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As an employer, we have evolved rapidly in recent years. Guided by our three core values: Customer first, Learn everyday and Connecting people. Engagement, fun and ownership are central to our organization.

Responsibility

We encourage our employees to be entrepreneurial through personal development and give them responsibility. We combine our focus on customer experience with the Lean philosophy, which is based on the principle that improvement initiatives come from the entire organization rather than just from the top of the organization. We have put our employees at the wheel of continuous improvement.

HeadFirst Group Academy

To encourage our staff to continue to learn and develop, we have our own HeadFirst Group Academy. The Academy is an online learning environment where employees collectively attended 483 training sessions in 2023. In addition, a large number of classroom training sessions were conducted (305 training sessions).

Mental well-being

The mental well-being of our employees is also essential to us. That's why we joined forces with OpenUp, an organization whose mission is to make mental wellness accessible to everyone. OpenUp offers resources that make people more resilient and help them in their personal development such as a health check, one-on-one consultations with certified psychologists, master classes and group sessions, mindfulness consultations and online programs, articles and manuals.

Acknowledgment

Since we moved into our new headquarters in Hoofddorp in early 2022, we have our own HeadFirst Group theater at our disposal. We use this for our customized escape room, company parties, knowledge events and inspiration sessions.
All of this has been greatly appreciated: we were certified as a Great Place to Work (GPTW) for the second time in 2023. This is a great recognition of who we want to be as an employer. In the GPTW survey, our employees rated us highly on the topics of fair treatment, diversity & inclusion, responsibility and independence within work, and feeling that they can be themselves at work.

Does HeadFirst Group seem like a great place to work? Check out our vacancies and maybe we'll see you soon at our monthly drink!

For the ^22nd time Great Place To Work has announced the Best Workplaces of The Netherlands. These 40 employers are the leaders in the field of being a good employer. HeadFirst Group ended on place 10 in the category Mid Large!

We participated in the Trust Index, Great Place To Work's employee survey. Based on the results of this survey, HeadFirst Group is Great Place To Work-Certified™. Not only that, but as an organization we are among the 40 Best Workplaces Netherlands 2024!

On June 27, the final ranking was announced by Great Place To Work. HeadFirst Group ended up on place 10 in the Mid Large category (250 to 499 employees). We are very proud of this achievement. You can watch the aftermovie of the event here.

Frontrunners on good employment practices

René Brouwers, managing director of Great Place To Work, says: "This year the 40 Best Workplaces once again set the standard for safe work cultures. Environments where everyone can be themselves, rewards are equal and the proverbial door really is always open. So in a time when anxiety cultures and burnout are the order of the day, these organizations can rightfully call themselves frontrunners in the field of being good employers."

100% based on employee feedback

The Best Workplaces 2024 list is based on the Trust Index™, Great Place To Work's employee survey. This survey tells companies how they score on trust according to their own employees. At a score of 70% or higher, an organization may call itself Great Place To Work-Certified™. This certification is 100% based on employee feedback. Certified organizations had a chance to win a spot on the Best Workplaces 2024 list. Winners earned the title Best Workplace according to their own employees.

In early June, as part of the JINC Boss of Tomorrow initiative, we had the privilege of hosting two students who stepped into the shoes of our CEO, Marion Van Happen.

Dominique and Inha got to work with TikTok and thought about how we could use it to recruit new colleagues.

JINC Boss of Tomorrow offers young people between the ages of 8 and 16 from neighborhoods with socioeconomic disadvantages the opportunity to take a seat in the chair of a CEO, director or politician. During this day, they participate in meetings and think about specific issues. It offers young people the chance to step out of their often small world and take a look at the workplace, where they gain valuable insights, gain self-confidence and make contacts for the future. All essential for their future success in the job market.

HeadFirst Group is committed to a better world beyond the job market. We are committed to improving the lives of people around the world. Do you think this is important in a new employer? Then you've come to the right place. Check out our vacancies here or contact us.

