our strategy

Our strategy is to deliver long-term value to all our stakeholders and focuses on being at the forefront of every conversation about work: becoming a true source of relevance and continuity for talent, and a true agent of agility and effectiveness for clients, delivering long-term value to all our stakeholders. 

It centers around three pillars that reinforce each other:

  • operational excellence
  • digital
  • accelerating growth

structural growth drivers

Geographically, Randstad is active in countries representing over 90% of the global HR services market, and our strategy has been designed to capitalize on the structural growth drivers in these markets. Throughout our markets, we see that global developments are affecting labor markets, which has led to an intense discussion about the future of work.

In recent years, the world of work has been experiencing transformative change, driven by technological innovation, demographic shifts, climate change and globalization. In 2020, the sudden and unforeseen pandemic outbreak had a massive impact on businesses and workers alike, and many were hard hit by the crisis. At the same time, the crisis has accelerated the shift to new ways of working, and we have an obligation to lead and support clients and talent in adapting and capitalizing on related opportunities.

  • changing nature of work
  • mobility
  • technological progress & automation
  • globalization & urbanization
  • demographics

human forward promises

With Human Forward, we are positioning ourselves as 'the trusted human partner in the technology-driven world of talent'. To help us to deliver on this positioning, we have defined a set of three Human Forward promises, which guide our behavior.

  • transparency: Clients get insight into how their HR needs are being met and candidates know where they stand in their job search.

  • guidance: Clients have an HR partner throughout the business lifecycle and the talent we serve can count on a partner in every step of their career.
     
  • proactivity: Clients stay steps ahead in the competitive world of talent and we help people find jobs even before they start looking.

 

value for our stakeholders

sustainability basics:

  • optimal workforces for clients
  • the best jobs for candidates
  • the employer of choice for employees
  • creating EVA for investors
  • shaping the world of work for society

#newways

In 2020, the world around us changed beyond recognition at an incredible speed. As the leading global HR services provider, Randstad quickly mobilized to respond to our customers’ needs, recognizing that there are ‘new ways’ of serving our clients and talent. Our #newways program, which we initiated in the second quarter, aims to help us all navigate the new situation we’re finding ourselves in, and builds on the work done for the 'Safely Back to Work' industry alliance.

Randstad’s advanced digital transformation immediately proved extremely valuable. When the pandemic hit, the entire office-based workforce seamlessly went virtual, with employees working from home and interacting with clients and talent through digital platforms. We also managed to quickly set up temporary workers to work remotely for our clients. In addition,we were able to identify and fill new roles, such as medical screeners and roles in testing and tracing. We also offered free job listings on Monster for health care workers.

our key material topics

To identify key material topics in the dynamic world of work, we take input from both inside and outside of Randstad.
We performed our most recent materiality assessment in 2021. This assessment was conducted by independent consultants in order to validate our current material topics and identify new topics.

We defined and prioritized the ESG (Economic Social Governance) issues that matter most to our stakeholders. A materiality matrix was constructed by considering the interests and expectations of key stakeholders and the evaluation of our company’s economic, environmental and societal impacts through interviews and workshops with Randstad’s clients, senior management (including Executive Board members), and public organizations. This is complemented with stakeholder desk research on clients, employees, candidates, investors, public organizations, and suppliers.

We identified 14 material topics in the social, economic, and environmental domains. These topics are captured in a materiality matrix, where the importance for stakeholders is plotted on the y-axis and the business impact is plotted on the x-axis. The materiality matrix does not reflect regional or cultural differences. We report on our key material topics at least annually in our Annual Report.

The matrix shows the distribution of the focus areas for acceleration (yellow dots), because they have a substantial business impact and are important to stakeholders and because they are closely related to Randstad’s must-win-battles. The sustainability enablers are not necessarily societal topics on their own (green dots). They are, however, important enablers that put Randstad in the right position to address the four acceleration topics as well as the other materialities. These topics should be closely monitored since they are key means to create impact on Randstad’s focus areas for acceleration. Two materialities included in the materiality matrix are considered as more locally oriented, operational management topics (blue dots). Centrally, Randstad can indicate the direction at global level, but success is largely dependent on local execution.