3. Social information

3.1 Employee value proposition

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Impacts

For many of our employees, Deloitte is the starting point of their careers. On an annual basis, some 2,000 students and young graduates are given the opportunity to join our firm as practitioner, working student or intern. Through learning on the job, teaming, and continuous training and education, we facilitate both personal and professional growth.

Our people work on a wide variety of assignments with both emerging and leading Dutch and international companies. We believe that making an impact by helping clients solve complex challenges provides our people the opportunity to further develop, which in return strengthens their sense accomplishment.

During their careers at Deloitte, our people are offered a growth path that can eventually lead them to be eligible to become a partner or director in the firm. At the same time, many of our recruits find their ways to successful and rewarding positions outside Deloitte. We believe that the insights and experiences gained over the years can be leveraged in their new job environment, creating a positive impact on their employer’s organisation and business environment.

Governance

We aim to create a culture that supports our people to achieve their full potential by focusing on their strengths. Our approach to performance is designed to give our people a better career experience, moving away from annual appraisals to regular conversations that provide continuous feedback and support throughout the year.

We want to create an environment where people feel they have purpose; they belong and can learn, develop and grow every day. We aim to achieve this by supporting our people through ongoing coaching and creating opportunities for them to identify, use and build their strengths.

We distinguish four roles in our approach to career development:

0. 1. The Business Leader is responsible for the performance management decisions and leverages performance data to make operating decisions within the team. The Business Leader plays a prominent role in the Talent and Business Reviews and uses the input received from Team Leaders and Coaches to take reward decisions at the end of the fiscal year.

   2. Every employee has a Coach to help them identify, grow and leverage their strengths, and work towards their long-term career goals. Coaching increases engagement and retention. It provides continuity, assisting team members in identifying and understanding their strengths, forming a holistic view of performance across engagements or projects and influencing career decisions and opportunities.

   3. The Team Leader is responsible for the performance and general wellbeing of the people who work for them. Teams Leaders will have regular check-ins with their Team Members to understand what's going on in their teams and to assess their team's strengths, how to divide work and get the best from their people and deal with any issues early on. They are the first point of contact for performance conversations throughout the year, helping Team Members to understand their performance and providing pointers on how they can further develop and improve.

   4. The Team Member receives day to day support from their Team Leader, who is accountable for setting clear expectations about the work they are doing and with whom they have regular check-in's. They receive regular feedback on their performance during check-ins, focusing on developing strengths along with supporting those areas they may need to develop. Team Members have access to a coach to help them understand their motivations and barriers.

Activities in 2021/2022

In 2021/2022, we have implemented our new Employee Value Proposition (EVP) and as part of that, the Experience Ambition is to show people, within and outside the Deloitte network, what we stand for and offer as an employer.  In the EVP, passion for purpose, true inclusion and continuous personal growth are the drivers. Through the moments that matter most to our people and their everyday interactions, we are committed to providing an exceptional human experience and a career that is personalised and meaningful. This is made tangible through seven ambitions (the Employee Ambition).

1. ‘My impact is recognised and rewarded’ | A culture of recognition with fair and transparent total reward;​

2. ‘My health and wellbeing is a priority’ |, Mental health and wellbeing are prioritised, and individuals supported to be themselves;

3. ‘My leadership is trusted and transparent’ | Authentic, inspiring and inclusive leadership, with open and honest communication;

4. ‘My performance is supported’ | Goals are personalised, with ongoing coaching and feedback supporting the development of strengths;

5. 'My work is meaningful and challenging' | Work that is challenging that also has a social purpose and a greater meaning;

6. 'My development and growth opportunities are wide ranging'| Continuous learning and development with varied career options supported by talent mobility

7. ‘My work environment is positive’| Inclusive, flexible ​and professional working environment.

As part of our EVP, we put in place a new reward programme that contains changes in different reward elements such as salary, allowances, variable pay, and benefits, a package where flexibility (choices), fairness, equality, inclusiveness and trust, clear expectations, and open communication are the key principles. In addition, our rewards package contains several provisions to promote wellbeing and connection in the broadest sense.

Results

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Table 04: Turnover by gender in reporting year

Table 05: % of employees receiving regular performance & career development reviews*

* Our partners are not part of the regular performance cycle. For partners we maintain a performance management system that is also used to determine their annual profit share and that takes into account such aspects as quality, integrity, inclusive leadership, commercial performance and relationship management.

