Policy on working conditions, absenteeism and reintegration. Synechron cooperates with Arbobutler as our company doctor. In a number of cases, the company doctor refers an employee to Vitaalpunt for a multidisciplinary project to improve sustainable employability. https://www.vitaalpunt.nl/

Security policy as part of our onboarding process.

The Cultural Audit describes our social policies & programs and it gives some insight in our culture. Themes are: recruitment & welcoming, inspiring, speaking, listening, showing gratitude, developing, caring, celebrating and sharing.

It is important for Synechron to also contribute to society in a more direct manner. We have CSR policy in place that focuses on seven pillars:
• Volunteering, donations and fund raising
• Ethically responsible
• Education for under privileged
• Help for the specially-abled
• Environmental causes
• Women empowerment
• Health and welfare programmes
All our CSR initiatives are related to these pillars. Please watch our CSR video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEQbol0RC68

Consultants work throughout The Netherlands for different client accounts. Our mobility policy describes how Synechron facilitates its employees in their daily commute to work. Synechron Business Consulting stimulates employees to choose energy efficient mobility. To do this, Synechron Business Consulting has contracted Mobility Concept, giving employees a fixed travel budget, enabling them to choose whether they use a private car, rental cars, public transportation, or a bicycle.

Synechron handbook is an overall overview of policies for Synechron Business Consulting. It covers a broad range of policies on several topics, like: terms of employment, part-time working, salary, insurances, office organization, code of conduct, performance appraisal process, employee training and development program, security policies, technology and mobility.

Synechron developed an improvement plan for our appraisal process. The objective was to make the Raking the Stars (now called Moderation session) more efficient and to simplify the appraisal process for consultants and their line managers. We also made it less labour intensive, by limiting the amount to 2 times a year, instead of 4 times a year. Furthermore, the scoring principle is changed into a 1-5 scoring. And now the scores are based upon qualitative feedback.

Process is as follows: Each year every consultant makes a yearplan, in which they states how they will develop the coming year. These could be developments linked to personal development, but also to our set competencies, linked to a certain level. This development of each individual is discussed during the Moderation session. The employee hands in an ADR (in which the development and project of the half year is stated). The input of the ADR is based upon qualitative feedback of the reviewer per competency. The input of the ADR is put into the Appraisal Dashboard (where now the Yearplan is added into as well). The consultants then performs a self-score based upon the feedback and discusses this with the line manager. Afterwards, the line manager determines the final scores of the consultant. Based upon the performance of the consultant, a promotion can be granted. We focus on the development of our employees, which have a positive impact on the business.

Synechron experiences that this new appraisal process is well received by our employees. The ones who are eligible for a promotion per the 2 moments which are now removed are still discussed and not forgotten. Until they make an earlier or later promotion, they will still be eligible per that moment. This appraisal process is in line with our developing principle, because we strive to let the consultants be the best they can be and in that way, employees are always up to date in terms or required skills and knowledge per level they are on at that moment, because we feel it is important that they also develop certain competencies which can be linked to a certain level (in order to make a promotion). That way, we can assure that our consultants can advise our clients optimally and inform them about the possible impact(s) of their decisions.

Circular Economy is not Synechron's first focus, because it is not that evident for an office organization. However, where possible, we give products a second life and we try to reuse, repair, recycle products and minimalise our environmental footprint (e.g. IT equipment as laptops and phones, coffee pads, furniture, reduce paper).

Activities in 2018:
Donation to Stichting Leergeld of EUR 2270 of our residual value of IT equipment.
Donation of left over presents to charity Jarige Jop.
Left over office furniture offered to employees at very reduced prices.

Synechron is a professional consultancy firm. Our employees are dedicated to bring professional standards into practice by delivering results to our clients. We utilize our knowledge and experience in the financial services industry for consulting activities. Our propositions, tools and techniques describe what we do.

Our clients make use of an integrity framework. All our employees are assessed and screened during the onboarding process before they can start working for one of our clients (PES/VOG).

-All employees must have an annual valid Verklaring Omtrent Gedrag (VOG) and an annual valid Pre-Employment-Screening (PES-verklaring) to show clients that the employee is reliable and competent.
-Synechron executes client satisfaction surveys during and after each project to investigate among others integrity of employees.
-OneDrive / Office 365 facilities for protected knowledge management.
-Information & Security awareness initiatives.

Just as the previous years, Synechron is certified as a Great Place to Work again in 2020-2021. Synechron organized level sessions based on the results of the GPTW 2018 and 2019 survey. The management team set up an improvement plan based on the feedback they received from our employees. Three squads were formed: Communication, Recruitment and Retention and Appraisal Process squads. Now a recruiter is hired, the leadership team compostion is changed, a vitality training is organized and the Ranking the Stars (RtS) has a more efficient set-up.

Our office functions as a hub for Synechron Amsterdam Consultants. With a stronger focus on introducing disruptive technologies in the banking industries to (new) clients the Amsterdam office has their own FinLab.

Client events organised in our FinLab. E.g. project at ING organizes a Client Servicing Team Day at Synechron FinLab.
Full day of fun team building, knowledge sharing and creating a vision for the future of Client Servicing.

