities what we can start picking up after the rollout of the Corporate Brand Identity & Strategy, I’m looking forward to it!