Growth from the inside-out
Djops is a young temporary employment agency in the center of The Netherlands. Fast-growing, ambitious and with a clear vision: at Djops they believe in making sure that temporary workers do what they do best. Which happens to be their brand promise: Doing what you’re good at! Because when you do, it makes you happy and gives you plenty of energy. The best quality comes from satisfied employees. The customers of Djops benefit from this again. In doing so, the company sets high standards for quality.
The mentality and quality of Djops has ensured rapid growth. The management has expressed the ambition to be the best employment agency in the Central Netherlands, while maintaining the envisaged growth target. They want to double the turnover within five years!
But a larger size requires different ways of organizing and managing than in a small-scale organization. This clearly has an impact on the way in which management fulfills its role. In the beginning, that was mainly “hands-on”, but in a fast-growing organization, leadership wants to be less operationally involved. With the deployment of independent, autonomous teams with as much responsibility as possible. They are specialized per market segment. Djops involved Moving As One in the development of a solid strategy in the spring of 2020. The following questions were asked:
- which way of organizing supports our ambitions?
- what does this mean for the way in which we fulfill our role?
- and is our brand promise sufficiently powerful and distinctive?
The Djops management and Moving As One formed a strategic team. Together they made a plan which is the basis for five years of growth. The enthusiasm for the plan was so great that the management published it in book form to all employees. So it became everyone’s plan: Moving As One.
An important principle of Responsive Organizations plays the leading role in the implementation. It is no coincidence that this principle is also Djops’ brand promise. Because “Doing what you are good at” is also important for Djops employees to come into their own. Moving As One believes that if you want to get moving together, this goes first and foremost for every individual in the organization.
At the start of the implementation of the plan, an assessment was made of each employee, based clear criteria: are they doing what they want to do and are they doing what they can do best? How is their fit with the team and to what extent are they professionally mature in their task?
On the basis of this, discussions were held with individuals. A coach was hired to draw up a Personal Development Plan (PDP) together with the employees.
While each employee started to implement his / her plan, each team was instructed to create an annual plan, in line with the strategic plan that had been delivered earlier. Moving As One provided practical workshops in which the teams were explained how a good team arrives at a good plan. Within two weeks, each team had a clear and challenging annual plan. In a final session, the teams presented the plans to each other and these plans were merged into the Djops master plan.
Hans Appeldoorn, founder and co-owner of Djops: “The philosophy of Moving As One, that you can best achieve change from the inside-out, is completely in line with the philosophy of Djops: strong brands are made by strong organizations in which everyone does what they do best. This applies to all levels in the organization. This also helps us as management to realize our ambitions. And not unimportantly: the quality of the approach of Moving As One is reflected in the positive development of our employees and our results. All this in line with our objectives. ”