Vlerick Expertise in Human Resource Management

In this Business Watcher video, Vlerick Professor Xavier Baeten gives three reasons why Dominique Leroy wanted to leave the Belgian telecom operator Proximus

Best Workplaces™ excel at creating added value with their people practices. They go beyond what is expected to achieve their organisational objectives. As a result, they create opportunities for building strong relationships of trust. By analysing the data of Belgium’s Best Workplaces™, we have identified 7 key areas that are of great importance when defining people programmes today. The paper ‘Creating high-trust cultures’ examines each of these areas, looking into the current trends and analysing the differences between Best Workplaces™ and other organisations.

For the fifth consecutive year, Hudson and Vlerick Business School have joined forces to organise the HR Barometer, a survey that analyses the trends and challenges in the Belgian HR sector. So what are its main findings? Firstly, HR focuses on many different things, going beyond mere recruitment and staff administration. Secondly, HR analytics is not a priority for Belgian companies (or at least not yet). Lastly, HR managers would love to focus on agile working, but meet with resistance, even from senior management.

Although our society is becoming increasingly diverse, this diversity is not always reflected in our companies. There is still an employment gap between newcomers and people of Dutch origin. This gap is more pronounced for the low-skilled than the more highly educated - 19% versus 11%. How can we ensure that companies and newcomers manage to find each other? Vlerick Business School and Talentree have joined forces and developed some practical toolkits. We asked Vlerick professor Dirk Buyens and Hannelore Waterschoot, founder and managing partner of Talentree, to tell us more.

In this Vlerick Book Podcast Series, Professor of Human Resources Management Dirk Buyens opened his bookcase and selected several books to discuss.

In this Business Watcher video, Vlerick's expert in Reward Management Xavier Baeten explains what pay for performance means and what elements are important for an effective 'pay for performance' strategy.

Flemish employees are only moderately satisfied with their pay. Mobility budget can be a crucial element in increasing their satisfaction. Moreover, Flemish employees have also proven to be in favour of determining their increases in fixed pay by their individual performance. Vlerick Business School and vacature.com came to this conclusion following a survey of 3,622 salaried Flemish employees.

Belgian senior managers do not earn less than their colleagues in the Netherlands, France, Sweden and Switzerland. However there is a significant difference of up to 40% in comparison to the salaries of CEOs from companies in Germany and the United Kingdom. Moreover, the current remuneration practices fail to sufficiently encourage business leaders to pay attention to environmental matters and to the long-term creation of shareholder value. These are the key conclusions of the annual study of top salaries by Vlerick Business School’s Executive Remuneration Research Centre.

Maternity leave, burn-out, an accident or serious illness are among the many potential causes of an extended absence from work. But what about the financial implications? And what role do employers play? In association with AG Insurance, Vlerick Business School recently conducted a survey into the way in which private sector employees and public sector contract workers assess the risk of losing their capacity to work. Professor Xavier Baeten questioned people about their experiences and personal expectations and the role they feel employers should play.

“By now, we know each other well and know what we can do together. However, we are also just grateful that we can continue our work in this way.” Hudson and Vlerick’s collaboration has already lasted nearly 20 years. Following their renewed Chair Partnership, we spoke to Xavier Baeten, Professor of Reward & Sustainability, and Dirk Buyens and Koen Dewettinck, both HRM Professors at Vlerick.