"At the beginning of our journey, we took the opportunity to educate the entire company on the significance of paying a living wage and why Fugro is committed to this principle. We are proud to uphold the belief that everyone deserves fair compensation" says Nanette Wagtendonk, International Compensation Analyst at Fugro, a prominent Geo-data solutions company headquartered in Leidschendam, Netherlands, with operations spanning in 55 countries.
WageIndicator interviewed Nanette Wagtendonk to delve into Fugro’s living wage journey, exploring the challenges encountered and their vision for the future.
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| Nanette Wagtendonk |
Can you describe Fugro's journey towards implementing and ensuring a living wage?
I started with Fugro in November 2020 and joined the global team in July 2021. Our first mention of the living wage was in the 2018 annual report. That year, Fugro emphasised its importance for the first time.
In 2018, we began basic checks on the living wage. By 2019, we used public data from the different sites, but data was limited to a few countries. With operations in 55 countries, we lacked comprehensive data for all the countries. We made do with the available data in 2019 and continued the same approach in 2020.
In 2021, We started discussions within our team at Fugro about improving our analysis to meet Fugro’s expectations. We discovered WageIndicator and saw the potential for better data. We purchased a data package, signed a one-year contract, and have since enjoyed excellent service.
Working with WageIndicator has been a pleasure. Your prompt responses and comprehensive spreadsheets, including historical data, have been invaluable. I appreciate the ease of collaboration.
Do you attribute the success of the Living Wage project at Fugro to your CEO’s vision?
In 2018, when Mark Heine became CEO, he emphasised that people are our greatest asset and insisted on fair pay and a comfortable living for all employees. This belief led to the start of our living wage initiative.
This focus on fair pay supports my work. Having the Executive Leadership Team backing is crucial, especially in some areas sceptical of the living wage concept. We use the WageIndicator Standard Family Living Wage, despite some countries advocating for an individual rate. Monitoring the family situation of over 12,000 employees is impractical, so we maintain the family living wage standard.
How do you convince your regional HR teams to rigorously implement the living wage across their operations?
We emphasise that living wage rates are based on local wages for all countries, not determined by Head Quarters in the Netherlands.
In some countries, we receive feedback that other data providers have different kinds of living wage data based on their country or region. Also local governments provide different living wage data. We compare these figures with WageIndicator's data to ensure consistency and ask about the components they have taken into account to ensure we have all the information together.
In some countries, there is debate over whether certain jobs should be considered the same way. Our response is that it doesn't matter; all workers are living in a particular country and should be paid fairly, even if they work part-time. We base our calculations on full-time employment to make sure we compare apples to apples.
Initially, we calculated wages based on 100% FTE (Full-Time Equivalent) using monthly or annual bases. Given our many hourly workers, we switched to hourly rate calculations last year. We now calculate the hourly rate for every employee and compare it to the standard family hourly rate.
How do you ensure a living wage for hourly workers?
We have many hourly workers, so the number of hours per week is not fixed. It depends on the nature of the job, whether they are going offshore on a vessel, and how many hours they are working. However, their hourly rate has been determined, and that’s what we base our calculations on.
What about overtime work, how do you account for that in your living wage calculations?
We account for fixed monthly allowances and variable pay, such as offshore and field allowances, based on employee contracts. Initially, our focus was on basic comparisons and reaching out to local HR. Now, we’re professionalising our approach, driven by the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and a desire to improve. We’re investigating issues like unpaid maternity leave to ensure compliance with the living wage standard.
How does the process of identifying gaps work on your end?
At the moment we manually review the data. We’re looking to automate this in the near future. The analysis itself does not take a long time to create; we created a template to work with every half year to do the analysis. This makes it easier to monitor the results and share it with the local HR departments. The task of local HR is to review the gaps and give comments which we can monitor year by year.
Are you implementing the living wage in your supply chain as well?
We have yet to start working on our supply chain, but it is on our to-do list to explore setting it up.
How do you report on the living wage?
We started reporting on the living wage in our 2018 report, which was very basic, indicating that we were beginning this work and thought it was important. In 2019, we provided more details but did not show figures.
Starting this year, we will report specific figures. According to the new EU directive on Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence (CSDD), we must report by country and case.