In 2018, Synechron Amsterdam has invested in many activities to give back to society in various ways. From personal initiatives from employees (fund raises, volunteering, marathons, Voorlees Express, Regenboog Groep) to collective initiatives (organizing a SyneDay with topic CSR, 2 new CSR partners JINC and Only Friends Sports Centre, sponsorship of Theatre Group Abhimanch, participation Week van het Geld, collecting clothes, it equipment, sponsoring of charities, goededoelen kerstkaart etc.).

Synechron is a partner of Only Friends Sports Centre for disabled people. A few times per year employees are volunteering at Only Friends. See article on their website: https://onlyfriends.nl/2018/05/16/een-nieuwe-special-friend-voor-only-friends-synechron/
Next to Only Friends, we have chosen, like last year, to donate this year’s Sinterklaas presents budget (for our Synekids) to children who wouldn’t get a gift without these donations. We donated money to the Sinterklaasbank.

In 2020 we visited Only Friends again with some colleagues again. We still keep in close contact about planning a new session again, but due to Corona this is postponed.

Also, every year for Christmas, we give our clients the opportunity to donate 10 euros to one of the four charities we picked. Clients receive an email with Christmas wishes, where we give them the opportunity to select a charity online. Synechron donates 10 euro per click. For 2020 these charities include: Voedselbank Amsterdam, KWF, Wereld Natuur Fonds, and Kinderhulp.https://www.synechron.com/nl/christmas-donations-amsterdam-2020

The impact of CSR activities for Synechron is visible in the increased employee and customer loyalty. Employees enjoy assessing and taking responsibility for the company's effects on environmental and social wellbeing. Also, the advantages of CSR are not only visible internally, but also externally by giving back to the society. This feeling of giving back, brings satisfaction for employees.

Our clients expect our consultants to excell in their field of expertise. Also, Synechron Business Consulting believes that investing in people makes the company an attractive employer. Therefore, we launched a Training Curriculum, called the House of Development (HoD) for our consultants. The HoD focuses on the personal and professional development of our consultants, the trends within the market and the requirements of our clients. Examples of trainings are: Presentation Skills, Commercial Skills and Self-Knowledge and Authenticity. All employees have 10 mandatory training days per year. Within the HoD a management development program is also developed called Professional Leadership. This program supports recruitment and retention objectives.

Every employee needs to make a yearplan, in which is stated how this employee would like to develop themselves and which trainings would help him/her develop on that competency. Also, each half year a Moderation session is planned, whereby the development of each employee is discussed. The employee hands in a ADR (in which the development and project of the half year is stated). The input of the ADR is based upon qualitative feedback of the reviewer. The input of the ADR is put into the Appraisal Dashboard and then the employee performs a self-assessment based upon the feedback. Afterwards, the consultants discusses this with the line manager. Afterwards, the line manager determines the final scores based upon the PDP conversation with the consultant and the qualitative feedback given by the reviewer. By doing so, we make sure to focus on the development of our employees, which will have a positive impact on the business.

Synechron Business Consulting B.V. experiences that this training program is well received by our employees. We can state that the training program leads to motivated and highly qualified staff. One of the propositions of the Great Place to Work survey is: "I am offered training and/or development opportunities in order to grow professionally" and this is answered (rated) with 95%, which indicates that our employees truly agree with this proposition. By offering this extensive training portfolio, we aim to ensure that our employees are always up to date in terms of knowledge and that our consultants can always advise our clients optimally and inform them about the possible impact of their decisions.

Synechron Business Consulting has changed its company car policy to a more flexible structure, in order to stimulate employees to choose energy efficient mobility. To do this, Synechron Business Consulting has contracted Mobility Concept, giving employees a fixed travel budget, enabling them to choose whether they use a private car, rental cars, public transportation, or a bicycle.
Next to Mobility Concept we also offer lease cars to our consultants. They can either choose for a lease car or a mobility budget. We provide electrical and petrol cars in the lease offer.

In 2016 47% of our staff used the Mobility Concept budget (up from 31% in 2015 and 8% in 2014). In 2017, 33 employees use the Mobility Concept budget. As a result, 33 employees do not need a company car.
In 2019, 27 employees made use of Mobility Concept.
In 2020-2021 48% of our staff are using the Mobility Concept budget (44 employees) and 33 employees (36%) is riding a lease car, of which 2 electric cars are in use and 1 hybrid car.

Set up of long term planning for quality management with strategy, objectives, activities and measures. This will contain a plan of approach and planning for internal and external audit processes.

By setting up a long term planning and plan for quality management with strategy objectives, activities and measures, we can assure high qualities on serveral subjects, but overall on quality management throughout.

Throughout the year there are various forms and moments in time during which feedback is received. For example the Trust Index score of GPTW (survey outcomes), ISO 9001 Reports, Internal audit, client surveys, PDP dashboard feedback, level sessions, ladies dinner, onboarding/exit feedback.

One of Synechron's strategic focus points is employee satisfaction. We aim for employee satisfaction >8. We develop programs to keep our employees healthy, involved and happy at work. Synechron supports a physically and mental healthy working environment.

