T-Systems
Nederland
B.V.

• Climate Neutral Datacenter pact (as subsidiary of Total Solar Irradiance (TSI), see Climate Neutral Data Center Pact)
• As Ambassador of the #AllemaalDigitaal, a joint government and private sector initiative, our managing director Sake Algra has participated in several television debates and media initiatives to raise awareness for the plight of underprivileged children and students who are digitally excluded from fully participating in the education system and society at large. T-Systems Nederland has set an example by donating laptops and IT equipment to charities with the aim of supporting underprivileged children and families. It leads the way in creating public awareness for this cause to provide everyone with equal access to the digital world.

Our headquarters in Utrecht are supplied with 100 percent green energy for electricity consumption and district heating is also part of our energy mix. This building has a class A label classification for a very energy-friendly building in the Netherlands. Our second office moved to a new building in Rijswijk which is more energy-friendly than the old one. We therefore achieved 100 percent green electricity consumption from January 2021 at our datacenters, our office buildings and our electricity fleet.

Nevertheless, we are still continuing to focus on improved efficiency for the floorspace of our office buildings. A significant decrease in floorspace with current and projected results:

• Since 2021, a decrease of a further 26 percent of the total floorspace was achieved as a result of the move from the office in The Hague to a new office location in Rijswijk and our design to create a new way of working.

The main focus for our datacenters in 2021 was the ongoing decrease in energy consumption. Despite this, six percent more energy was consumed in comparison to 2020. This was caused by new, high-consuming customers over the course of 2020. There would have been a decline of around eleven percent without these new customers. So we are still building on our achievements in previous years:

• 2020→2021: 6 percent increase
• 2019→2020: 6 percent increase
• 2018→2019: 22 percent decrease
• 2017→2018: 21 percent decrease
• 2016→2017: 28 percent decrease and
• 2015→2016: 13 percent decrease.

The reduction was achieved through asset refresh (lifecycle management), decommissioning, and datacenter consolidation.

One of the key success factors for realizing our strategic ambitions is our company culture and the skills of our employees. 

Being proactive, cooperating with each other, stepping outside silos, and creating a learning culture are examples of actions that will help develop the company culture we aspire to. Our clients are at the center of everything we do. Our focus on clients and continuous development of our expertise to add value empowers us to give our clients the best possible service. Our employees are our most valuable asset. They help us to achieve our goals. Our employees therefore have the power and the opportunity to develop professionally and thrive in a learning environment.

T-Systems Nederland will continue to grow into a high-performance organization and this sets the standard for our way of working. All of us need to be successful. We will create an environment in which feedback is a common good and where we celebrate our successes. The culture and leadership pillar of our strategy aims to inspire our employees to adopt a bold approach and be innovative. That will help us all to drive T-Systems Nederland into a successful future. T-Systems Nederland is a great place to work. We want our employees to be proud colleagues and enjoy themselves when they are in the office. This is our motivation for enhancing the skills of our employees to match the future requirements of our customers, starting in 2021 and continuing in 2022. Our ambition is for all our experts to be highly skilled, certified and ahead of the curve in technical, consulting, and agile expertise.

We are continuously driving forward our culture program in support of this journey. It is driven by self-confident cross-departmental Ambassadors. Every department sets their own goals and actions to increase employee engagement with the help of our Pulse Champions. We measure our progress on a regular basis using Temperature Checks. They have shown a steady positive increase over the last several years.  

At T-Systems Nederland, we create a healthy work environment for our employees. The health and safety of our employees is important to us and we seek to offer every opportunity for them to achieve their personal goals. Similar to the previous year, 2021 has proven to be a challenging year for many of us – as we have continued to live and work in a crisis situation during the global COVID-19 pandemic. A healthier lifestyle is one of the cornerstones of advice from the World Health Organization for global citizens in order to overcome the pandemic without ongoing consequences.

We offer many different options for vitality, employability, and workability. For example in 2019, T-Systems Nederland launched a sustainable employability program “Fit for the Future.” We encourage employees to take part in health checks and persuade them to go to the gym or a sports club by making the fee tax-deductible. 

T-Systems Nederland offers meetings with job coaches and defines detailed career paths to help employees make the right career choices with the objective of encouraging them to take the lead in relation to their own employability. We communicate regularly on the importance of health and specifically mental health, since most of our employees are working from home. We provide advice and offer employee-specific solutions. We have also encouraged employee initiatives like running, cycling, motor sports, and golf clubs in order to maintain a positive and healthy lifestyle between colleagues.

In 2021, we launched a digital platform for employees where they can find many resources, job aids, training courses and information on (mental) health, wellbeing, home office, leadership, collaboration tooling and much more to support them on their journey to a healthy work-life balance. The platform is our “Virtual Gym.”

During the COVID-19 crisis we learned more about how to work and engage with our employees most effectively. A new way of working was adapted in which the working tasks now drive the decision for the place where these tasks are performed. Activities that require deep focus are best done from home, whereas activities that need inspiration, innovation and intensive collaboration are better done in our re-styled offices. And all hybrid models in between these two poles are possible. Agreements are made within teams, transparently, and always with the best outcomes for our customers in mind.

As a service organization, we have also found ways to engage effectively with our customers and potential customers in a virtual environment without degrading valuable relationships. Together we are making interaction less physical and more digital, yet with the same level of engagement and communication. This new way of working, with less travel to the office and customer sites, is contributing significantly toward a fall in CO₂ emissions and energy reduction at our offices.

At the beginning of 2021, T-Systems Nederland made a further donation of 250 laptops, docking stations, screens, mice, and keyboards, as well as network equipment to #AllemaalDigitaal and IT4Kids in connection with our donation in 2020. #AllemaalDigitaal is a joint government and private-sector initiative, aimed at providing disadvantaged children and students who are digitally excluded from full participation in the education system, and society the means to access schooling and education. The plight of these vulnerable families was highlighted at the start of the COVID-19 outbreak when disadvantaged kids were excluded from online access to schooling from home.