Ensuring the competence of our employees and their commitment to our vision and values has been and will remain a priority for DNV.
In February 2007, DNV’s new vision, ‘Global impact for a safe and sustainable future’ was announced. The new vision was developed in parallel with the strategy for 2006–2010. The process of defining it involved the Executive Board and management groups, as well as thorough tests with employees in locations around the world.
The vision outlines the ambition – global impact – and direction – for a safe and sustainable future – for DNV for years to come, and gives the energy and motivation to move the organisation forward. The change is rooted in the belief that in addition to its long-term focus on safety and quality, DNV must prioritise addressing two of the world’s most pressing concerns: safeguarding the environment and balancing the needs of business and society.
DNV’s values have also been reformulated and refocused to provide a clearer description of what has brought DNV its worldwide credibility and recognition, and what is necessary to strive for in the future. DNV’s purpose, ‘To safeguard life, property and the environment’, remains the same.
DNV’s values are:
We build trust and confidence
We never compromise on quality or integrity
We are committed to teamwork and innovation
We care for our customers and each other
The vision shall be embraced and implemented throughout the organisation, both on a business unit and individual level. The vision shall be used to develop business opportunities, to plan and prioritise resources, and to guide discussions in regular meetings. Understanding the vision shall help employees understand who the people in DNV are, what they do and why they do it. Therefore, all employees have been encouraged to think about how what they do on a daily basis contributes to DNV making a global impact.
Photo: DNV/Nina Eirin Rangøy
At the end of 2007, DNV reached a total of 7 691 employees, a net growth of 14% for the year. The budget is to increase the number of staff by 15% in 2008. At the same time, the DNV-wide turnover rate of 10% is still higher than desired, though it varies widely among the business areas.
This strong growth presents other challenges for the organisation. Much effort is directed toward recruiting and hiring, as well as to ensure that the number of ‘early leavers’ is minimised by welcoming newcomers in a proper way and bringing them up to speed more quickly.
Diversity
New DNV employees are more diverse in terms of age and nationality. In total, 98 nationalities are represented among DNV employees, with 57 nationalities among managers. The percentage of female staff remained the same as in 2006 at 31%, but the percentage of female managers continued to increase to 16%. At year-end, 12% of all staff – and 9% of managers (an increase from only 3% in 2006) – reported to a female manager. The number of women in the Senior Management Group also increased to 7 of 67 (from 5 in 2006).
Focus on Introduction phase
One of Corporate Human Resources’ initiatives to help retain DNV’s talented workforce is the development of a better introduction process for employees’ first year with DNV. The improved process includes an overview of activities to be carried out, a revamped version of the DNV-wide introduction course and hands- on tools and material for line managers and Human Resources to use locally.
The new DNV-wide course is called ‘We in DNV – Introduction Course’. It was piloted in November and December 2007 in Houston and Høvik. The course takes an organisational perspective with the anchoring point being DNV’s purpose, values and vision. The goal is for new employees to understand the organisation as a whole, think across business areas, and understand the synergies between DNV’s many activities and services. The intent is to ensure that DNV has one corporate culture and that employees share the same values. Every new employee should attend the course within a year of starting work at DNV.
New Expectations to Leaders
The quality of management also plays a key role in whether or not employees stay with an organisation. Therefore, DNV has begun a comprehensive and coordinated effort to further develop leadership performance. ‘New Expectations to Leaders’, which will be used in the assessment and development of managers, as well as succession planning, were presented at the Senior Management Group meeting in 2007.
The expectations to leaders are:
Respect and care
Foresight
Customer focus
Result orientation
For each expectation, a set of desired behaviours has been defined. A tailor-made DNV 360-degree assessment tool has been made available and rolled out in the organisation for use in the development of managers.
DNV employees worldwide are a key stakeholder group for DNV, so it is important that they participate actively in DNV’s governing bodies. Therefore, the Board of Directors was extended in 2007 to include four employee representatives elected by and amongst employees around the world to ensure a broad representation. After the first worldwide elections, the Board of Directors now has employee representatives from Norway (two), Europe (one, from France) and the Worldwide constituency (one, from China). The DNV Council has six employee representatives who work in Italy, India, China and Norway.
Employee participation in the strategy development process also increased in 2007. For the first time ever, four employee-elected representatives attended the annual Senior Management Group (SMG) meeting. The representatives were invited to challenge the working groups and take part in the discussions. Before the meeting, each representative had participated in regional meetings with members of the Executive Board to discuss DNV strategy.
The plan is for this type of communication across DNV to continue. It is useful for the employee representatives to listen to and understand managers’ views, as well as for Executive Board members to get input directly from employee representatives.
2007 People Satisfaction Survey
DNV conducted a worldwide People Satisfaction Survey in the third quarter of 2007. The overall response rate was remarkably high at 89%. The overall results in 2007 were positive and show an improvement compared to 2004 in spite of the strong growth, high workload and the reorganisation in 2006. New employees, those who have been with DNV for less than two years, make up a large percentage of respondents that are very satisfied.
Strengths shown are:
Commitment to DNV’s Purpose, Values and Vision
Competence development on the job and meaningful work
Immediate managers respect their employees
DNV strives to maintain a safe workplace
DNV cares about its customers
Improvement areas include:
Access to job related internal information
Expectation setting and performance feedback from immediate managers
Compensation system
Focus on continuous quality improvement
Employees at all levels of the organisation are involved in identifying improvement areas specific to their local issues – and in making the improvements. Most improvement actions based on the results will be carried out through the business areas, independent business units and corporate units. The Executive Board will ensure that information about the survey results are shared throughout DNV and that actions are identified and implemented.
Some of the areas for improvement highlighted by the 2007 People Satisfaction Survey were already being addressed in 2007, such as the development of leadership and management. In addition, 80% of DNV employees receive regular performance and career development reviews. Meanwhile, the work being done in the business areas to promote competence development in a more structured way gave positive results in the survey.