3.2 Inclusion and diversity

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Impacts

Deloitte has a moral, corporate and societal obligation to be a diverse and inclusive organisation: diverse in reflecting the clients and society we serve, and inclusive to ensure that all employees and partners regardless of their gender, cultural background, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, neurodiversity or disability, can be their authentic selves and fulfil their potential. Welcoming diversity and enabling colleagues to thrive enables Deloitte to leverage the well-researched and recognized business benefits of diversity:

Organisations with inclusive cultures are:

• 6 x more innovative,

• 6 x more adaptive

• 3 x high performing

• 2 x more financially successful

Over and above our moral obligation and the business benefits of I&D, we have a corporate responsibility to address the growing inequalities that are destabilizing society. The Global 2030 SDGs challenge us to use our corporate position to influence the socio-political and corporate landscape within the Netherlands by challenging government, our clients and supply chain to reflect the vision of I&D we aspire to.

Governance

It is our mission to have an inclusive workplace, in which every individual can be their true self and can fulfill their potential. ​This relies upon a substantial, long-term culture change. To achieve this, we take a holistic approach:

Focusing on data to better understand our demographics, employee experience and to measure our progress. This includes targets relating to female headcount, promotion, retention and recruitment in all Businesses and levels of the organisation.

Holding our leaders accountable to their Inclusive Leadership responsibility and actively engaging all of our employees to embed inclusion in their daily practice.

Changing the system to create an environment that nurtures the behaviour necessary to drive the culture change. This includes changes to both policies and processes.

This approach is underpinned by a governance structure that is led by our CEO and the Executive Board and includes:

• A dedicated central I&D Team committed to setting and executing a company-wide I&D strategy and plan by working in close collaboration with the broader Talent organisation and Communications team.

• All Business Leads, responsible for driving our gender diversity targets within their Business and holding partners accountable to their Inclusive Leadership responsibility

• I&D Ambassadors both within the business and for our ERGs

• I&D Councils within each Business to set and execute a Business specific I&D plan aligned to our corporate ambition

• Employee Resource Groups including the Deloitte Women’s Network, GLOBE (LGBTIQ+), Neurodiversity Network and the Cultural Diversity Network who represent the employee voice and provide subject matter guidance of topics relevant to their target audience.

Activities in 2021/2022

The focus for 2021/2022 has been on embedding I&D in daily practice. This has included continuing to raise awareness and facilitate open dialogues among our people and leaders through initiatives such as reverse mentoring and our inclusion curriculum. Our Inclusive Leadership programme has been embedded into our Leadership Development programmes so that all Directors and Partners in the organisation have received comprehensive training on what it means to be an inclusive leader at Deloitte. This has also been cascaded down to all Managers and Senior Managers in the firm.

I&D has been embedded in our event management process in line with our Panel and Proposal Promise which strives for a ratio of 40% male, 40% female and 20% other visibly different individuals in all internal and external panel events. We have also introduced new policies to equalise the parental experience for primary and secondary careers and rainbow families, and to support the needs of transgender colleagues in the transition process. These policy changes have been driven by the insights gained from our Diversity Measurement Survey which exposed the demographics of our workforce and sentiments of inclusion and belonging.

We have also maintained our focus on proactively monitoring our gender representation across the organisation in line with our targets for female headcount, recruitment, retention and promotion in our Quarterly I&D Reports. Whilst we see top line improvement in gender diversity in overall headcount, we have been challenged by rapid growth across the business and especially in areas such as technology where female talent is more scarce. We have addressed such challenges by diversifying the recruitment team, broadening our search and investing in new partnerships, piloting new recruitment methodologies and revising our vacancy texts.

Results

We recognize that we are in a critical point of our I&D journey where change is being felt by colleagues across the organisation. This results in both positive sentiments such as our reversed mentoring programme, and the flourishing of our Cultural Diversity Network who successfully hosted their first cross business Iftar in April, but also questions from some of those in the ‘majority’ population who feel isolated and hindered by our I&D agenda. Addressing these emotions is crucial for 2022/2023 to deepen colleagues understanding of why I&D is important and what it actually means for them as an individual. We want to reassure all colleagues that I&D is about everyone, not a specific demographic group.

Although for Deloitte I&D goes beyond gender or age, in line with the GRI Standards, we monitor gender equality to ensure progress also in this area. 

Table 06: Gender diversity (status per May 31)

Table 07: Job category by age in 2021/2022 (average for financial year)

Table 08: Ratio of basic salary of women to men per job category 2021/2022

Gender Pay Equity Analysis

As part of our zero tolerance approach to gender pay equity, in 2020/2021, we conducted a gender pay equity analysis using a multi-variant regression model to identify statistically significant gender pay and bonus differentials between employees doing very similar or the same work. The analysis identified two salary cohorts with statistically significant differences for gender pay equity, representing approximately 1% of the population and four bonus cohorts with statistically significant differences for gender pay equity, representing approximately 5% of population.