We organize a lot of activities/events. Normally face to face, but the past year we organized these virtually.

-Synechron participates with Great Place To Work survey.
-Synechron attended the congress Week of Work Related Stress.
-Management Team of Synechron has organised level sessions to receive feedback from employees and get insights in how to improve happiness at work.
-Synechron embed employee vitality (energy & balance) as a topic in our training curriculum to address the importance of this topic.

We organize a lot of activities/events. Normally face to face, but the past year we organized these virtually. Examples are: Virtual office meetings (update from MT, HR, and others), a SyneDay, SyneChef (cook together with colleagues, one chef makes his/her signature dish), Synechron BookClub, Virtual Knowledge Bites (knowledge sessions, shared by colleagues from our office and from other Synechron offices worldwide), the "I Miss the Office" game (In Dutch: "Stiekem mis ik kantoor") (team up and solve a puzzle together within time), virtual Bootcamp for all new joiners of the past months, we celebrated Diwali and the Ramadan, one consultant who is also a coach organized several meetings together with HR about own development, own feelings and diversity. In February 2021 we host a meeting about cultural differences.

It is critical to look at Sustainable Finance and its impact now, because climate awareness in society has been rising since the Paris Agreement and seems to have finally taken centre stage. Multiple natural disasters in the past years that make the potential effects of climate change even more tangible. The Green Deal proposal in the EU is a political landmark, showing the EU is serious about its climate change ambitions. The EU Action Plan has the underlying aim to move investments to more greener/sustainable initiatives and lastly, green products are popping up like never before. Considering proposals of the European Commission and potential impact on several financial service providers.

Sustainable Finance focuses on implementing EU regulation and legislation at clients. While legislation has not yet been formalized, we focus on informing and creating awareness on Sustainable Finance at banks, asset managers and investors.

Synechron aims to be a frontrunner in informing financial parties about the proposed legislation, which will change capital flows from being 'grey' to 'green', and eventually should contribute significantly to the reduction of climate change (Paris agreement) and other UN Sustainable Developments Goals (SDGs).

We developed several propositions to help our clients to comply with the sustainable finance rules and regulations. These are: Sustainable finance quick scan, sustainable finance transformation design, sustainable finance journey, and sustainable finance strategy & priotization.

In 2017, we moved to a new office location. In the selection of the office, being located near public transport facilities was of importance as employees make use of Mobility Concept.

We have a sustainable wall of moss in our new FinLab, which is maintenance-friendly and a natural eye-catcher in our interior. Moss walls also provide a feeling of well-being. The same applies to all plants that we lease in our office. In addition our office has many windows that provide plenty of daylight.

Being located near public transport facilities makes us easy to reach in a sustainable way. Our building is certified for green energy use.

We performed a quick scan by an external party with the objective to check whether the HR department set-up (functions, responsibilities, activities, policies, procedures, processes and systems etc.) are still appropriate to support our organizational growth and strategy.

After the transformation and the necessary outcomes - We said goodbye to a former HR colleague and we now have a clear division between the HR manager and the HR officer in roles and responsibilities. One specific MT member is responsible for the HR department. The salary is processed and fully outsourced to ADP. Furthermore, the HR portal is improved. And lastly, the line management is more tightly structured within the organization (line management is now organized within the practices and all practices are represented by the practice lead in the Leadership Team).

By setting up and improving the HR department we can be of the best help for our employees. Furthermore, all HR information can be found easily now and it is clear for the employees who they should contact when they have a question/remark/matter.

In 2018 Synechron has created an internship for a status holder. Synechron created this opportunity to provide the status holder a work experience place.
SyneDay Nov 2017 theme was CSR. The whole organization was involved in activities for vulnerable groups such as elderly, ex homeless or addicts and children of the Salvation Army. Synechron organized this day in cooperation with Amsterdam Helpt.

Internship of 24 hours a week from 3rd of September until 30th of November 2018.

Synechron Business Consulting meets the requirements of the standard: ISO 9001:2015. Advisory and management of complex business transformation within financial institutions

Valid until

Dec 22, 2022 Expired

• Download ISO 9001 Certificate File ISO 9001 ENG.pdf is available in online report.
• Download ISO 9001 Certificate File ISO 9001 NL.pdf is available in online report.

• FIRA Assurance statement ESG report File Synechron Statement Mar21.pdf is available in online report.

RI&E, Risico-inventarisatie en evaluatie Synechron, Uitgevoerd door ENRGY. Het RI&E onderzoek heeft in januari 2019 opnieuw plaatsgevonden.

Synechron has been chosen as one of the Best Workplaces of the Netherlands in 2016, 2017, 2019 and 2020 ranking in the top 10 of large and multinational enterprises. The list of Best Workplaces is compiled on the basis of empirical and independent research by Great Place to Work Netherlands. The ranking focuses mainly on the level of trust, pride and pleasure experienced by employees within an organization.

Please refer to the website of Great Place to Work for our webpage: https://www.greatplacetowork.nl/workplace/item/2140/Synechron

Received on

Jan 1, 2020