The Imagine Awards, sponsored by the Lovinklaan Foundation, recognize the most innovative ideas each year. From the short list of the top 10 Imagine submittals, the Top 3 winners of the 2018 IMAGINE Awards have been selected by the Imagine Jury consisting of Peter Oosterveer, CEO of Arcadis NV, Todd Bechtel, Chairman of the Lovinklaan Foundation, and other members of Arcadis leadership located throughout the world.
What were we looking for?
We were looking for ideas that represent an innovative solution or a service that has been developed or tested in the last 12 months, as well as ideas that fit the Arcadis strategy, have tangible market potential, and are supported by an enthusiastic group of people.
Amazing submissions this year!
The IMAGINE Awards celebrate the 10th year of inception. As in previous years, Arcadians were very enthusiastic as shown by the high quality, detailed submittals. This year, submittals were solicited through the Global Solutions teams, which produced nearly 60 competitive and innovative submissions encompassing innovation from all Global Solutions groups and from colleagues from all regions including GEC.
Peter Oosterveer: “I was impressed by the content of the submissions. Thank you to all those who took the time and effort to submit their ideas. Once again IMAGINE demonstrated the innovative spirit of our people across the globe. Some of the ideas had significant market potential and we could clearly see how these would add value to our clients’ outcomes. We made our selection of the winners based on their powerful submissions.”
Todd Bechtel: “Lovinklaan believes, as major shareholder of Arcadis, that we can only succeed in the decade ahead, if we focus on innovation. We also believe that our people are our greatest asset of our organization. All Arcadians who submitted ideas for IMAGINE have proven this. Their ideas were surprisingly original and showed there are innovative ways of doing things better, faster or smarter within Arcadis.”
And the winners are…
During the Arcadis Global Leadership Forum (AGLF) Award night on 21 June, the leadership of Arcadis will publicly announce the 3 winners and will take time to focus on these innovations that can make a positive change within Arcadis and society.
The winners have received a special invitation to join and celebrate (with two members per winning team) during this AGLF Award dinner night.
So stay tuned after AGLF to find out more about these amazing winners…
The Lovinklaan Foundation – the largest shareholder in Arcadis – is led by employees of Arcadis. The board currently consists of seven Arcadians from different divisions and countries around the globe. They balance their day-to-day workload with their responsibilities for the Foundation; contributing to the continuity of the enterprise and helping Arcadians grow and reach their full potential. In addition to work on Foundation programs and communications by e-mail and multiple Skype calls, the Board meets face-to-face each quarter to discuss developments, make strategic decisions and meet local participants. MO Lai shares his experiences about the board meeting in the Philippines, which took place in January 2018. He acts as board member of the Lovinklaan Foundation and is the Operation Director for Quantity Surveying at Arcadis Hong Kong.
Sharing knowledge and connecting people
MO Lai: “The kick-off of our quarterly meeting was characterised by the warm welcome of the two offices we visited during our stay, including the Arcadis Philippines country office and the GEC located in Manila. It was rewarding and impressive at the same time, especially because we were able to meet such a large number of enthusiastic Arcadians over the course of the week. During the two staff presentations, the attendees were either eager to learn more about the different programs or happy to share their personal Lovinklaan program experiences. It was nice to see how engaged and inspired everyone was by the end of each session.”
Celebrate success and drive sustainable development
“Next to speaking with Arcadians in the different offices, the board also talked a lot about the future direction of the Foundation and which important next steps to take in the future. The visit to the Philippines was different from previous quarterly meetings, mainly because we were invited by Christopher Rollo, the Country Programme Manager of UN Habitat in the Philippines. He expressed how grateful the organization is for our contributions to the Shelter program, a collaboration between UN Habitat, Arcadis, and financially supported by the Lovinklaan Foundation. During this meeting with UN Habitat, they stressed how important it is that we link Arcadians – with the relevant expertise – to different missions in the Philippines. It gave us as a board satisfaction that through our efforts we allow Arcadians to contribute to sustainable development around the globe.’’
Lookback and Outlook
“In Manila, we reflected on past successes, discussed key learnings, and came up with new insights. We spent time to refine our role as the largest shareholder of Arcadis and discussed strategic ways to contribute to the continuity of the enterprise. But, probably as important, we looked at ways to continuously improve the existing range of internationally oriented employee programs, aimed at promoting knowledge exchange, innovation and connecting employees.”
Equatex has updated the self-certification form process and has decided to merge the CRS (previously referred to as AEOI) and FATCA forms, to simplify the for participants. This new process is effective from 3rd of February onwards and applies for all new participants and certain existing plan participants.
