Employees

This page is part of the management commentary for 2020/2021, and part of the mandatory CSR report in accordance with Section 99a of the Danish Financial Statements Act (Årsregnskabsloven).

 

Policy for human rights, health and safety

Skilled and committed employees are a prerequisite for everything we do – and therefore, we go out of our way to ensure high levels of professional, physical and mental well-being among Systematic’s employees.

 

Diversity and inclusion 

The Systematic Code of Conduct describes how we expect our staff to act in a socially responsible way. We protect our employees’ human rights, and we do not tolerate any form of discrimination related to ethnicity, political conviction, age, gender, disability, religion, sexual orientation or trade union membership.  

As a global IT leader, Systematic relies on its ability to attract skilled employees. We are facing a red-hot labour market in the IT industry, where companies are experiencing an acute shortage of qualified talent.

Tomorrow’s employees want companies that reflect the natural distribution in society, and therefore it is vital that Systematic is a diverse and inclusive workplace. Diversity is also important for us to deliver top performance in future as research in the field generally supports the theory that diverse teams perform better than homogeneous teams.

Systematic is an international company, and this is also reflected in our employee composition, where we can currently count as many as 27 different nationalities. 

In 2021, we signed the Confederation of Danish Industry’s Gender Diversity Pledge, in which we commit to developing policies that support the corporate community and together achieve a 40/60 (female/male) gender balance by 2030. 

The Board of Directors now comprises seven members: five men and two women. 

Systematic’s senior management now comprises eight vice presidents, of whom two are women. 

30% of all Systematic’s managers with HR responsibilities are female.

Today, we have an employee make-up comprising approx. 31% women and 69% men (according to Statistics Denmark, approx. 24% of students on IT study programmes were female in 2019 (Danish figures)). The same distribution applies to managers, i.e. approx. 30% are women. 

One of Systematic’s core values is people-centricity. We show trust in our employees from day one, and attend to each employee’s development and well-being.

If we fail to do so, there is a risk of them leaving the company. Employees who feel discriminated against, unfairly treated, or simply do not thrive in the workplace will not hesitate to leave. They are well aware that their skills are greatly sought after in the current labour market. 

We develop and educate our employees because professional and personal development is not only important for the individual employee’s well-being – it is also decisive for Systematic being able to create value for its customers.

It can have significant consequences for Systematic if our employees perform poorly or are not motivated to maintain their skills level and qualifications in an industry where innovation and development are an absolute necessity for services, products, reputation and finances.

 

Flexible workplace

 “As regards the pandemic, we have learned that we are still able to deliver on time. We can implement our solutions directly with customers in different countries – even though the process is being managed online. Having said that, we’ve also learned that some things work better when we’re together physically compared to when we’re working remotely.”, says
Rikke Rønnau, Group Senior Vice President, People & Culture. 

In autumn 2021, we implemented a new policy for flexibility at the workplace. The policy ensures flexibility within the framework and requirements of each position, i.e. our employees must be physically present at their workplace or the customer’s premises when the team, the nature of the task or the customer so requires. By agreement with their team and their immediate superior, decide whether they want to spend their remaining hours working from home or at the office. For some locations, a maximum of two WFH days a week has been implemented based on rules in the different countries.

”We want to create the right balance that gives employees greater flexibility and freedom to plan their time. Simultaneously, we are focusing on when and how it is important for us to be together and the positive effects of doing so”, says Rikke Rønnau, Group Senior Vice President, People & Culture.

Flexibility in the workplace is one of the top demands from candidates worldwide. Against this background, we need to implement a flexible workplace policy to ensure that we remain competitive in future in terms of the labour market and commercially.  

The flexible workplace policy is being implemented by communicating it to and training our employees and project managers. In addition, we have a People & Culture business partner for each business unit who continually handles the implementation process among managers and throughout the organisation. 

Even though the flexible workplace policy was not officially adopted until autumn 2021, the principles were effectively practised long before in light of the restrictions imposed by Covid-19 – both in society and at the workplaces. As a result, we see that we have had a consistently high employee satisfaction score and that over the past 12 months, we have managed to break the negative trend in staff turnover. 

In FY 2020/2021, the target for our employee satisfaction score was 75%. This year’s improvements have resulted in an employee satisfaction score of 79%.