These cohorts have been investigated further to understand the contributing factors to these pay and bonus differentials and corrections made were necessary. Insights from this exercise have been leveraged in the 2020/2021 reward cycle.

Going forward

In 2022/2023, we will continue to develop our data driven approach to I&D through increased monitoring of the diversity of the workforce and our gender targets. To drive further progress in embedding our plan, we will also be focusing on how to foster psychological safety within the organisation.  

3.3 Learning and development

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Impacts

Deloitte is a knowledge rich firm. The value we create is driven by our talent and using their intellect. We acquire knowledge and experience by recruiting top graduates and experienced hires. To be able to offer outstanding value to our clients, we further develop their knowledge and skills, and aim to keep our talent’s skills and knowledge up to standards through our formal and informal learning curriculum. We actively share our insights to elevate public knowledge and understanding of the complex challenges that we work on. By engaging in continuous learning, our professionals are able to develop themselves further, advancing their careers and strengthening their employability, elevating their impact.

Deloitte depends on renowned academic institutions to educate our future and current professionals and business leaders. Our external costs invested in learning and development amount to €6 million. These costs help our employees develop, and in return contribute to the financial stability of educational facilities. We see it as our role to participate and actively contribute to the academic world and lead the debate: 259 of our professionals are internally registered to hold additional positions in universities and colleges.

Knowledge is not only a key input for our business model, it is also a key output. As an organisation, we partner with knowledge centers on a variety of complex topics. Examples of such partnerships are our associations with Singularity University in Eindhoven and Nyenrode University in Breukelen. Through our partnerships, we are able to further develop content that is mutually beneficial to both the universities involved as well as for Deloitte.

Through our ‘Future of’ agenda we create ecosystems to which we input our knowledge and insights for the benefit of our clients and society at large. Frequently, we publish in-depth articles to enrich public knowledge around current themes. Recent examples of such articles are our publication “Healthy, sustainable, and responsibly sourced food: our bright future for 2050” and our energy outlook for 2050.

Deloitte actively participates in think tanks such as the Working Groups of the Dutch Chartered Accountants Association and the Foundation on Auditing Research (FAR), to advance professional standards. Furthermore, we cooperate with universities to jointly develop and transfer valuable academic insights to our client base.

Governance

In our vision, learning is a continuous development approach that comprises formal education as well as environment, experience and blended-learning opportunities. ‘Never Stop Growing’, an important pillar within our Employee Value Proposition, underlines the importance of offering continuous learning and development opportunities with varied career options supported by talent mobility for our professionals.

We believe we grow leaders for the future, build world class capabilities for maximum client impact and consistently deliver an exceptional development experience for our people. The opportunity for the future is to improve the impact on our client engagements, to enhance the talent experience of our professionals and optimise learning investments and resources. Therefore, in 2021/2022 we have continued to focus on the future of learning and the technology landscape.

The future of learning is a learning environment that includes a learning culture and the right use and mix of live in-person, virtual and digital learning. Our new Deloitte University Europe campus in Paris which is due to open end of 2022, will play an important role in our learning experience, offering a mix of in person, digital and virtual modalities.

We will explore other, new, innovative technology to improve and enhance our learning programme to create a professional and leadership development experience that caters to the requirements of today's professionals, is uniquely their own, and is integrated into everyday life.

To cater to this view, we have implemented a global learning platform (CURA) that meets our professionals in their moment of need to provide personalised client, industry and skills-based knowledge as well as social networking and collaboration opportunities. CURA is a learner-driven content curation system that brings personalised internal and external content to the Deloitte professional. This innovative platform creates learning opportunities and supports the personal and everyday learning experience.

Activities in 2021/2022

Due to COVID-19, In 2020/2021 we transitioned to digital and virtual delivery to continue the delivery of learning and development opportunities to our professionals. As of March 2020, we transformed the technical and professional learning curriculum from in person live trainings to digital and virtual learning. When COVID restrictions in the Netherlands were lifted at the end of February 2022, we experienced a revitalisation of real-time learning events, albeit that digital learning continues and will continue to play an important role.

Results

Partly as a result of the successful introduction of CURA, learning hours in 2021/2022 increased to 94.3 hours/FTE (2020/2021: 71.3) while total investments (including external costs) increased to €8.5 million (2020/2021: €5.7 million). We believe this investment is key to supporting our people in their growth and ability to make a positive impact.

Table 09: Average training hours per FTE

3.4 Wellbeing

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Impacts

For many people, having meaningful work in a positive and stimulating work environment contributes significantly  to the quality of life. By paying attention to topics such as inclusiveness, work-life balance, physical fitness and mindfulness, we aim to keep our people happy and healthy.