Equatex will reach out to (new) participants effected by this change directly. Participants will need to fill out the updated combined form replacing the separate FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act) and CRS (Common Reporting Standard) form. This will allow Equatex to provide participants with services as normal, while at the same time remaining compliant with tax regulations.
Equatex will notify the participants directly by e-mail and provide them information about the mandatory steps to take and will inform them about the consequences of not completing the forms.
More information about the background of this process update and the implications for participants can be found on the FAQ page of Equatex.
Shelter is a partnership between Arcadis and UN-Habitat aimed at a common goal: to improve the quality of life of citizens in rapidly growing cities around the world. We are highlighting one of our Arcadian’s stories’ who went on an Shelter mission. In this blog post we cover the experience of the Shelter mission of Nyima Zoutenbier who traveled from Arnhem, The Netherlands to Bidur, Nepal.
Mission objective
This mission’s objective was to provide support to UN Habitat, WLSP and the Government of Nepal to achieve alignment on the common vision on the Comprehensive Development Plan for the Bidur Municipality. Specifically, Arcadis was asked to critically review the documentation created by WLSP and to provide suggestions and evaluation of their work. Also, we were asked to assist in the analysis of the present situation and the impacts of the development scenario’s. Together with WLSP we were challenged to set a common urban and territorial development vision among national and local stakeholders.
My specialist skills are advising on and setting the framework – defining the boundaries really – in which the proposed urban development plan should be developed in the short, medium and long term. 
“Kathmandu is impressive; the city is very vibrant, crowded and loud. The surroundings are even more impressive!”
best part of the mission
Experiencing a new country, not as a tourist but to really understand a new way of living and working. It was a two-way street of learning from each other – learning from Nepal, learning from our Chinese counterpart, and also learning from myself. It was enlightening. I would recommend every Arcadian to keep an eye out for all platforms the Shelter program uses to share their work and experiences. It gives a lot of insight in the type of projects that Shelter undertakes and you can find the perfect opportunity for yourself. Also, I really recommend to broaden your horizon in your own work too, to get comfortable in getting out of your comfort zone. My shelter mission definitely put me out of my comfort zone, but it’s good to build on t
hat resilience for yourself, to get yourself prepared.
Most challenging part of the mission
When I first heard I had been chosen for the mission, my first reaction was…Very excited! I was really honored that I was considered and I did not hesitate to say yes. However, I was also very nervous to experience something this exciting, but mostly I was thrilled. However, the most challenging part of the mission was to not get disappointed by the lack of a complete database, strong leadership and/or a clear vision. There sure was a lot of ambition, but it requires a lot of deep understanding of the current procedures to define a manageable and realistic development plan. That requires some alterations of the current plan, but this is definitely an interesting challenge for the next phase.
Learnings and experiences
I definitely learned what the impact is of (not) having enough resources for the development of a country. This was a very valuable insight that I learned during the mission and this requires of all team members to be more creative.
The international Shelter program, which allows Arcadians to share their pro bono knowledge and expertise to find solutions for global urbanization issues in the field of infrastructure, environment and water, is sponsored by the Lovinklaan Foundation.
Arcadis Quest has given me the opportunity to discover our business’ deep heritage, and more.
As someone who manages the Arcadis’ global social media channels and works under the Global Marketing & Communications Team, I feel very fortunate that I am able to engage with many people across different regions. But it’s not everyday that I get to see them face-to-face, being one who is currently based in GEC Philippines. In an office where there are more engineers and not one social media colleague in sight, not a lot of people know much about my role. So this year, I got ecstatic when I was approved to go on a Quest to the place where Arcadis started its roots: Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Here, I was able to meet my colleagues and engage in different brainstorming activities to create powerful online collaborations using a wide variety of online networking platforms.
Arcadis Social Media is divided into global and regional social channels. While I currently manage, collaborate, and feed worthy content to be shared on the global channels (LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Google, Pinterest, Vimeo etc.) while keeping in line with the Arcadis branding as well as creating social media guides and reports, all other regions also work with their own set of selected social media accounts, managed by my fellow marketing colleagues within those regions. All these accounts are meant to drive change and growth in the business using digital space.
With the Europe North M&C Team at Amersfoort office
During my Quest exchange, I met with my Global M&C colleagues Dorry Reuling and Karen Jens. Dorry also introduced me to a number of people working at Arcadis NV/HQ. I also met my region host, Elske de Jong at the Arcadis office in Amersfoort and discussed our social media approach coming from both global and regional perspectives. From there, we were able to see the differences in our roles and align our upcoming collaborative efforts with our current digital media strategy.