We have recruited 223 new employees, which brings the total number of employees (headcount) to 1,059 as of 30 September 2021, of which 12.6% are former Systematic employees rejoining the company. 

Systematic has no knowledge of any violations of our company’s policy for human rights, health and safety in 2021.

 

Employee satisfaction and well-being

We want our employees to thrive professionally, physically and mentally. Therefore we are seeking to create a social, secure and healthy workplace that supports each employee’s development and well-being. At Systematic, going to work every day must be a meaningful and rewarding experience, and it must be possible to maintain a healthy work-life balance for both managers and employees.  

At Systematic, we believe that the most important way to employee well-being is the ongoing, day-to-day dialogue between employees and managers. Therefore, we are focusing on establishing strong management teams with clearly defined responsibilities and the ability to lead in accordance with our corporate values. We encourage our employees to discuss any issues or uncertainties with their immediate superior or other colleagues who can help.

We conduct an employee satisfaction survey each month, and the results are used actively in all our business units, departments and teams as a tool for improvement. Systematic’s managers are judged based on these measurements and work with both internal and external partners to create necessary improvements in the organisation.

Sick leave is registered on a monthly basis, and we work both proactively and reactively to prevent and alleviate illness and stress among employees. Our goal is that sick leave (including long-term illness) is less than 2.5%. In FY 2020/2021, the figure was 2.28%. 

Systematic offers a health insurance scheme that ensures the right support (including financial support) for employees affected by age-related disease, accidents or critical illnesses. The scheme applies in most countries – but not all – and the exact cover differs slightly from country to country on account of local legislation.  

We look after employees experiencing problems with illness or stress. In this context, we work with relevant external parties to offer support and assistance to those who want it.

We have introduced various initiatives to reduce illness and work-related injuries – focusing in particular on preventing and alleviating stress-related diseases with the help of professional stress coaches and external psychologists.

A job at Systematic often involves a considerable amount of desk work, which can lead to problems in the form of muscle, neck and back pain, for example. Therefore, we have introduced a company-paid massage scheme, and there is a gym at our head office which employees are free to use.

Systematic’s Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) committee work continuously to shape and maintain a good and healthy working environment throughout the company. The OHS committee currently consists of three occupational health and safety representatives and three managers. Currently, the OHS committee set-up is only active in Denmark, as required by Danish law. All our international offices meet local requirements regarding the working environment. From December 2021 we are conducting workplace assessments at all our offices – in the past this has only been done in Denmark.

 

Staff retention and development 

Continuous professional development is crucial for the well-being of our employees and for Systematic’s ability to develop as well as its competitiveness.

Systematic’s employees are invited to development talks twice a year to discuss their career and development aims with their manager. In addition, monthly one-to-one interviews are held between manager and employee to align expectations and ensure progress and well-being. As a result of these interviews, managers and employees enter into agreements on activities that contribute to the employees’ professional development, competencies, knowledge and interests – in line with Systematic’s overall strategy. To support this development, Systematic offers various internal courses, mentor schemes, knowledge networks and on-the-job training – and employees also have the opportunity to participate in external courses and training.

We monitor how many employees are leaving us and how many choose to rejoin the company again. Every time an employee leaves us, we hold exit interviews to try and understand which improvements should be prioritised to increase the retention rate. In FY 2020/2021, employee turnover in Systematic was 14.5%. The target is 10%. 

 

Fun and social activities 

To support the social environment at our workplace, we have a staff association – Systematic Employees Club (SEC) – which organises fun and informal activities such as live music during lunch breaks, visits by the ice cream van and online meditation. SEC also organises a wide-ranging palette of after-work activities such as runs, themed parties, cinema trips, beer/wine tasting, football matches, games evenings, golf tournaments etc. These activities have obviously been influenced by and adjusted in accordance with all the Covid-19 restrictions we have experienced in the course of the year.

Systematic supports the activities of the staff association financially because we believe that being able to come together informally with colleagues across the organisation strengthens the overall team spirit and contributes to job satisfaction and well-being.

The company canteen also plays an important role in ensuring a vibrant, healthy social environment. The canteen at our head office in Aarhus is well known for serving delicious, nutritious and primarily organic meals. Our canteen is described in more detail in the section about the environment.