OM Partners’ view on Corporate Wellbeing. How do you attract and retain excellent people? How do you keep team spirit high and where does the Hercules Trophy come in? OM Partners, one of our newest fans, explains it all in 12 Herculean questions.
Who is OM Partners?
“OM Partners is a Belgian software and consulting company that delivers Supply Chain Planning Solutions. Our software optimizes our customers’ supply chains all over the world. We are a growing company with lots of opportunities for our people!”
Why did you decide to participate in the Hercules Trophy?
“This was the first time OM Partners participated in the Hercules Trophy. After the successful first edition in Antwerp last year, some of our colleagues were very enthusiastic to subscribe OM Partners for this second edition. About 15 of our colleagues survived the challenges and had the time of their lives. Next year we will definitely join again with more participants!”
Do you often organize activities for your employees?
“Our company often takes part in these kinds of teambuilding events to reinforce the team spirit. We yearly take part in the Antwerp 10 Miles, Brussels Ekiden and of course recently the Hercules Trophy!”
We also have a dedicated event team at the office that organizes our own events. We frequently organize quizzes, volleyball and tennis tournaments, game board nights, and so on. Next to this team, we have appointed regional event managers to locally synchronize these events. And of course, all offices are invited for the yearly company events.”
Which initiatives regarding Corporate Wellbeing do you undertake?
“We try to keep our employees healthy and motivated by offering a wide range of facilities and activities.
First, we do this by offering an inspiring working environment. Each of our offices offers a pleasant workspace with a special focus on cross-office collaboration. Due to our continued growth, our head office in Wommelgem became too small to accommodate the increasing number of employees. Therefore, we doubled our infrastructure in 2015. Our head office now includes a spacious auditorium, a nice garden and a ‘bistro’ where we organize our cozy get-togethers. We have plenty of modern and spacious conference rooms, and colorful and inspiring creativity rooms. These well-equipped meeting rooms make it possible to effortlessly organize online meetings.
Secondly, we foresee plenty of sports and entertainment facilities. Our employees enjoy many of the perks associated with working at OM Partners, including amenities like a gym, ping pong and pool tables, and a beach volleyball field. Our head office has a spacious bike port and comfortable shower facilities.
Thirdly, OM Partners cultivates a healthy lifestyle by organizing sports events and offering healthy food. We yearly organize bike to work challenges and we celebrate our bikers by rewarding them on the National Bike to Work Day. Monday is our dedicated fruit day and Thursday is soup day.”
Do you have a flexible personnel policy?
“OM Partners tries to offer workplace flexibility, while ensuring seamless teamwork across all teams and boosting performance. At OM Partners, we stimulate self-management. Our employees are expected to stick to the key minimum working hours, but are allowed to autonomously organize their work. This positive energy leads to excellent performance. Teleworking is occasionally allowed, if your project work allows this. And besides our head office, we also have two satellite offices in Belgium. These offices in Ghent and Wavre were set up to relieve the work-home traffic.”
How would you situate the financial compensation of your employees compared to other market players? Do you offer non-statutory benefits?
“Next to a competitive salary package, we also supply our employees with an iPhone, a laptop, meal vouchers and a company car. As of the management level, employees also receive an internet subscription.”
Are you actively involved with the integration of new employees? Which actions do you undertake to get them up to speed? Do you use any technology in this process?
“When you start working at OM Partners, a training program is worked out for the first months, depending on your background and the projects you will work on. New employees are assigned a coach and a day-to-day coach, who guide you through various projects, make sure you grow, learn new things, develop certain competences and take on responsibilities.
First, a basic training program is organized, which includes trainings on procedures and teams, on soft skills, on our supply chain planning applications, and so on. Next to this formal training program, your coaches create a tailor-made training program according to your specific needs.
We invest in ‘blended learning’ by offering a mix of interactive workshops, class room trainings, e-learnings, and more. Subscribing to any of our internal and external training sessions is possible via a user-friendly web page.”
Do you stimulate your employees in discovering their talents and to develop them? Do you offer trainings? Are they able to personalize their program? Do you foresee performance appraisals?
“Thanks to our coaching framework, our colleagues can develop their talents in the most optimal way. The day-to-day coach focuses on the on-the-job learning track, while the coach supports your long-term development plan. This development plan is discussed in an official annual review meeting.
We continuously stimulate our colleagues to develop their skills and talents and take ownership for their own progress. In our growing company, we offer flexibility to grow in different directions. Everyone is stimulated to take new initiatives and to realize them.”
Does CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) play an important role in your company?
“OM Partners eagerly takes up its corporate responsibility and allocates a yearly budget for charity initiatives that create a large and lasting impact. Because we also want to support the active involvement of our employees, we encourage them, each year, to submit a charity organization to which they are personally committed. All colleagues are involved in the vote and distribution of the charity budget.”
What makes a great team according to you? What do you undertake to stimulate teamwork between employees?
“At OM Partners, we believe great teamwork is only possible with great team players. We all work closely together in a relaxed and informal atmosphere. This teamwork is key to our growth and makes OM Partners stand out. That’s why we don’t outsource people: We believe that, by keeping our people together, we can keep our work on a higher level. This makes OM Partners a place where people meet, learn and get inspired.
To fortify this idea, we proclaimed 2017 as “The Year of Teamwork”! Each month, we introduce another teamwork activity: a motivational speaker, a musical performance, a yoga session, a music festival, language lunches, beer tasting and much more!”
How do you recruit new hires? Do you use social media?
“As a growing organization, we find recruitment to be very important. We recruit new colleagues via both traditional and online channels. We regularly attend job fairs at schools and universities, and we yearly organize our own job days. We are also increasingly investing in social media recruitment. At this moment, we are using LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Vimeo. And of course, you can always discover all our job opportunities at our job site!”
Which words describe your company culture best? What is your company DNA?
“If we would have to describe our company culture in five words, we would choose ‘human’, ‘teamwork’, ‘value’, ‘expertise’ and ‘growth’.”