Elske also introduced me to Manuela van der Wielen of Lovinklaan Foundation and Tim Preger who is currently Arcadis’ North Europe Press Officer. Tim and I had a very interesting discussion about the business, our roles on social media and the heritage of Arcadis while walking on the streets of a 700 year-old historical city, which was located just a few minutes away from our office in Amersfoort. Quest also became a reason for me to personally connect with Bert Smolders and Iris Bijlsma, two people who continue to dedicate their expertise and time to the Shelter Program initiative, a noted partnership between Arcadis and UN Habitat. During that time, we came up with ways of further strengthening the digital presence of the Shelter Program using the global social channels. I was also very fortunate to have come to Amsterdam to witness a company milestone: seeing the new Arcadis logo being installed on top of the Symphony Offices Building where Arcadis HQ is located.
Elske and I also did an ‘Arcadis Projects Day’, where we were able see what Arcadis did for different places located within the city center in Amsterdam such as: renovation, crossing and megaprojects at/near the Central Station, parking at Museumplein, entrance of the Van Gogh Museum, the Public Library, the Double Tree by Hilton Amsterdam, and the renovation of the Rijksmuseum, a project which was successfully led by Global Design’s own Andre de Roo, whom some of you will know.. Seeing the actual projects gave me an entirely new level of appreciation that I wouldn’t be able to experience if I had only seen them on my mobile or laptop. Arcadis has provided accessibility and infrastructure, enriched knowledge and innovation, created urban developments, and improved the city’s tourism and deep culture not just in Amsterdam, not just in The Netherlands, but in the entire world. It proved to me how important these facts needs to be shared through the global website and social channels even more. I imagined instantly how it would be a privilege to see more of our projects in the other regions as well!
The weekend during my trip was about exploring and taking a lot of photos which I look forward to use on the Arcadis global Instagram account. I also had the chance to attend an Arcadis-sponsored event — a concert finale organized by Prinses Christina Concours, part of the royal family in The Netherlands, who supports kids who would like to pursue their passion through music. This was held at Scheveningen, Den Haag (The Hague). I thank Tim, Elske and Diana De Kruis for inviting me to such a memorable musical spectacle.
The last few days of my Quest included working in the Arcadis office in Arnhem, and meeting Stephanie Van Herpen, who is the Head of Europe North M&C Team. A quick trip to Elske’s home, meeting and having dinner with her family was the perfect ending to my work in Arnhem.
And just when I thought my Quest was over, I went back to the Arcadis NV office for a spontaneous meet-up with Global Head of Marketing and Communications Paula Murphy and Global Internal Communications Manager Fiona Tanner, who both came to Amsterdam from the London office to meet and shoot a video with Peter Oosterveer, our new CEO.
It was also a perfect way to finally catch up and have dinner with Fiona, where we shared our thoughts on creating better ways to use and promote the Arcadis Go App; and Julie Nguyen, my previous line manager, the new Global Client Development Lead for Arcadis Digital and one of the pioneers behind the Deep Orange Program. As part of our collaborative activities, we also look forward to creating a social media plan for Deep Orange soon!
My Quest is by far one of the most unforgettable experiences that I will forever cherish. I thank Arcadis, the Lovinklaan Foundation for giving me a chance to share my knowledge on digital media and visit as many places as I could fit in during my stay in The Netherlands. I am very happy to have met all the people I’ve mentioned and appreciate the time and conversations that I was able to have with them.
The Quest program made me even more proud of being an Arcadian and I highly recommend using the Quest opportunity as a way to be more inspired and generate more ideas to continuously improve the quality of life.
Global Shapers releases their new book ‘Building Powerful Networks: the Arcadis Global Shapers Story’ on April 12!
In 2012 the Global Shapers programs has been launched aimed at the growing group of millennials in the organization. The Global Shapers program was launched to realize the potential of an international organization, to increase the global pool for high-potential professionals, to leverage the skills and talents of the new generations, and to strengthen engagement and employer branding. In four years, Arcadis created a powerful global network of young professionals who help make Arcadis a truly global and connected company. This book written by Tom Haak, Chantal Drenthen and Sylke Raymakers, inspires with the story of the Arcadis Global Shapers. It offers inspiration, tools and guidance for other organizations who want to build powerful networks.
The hard cover version of the book can be pre-ordered at the online store. Price hardcover: EUR 18,90 excluding VAT and postage. The book is available from April 12, 2016.