In a world that is constantly changing, the courage to look ahead and explore new paths is the basis of leadership. That's why HeadFirst Group is taking the lead into the next world of work. The world we believe in is driven by technology and is free of prejudice, regardless of contract form. We dare to lead.

Therefore, we have created an ambitious plan through which we are taking steps toward this next world of work. This plan is based on the following five themes;

Tech enables touch

We believe that by making smart use of automation and AI, the end-to-end process of sourcing, matching, contracting and paying professionals can be fully digitized, allowing us to add personal touches at the moments when they really add value for clients. The main driver of this added value is our platform brand Striive and our other tech products ProUnity and OpenTalent.

HeadFirst Group has experienced a digital transformation from traditional labor market service provider to HR-tech solutions provider with a technology platform and various forms of labor market services with a human touch. We will continue this path unabated in 2024.

Continuous improvement

By 2023, we have laid the groundwork for continuous feedback loops from our different types of clients: customers, independent professionals and partners. The common thread from this feedback serves as input to our improvement roadmap for our processes, technology and how our colleagues work around our core processes: matching, contracting and funding. We learn everyday!

We do the same with our candidate and employee experience. Based on feedback from candidates in the hiring process for our job openings and our existing employees, we make improvements in the hiring process, the onboarding process, around our learning opportunities, in our benefits, in our locations, etc. With the goal of becoming an even better employer for our people. Specifically, we have set ourselves the goal of achieving a rating of 8+ in the next Great Place to Work measurement by the end of 2024.

Scarcity in the labor market

We will face scarcity in the labor market for many years to come, due in part to the structurally growing demand for STEM professionals and under pressure from an aging population. Talent scarcity will force organizations to be as creative as possible. This also applies to us. With all the different solutions to labor market issues available in our group, we will be able to demonstrate such creativity. Our solutions combine technology and human touch to meet any customer demand.

Sustainability Policy

As a leading HR-tech solutions provider and growing platform, HeadFirst Group takes its role in the labor market and in society very seriously. To make our impact as concrete as possible, we have organized our ESG impact along these four axes: (1) sustainability, (2) decent work and lifelong learning, (3) diversity and inclusion, and (4) governance and ethics. In each of these areas, we are developing new initiatives and making choices about how we - together with our employees, customers, suppliers and independent professionals - will contribute to a more beautiful world. To bring these initiatives together, the HeadFirst Group Foundation was created, in which budget has been made available to develop concrete initiatives that fall under the four aforementioned axes and encourage colleagues to be socially and sustainably active. And we believe that achieving B-Corp certification complements our ESG ambitions.

Challenges of Dutch labor law

The amount of legislation in the Netherlands regarding the labor market is large and more and more is being added. In line with our public affairs agenda, we continue to campaign for a good solution that combats false self-employment at the bottom of the labor market, while allowing conscious self-employed workers at the top of the market to run their businesses without restrictions.

Working at HeadFirst Group

At HeadFirst Group, we believe in continuous improvement and remain committed to innovation and growth. Together with our partners, clients and professionals, we are building a future of work that is inclusive, sustainable and technologically advanced.

Do you also want to work on The next world of work? Take a look at our vacancies and discover how you can contribute to our growth and innovation. Together we can shape the future of work.

The past year has been a period of significant progress and strategic development for HeadFirst Group. If you're curious about how the organization did and what steps we took, read on as we look back at the year 2023.

Strong organic growth

2023 was another year of strong organic growth for HeadFirst Group. At the same time, we laid the foundation for successful years to come, with our '5 bold steps' strategy that sets our direction for the coming years. This strategy forms the backbone of our company and helps us achieve our goals in a structured and focused way.

HeadFirst Group consists of different brands, each with its own identity and solutions. Our strength lies in the synergy and collaboration between these brands. We had an exceptionally good year in 2023, growing 21% organically. This growth was due to our commercial successes and our ability to combine solutions for our clients.

