Under the header ‘Together towards a healthy improvement culture’, Heijmans organises numerous in-house activities and brings people together. We share success stories and learning points. We believe this is the only way we can continue to make improvements. Improvement means change and change is difficult. This is why we devote a lot of attention to change management. We have the right conversations and offer the right support to help our people realise the changes. The ‘Learning from evaluation’ programme strives for an improvement culture with continuous attention to learning from previous tenders and projects. Lessons learned are shared widely in the organisation. And at the start of a new tender, those lessons learned are collected from knowledge holders. Last year, we combined all our change processes in an online environment to get an overview of the improvement landscape and to connect people, share knowledge and exchange experiences. Because improvement is not just about tools and processes; it is also about behaviour and attitude.
As part of our promotion of the improvement maturity of our organisation, last year we devoted attention to training colleagues. For instance, we devoted attention to the ‘Strong Implementation’ training course, a course with a specific focus on change management. In addition, we developed and implemented standards on this front. We introduced VeranderWijzer (change guide) as a tool for guiding change. Parallel to these training programmes, in the course of the year we organised several webinars and knowledge-sharing events for employees, clients and suppliers.
A concrete example of our improvement projects over the past year is the Kaizen Blitz: a method to solve a problem in a short time. Six business units participated, with each team focusing on a specific improvement within one week, together with directly involved colleagues. In 2023, the Kaizen Blitz projects included shortening queues at the entrance gates of the National Military Museum in Soesterberg, working together on a well-organised warehouse in the South-West Region, improving parking requests at Warmsingel in Breda, optimising the inspection process at HMB Materieel Wegspecialismen, improving equipment deployment at Klavertje 4 in Venlo, switching from reactive to proactive thinking and dealing differently with behaviour in temporary traffic situations. In 2024, we will continue to focus on this Kaizen Blitz approach to improvement actions.
Douwe Zijlstra
“In the end, working safely comes down to having a good discussion about it with your partner, in this case Heijmans. Everyone around the table felt responsible for working safely. If safety is compromised, you look at the planning differently.”