Unfortunately, our high-performance culture can also negatively impact our colleagues, for example through excess workload, stress and pressure to perform. This is first and foremost a personal tragedy for those directly involved but also comes at a cost to Deloitte: based on third-party research, we estimate that 20% of both our lost days and of our employee turnover are caused by problems relating to work-life balance.

Governance and activities in 2021/2022

Our approach to wellbeing has four main focus areas:

0. 1. Mental health │ In a high performance culture such as ours, it is important that we remain focused on the mental wellbeing of our people. In order to promote good mental health, we offer various tools and tips that our people can use to stay connected and engaged, and maintain their mental balance. Especially during the COVID lockdowns, we increased our activities in this area, for example by organizing a dedicated wellbeing week that was focused on mental health.

   2. Physical health │ Deloitte has a Company Fitness Scheme that offers employees the opportunity to exercise at a relatively low cost. Two of our offices offer in-company fitness (Amsterdam and Rotterdam) and we have arrangements with external sports clubs throughout the Netherlands for fitness outside of our offices. In addition, our Deloitte FIT programme and app offer our people challenges and the possibility to try out new sports, stimulating our people to connect with each other through sports.  

   3. Illness and recovery │ When an employee is absent due to illness for a longer period, a self-directed treatment plan is drawn up. This means that if an employee becomes ill or incapacitated for work, the manager and their employee make customised arrangements. They are supported in making these arrangements by the Case Manager Health, as well as the Occupational Health and Safety Officers for medical advice. The Case Manager Health plays an important central and coordinating role in the deployment of external professionals, such as company doctors, labour experts and other external providers who can assist in promoting employability.

   4. Working from home │ We are convinced that hybrid working - where our people make conscious decisions as to where they work - is here to stay. Working from home is an integral part of hybrid working and has proven benefits for work-life balance. We feel it's very important to be able to work in a good and ergonomically sound way, both in the office and at home. To ensure that our people can operate in an ergonomically sound manner whilst at home, we have created a once every 7 years personal budget for every employee to set up their home office in a responsible way. In addition, every Deloitter is entitled to a monthly allowance to compensate them for the additional costs of working from home. Finally, through our webshop, we offer technical peripherals and accessories to make working from home easier and more comfortable.

Results

The absenteeism in 2021/2022 was higher compared to the previous year. This is mainly due to the effects of the COVID pandemic, which has impacted the health and well-being of employees in a number of ways. 

The virus itself caused an increase in absenteeism in addition to the prolonged flu wave in the autumn of 2021. On the other hand, employees had to manage circumstances resulting from the measures taken against the virus. Working from home, sometimes in combination with home education and the absence of external childcare, made those conditions tough. In addition customer demand from our clients remained high and there were no leisure facilities available (sports, recreational, cultural entertainment and food and drink facilities closed). These circumstances had a negative impact on the wellbeing of employees.

Deloitte acted quickly with support in optimising working conditions at the home workplace and in providing preventive support by offering on-line coaching on an individual basis via Heycoach. We notice that there is an increased need for support from Deloitte as an employer in the field of wellbeing.

During the COVID-pandemic, Deloitte has chosen that those who wanted to go to the office, should be able to show the CoronaCheck app when asked. We didn’t require our people to be vaccinated: a negative corona test or proof of recovery were also accepted. Going to the office was never compulsory as Deloitte had and has embraced the concept of hybrid working. We made this choice because as an employer, we feel we have the obligation to create a safe working environment for all our people.

Table 10: Sickness leave

3.5 Social impact

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Impacts

As an external accountant of both financial and non-financial information, we help build the trust that is necessary to facilitate informed decisions on financial and non-financials transactions, e.g. decisions to invest, divest or grant a government subsidy. Through our advisory work, we enable organisations to better understand their business and operating environment, thereby creating value for their stakeholders. We believe the societal impact of our assurance and advisory work to be greater than the revenues received.

We realise that, increasingly, we can only tackle complex challenges in partnership with others. To this end, creating effective ecosystems is a fundamental principle of our ‘Future of’ agenda. Together with our partners, we want to find solutions to social challenges around food, energy and mobility.

The social contribution of Deloitte is completed by the Deloitte Impact Foundation. Deloitte Impact Foundation offers Deloitters the possibility to input their unique skills and experience to non-profit organisations, making a positive impact on society.

Governance and activities in 2021/2022

Both the 'Future of' agenda and Deloitte Impact Foundation are part and parcel of our Connect for Impact strategy. For a summary of the governance and activities in 2021/2022, please see pages 16-20.