Data-driven organization

Over the past year, we have made significant progress in advancing our key core processes: matchmaking, contracting and finance. Some tangible results include an increase in the number of bids for contracts, a reduction in the turnaround time to complete a file for a contract and an improvement in our customer satisfaction by more than 30 NPS (Net Promoter Score) points.

A new CRM system (HubSpot) was implemented, replacing several other systems, professionalizing our sales process and creating opportunities for marketing automation. We also digitized all customer journeys and rolled out the feedback technology Ratecard groupwise. This gives us continuous insight into customer satisfaction and allows us to collect a lot of feedback as input for our continuous improvement process.

Our business intelligence (BI) team has made significant strides toward creating a 'data lake,' in which we collect all of the group's data. To access this "data lake, " we have built numerous new dashboards with rich insights for colleagues and customers.

Our platforms

In 2023, we made great strides in the area of digitization, particularly with the launch of our new platform brand Striive. This platform allows us to digitize the entire end-to-end process of sourcing, matching, contracting and paying professionals. We believe this digitization will allow us to add personal attention at the moments when they really add value for our clients.

Another notable technological development within the group was the presentation of our ProUnity brand's mobile app. In this app, professionals and delivery partners can manage information, confirm timesheets and create and submit invoices.

Great Place to Work

In addition to business success, we remain committed to creating a positive work environment for our employees. We are proud to have once again been recognized as a Great Place to Work and we are pleased to have experienced a 10% increase in employee satisfaction. We organize or participate in events and activities for our employees, think staff parties, sporting events and educational sessions.

The next world of work

In the last month of 2023, we were excited to share the news that HeadFirst Group and Impellam Group will join forces, which was ratified in March 2024. Together, we will be the leading service provider in STEM talent and Managed Service Provider with a distinctive HR-tech platform, creating a world leader in workforce solutions.

The past year has been a year of growth, innovation and collaboration for HeadFirst Group. But we are far from finished. We look forward to the future and the opportunities ahead. We invite you to be a part of our team and work with us on "The next world of work.

Are you interested in working at HeadFirst Group? Then take a look at our vacancies and discover how you can contribute to our growth and innovation.

Leadership at HeadFirst Group is not about exercising authority, but about creating an environment where people can grow and be themselves. To transfer that mindset to our executives, they participate in Lepaya's Empowering Leadership training. Natasja Spooren and Klaske Kuipers talk about their experiences.

During the training, they learned that good leadership is more than making strategic decisions. It is about understanding and actively applying principles that can positively influence both the individual and the team. Klaske says, "The training is about translating leadership values into concrete actions. Now I am much more aware of how my leadership style affects my team."

Natasja found the module on difficult conversations to be especially practical. "Sometimes it's quite difficult to get your message across well, especially if it's not what the other person wants to hear," she says. That module gave her tools to meet that challenge. What really made a difference was the module on flexible empowerment. "By adapting my leadership to the needs of others, I can respond effectively to different situations and team needs."

And this whole process was supported by Klaske's supervisor (and CEO) Marion van Happen. In their one-on-one meetings, they regularly discussed progress and planned next steps together. "As a company, we emphasize 'servant leadership.' We want to create a culture of trust in which openness and transparency are central. We listen to what our employees really need and look at their individual talents. It's nice that we can reinforce this with the customized leadership program from Lepaya," explains Marion.

At HeadFirst Group, we not only nurture a bold ambition; we have a mission. Our goal? To create a labor market that is fair and transparent, where we make a difference. But that's not all. We strive for an international appeal that positions us as a leading HR tech service provider and the digital platform, with the perfect balance between cutting-edge technology and human interaction.

That's why we have a brand new brand identity! This renewal is not just a visual makeover, but also a powerful message that highlights our forward-thinking approach, the human factor and our technological focus. We embrace our role as an innovative and modern tech-driven organization, ready to embrace the future.