Innovation

ITZU is a people business that operates within various departments: temporary employment to recruitment and selection, cleaning services and helping with the household, career guidance, and outplacement.

It offers people the chance to grow and flutter in the world. ITZU, "it's you," we care about. "You" can be everyone—especially their employees, clients, suppliers, partners, and many others. With 1250 employees, ITZU is focused on the strengths of people. "Improving an individual's strengths is way more effective than focussing on weaknesses. Letting people do the work they like results in more happiness, which is what it is all about."

ITZU's main priority is the well-being of its people, which contributes directly to the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) number three. ITZU cares about its employees and ensures everyone feels good within the company.

ITZU foreign is working on SDG number one, no poverty, and number eight, decent work. They help foreign workers and asylum seekers find work and ensure decent wages and housing, always in a correct manner. Also, SDG numbers four and thirteen aren't being ignored by ITZU. True ITZU-training they provide impactful training to develop talent within an organization. Climate action is also taken into account by having climate-neutral buildings with solar panels. Finally, ITZU is working on SDG number seventeen: partnerships for the goals. ITZU embraced VOKA in an impactful collaboration to help other businesses achieve Sustainable Development Goals. By considering several SDGs, they are creating a net-positive overall impact.

Inspiration

At ITZU, a decade ago, they saw that other companies were paying more and more attention to sustainability. They couldn't do anything but change with it. Just making small changes in the company was not good enough for ITZU; they wanted to get to the top of sustainability. They put the main focus on employee well-being. They were going to ensure that employees came to work with a lot of pleasure and enthusiasm and, thus, were more productive. At ITZU, they treat employees with respect and do not leave them to their own devices. The focus within the company is not only on sustainability but also on care. ITZU operates very differently from other companies; they do not produce products, so they can only focus on the employees within the company. They are very proud that they concentrate so hard on their employees.

"At first, working around sustainability felt more like something we were obligated to do. We had to make changes for the climate and make sure our people felt good and motivated within the company." This concept rapidly developed into something more than just an obligation. ITZU realized sustainability was becoming more and more critical in a booming business. "Everything you give attention to grows, and we focus on sustainability. That's why we are leading in making businesses more sustainable."

Overall impact

To improve coherence between employees and the management team, ITZU will organize staff meetings. You can apply for this if you work at ITZU, a selection of 12 employees will be made, and then you can participate in quarterly meetings with the management team. The management team is very keen to listen to the employees' opinions. But in the end, the management will still make the final decisions.

At ITZU, they also want to focus on training recently graduated students. These students then run a nine-month course with them in the HR department. This way, they already get their first taste of HR and learn how to work with it.

Dealing well with human rights is also a long-term goal of ITZU. They want to ensure that as many materials as possible within the buildings are made ethically correct. They are concerned at ITZU that some products are made by child labor, slavery, or sterile working conditions in some countries. They want to remove as many unethical products from their buildings as possible and recruit sustainable alternatives in their place.

ITZU has created a new management position, "Well-being and sustainability director." This is a position entirely new to the outside world. In this way, ITZU wants to prove that they consider well-being and sustainability a vital topic, even at the highest level. By creating this quantum leadership, they are making sure that the employees within ITZU feel good about themselves and their colleagues in the company.

Business benefit

ITZU has found that a commitment to sustainability & employee well-being brings not only intrinsic, but also economic benefits. ITZU is a service enterprise, so the company does not have to be concerned about material things. As a result, Itzu needs to invest in long-term employee sustainability. The better employees feel in the workplace, the better they perform and do their best to achieve profitability. In the future, they want to make the staff even more of a focus.

ITZU wants to try to address and reduce absenteeism. The HR manager gave this example in the interview "If someone happens to be sick every Monday, that would be an extraordinary illness." Within ITZU, they talk to the employee and ask what is happening. They start thinking along and try to find a solution for the employee. After all, the sick employee does make his colleagues pay for his work, and the customers are waiting for you, and your supervisor is waiting for you. ITZU does pay for a full day of work, but if the employee is on unjustified sick leave, it is a waste of money.

As discussed, young employees are no longer just interested in money. There is also interest in the company's sustainability and innovation. ITZU can approach young people reasonably early in their working lives through initiatives and responding to this demanding evolution. Not only employees but also customers are interested in sustainability. Quotations contain increasingly more clauses about sustainability. Also, more and more companies place great value, besides the price, on sustainability. Therefore, focusing on changing value is an essential asset for ITZU to attract and retain clients.

Social and environmental benefit

ITZU has joined a project by VOKA, Flanders' largest entrepreneurial network, to guide companies in achieving the SDGs and making this innovation potentially scalable. Through a customized action plan, several enterprises are working towards profitable operations for their business and the environment. By reaching internationally recognized milestones, companies additionally build their global reputation. Enterprises are initially acknowledged as pioneers, champions, and ambassadors.

ITZU recently obtained the champion certificate. Only 28 companies in Belgium have received this recognition, of which ITZU is the only firm operating in the HR sector. ITZU has made substantial efforts to achieve the SDGs, causing companies in the pioneer category to look up to them. However, the objective is not to keep the knowledge indoors. ITZU wants to share its experiences and expertise with as many companies as possible. In doing so, ITZU has a more significant impact on society than just making its operations more sustainable. “The bigger the impact, the better the results.”

VOKA assists ITZU in initiating projects to gain ambassador recognition eventually. This is not an easy task. To give an idea, the ambassador certificate requires companies to check the sustainability of the supply chain for all their products and services. The production of a computer mouse, for example, involves 30 suppliers from 16 different countries. ITZU must likewise write codes on how they engage in human rights, biodiversity, etc. This is a challenge because ITZU does not have production machines to make it climate-neutral. Therefore, ITZU has to work especially hard to improve the welfare of its employees.

Interview

Guy Strauven, Well-Being & Sustainability Director