Lovinklaan announces strategic program updates
As the major shareholder for Arcadis, the Lovinklaan Foundation strives to positively impact the professional development of Arcadis employees and to provide for the continuity of Arcadis. The Lovinklaan Foundation utilizes the dividend received on shares to support many programs for Arcadis employees. Each year, Lovinklaan assesses its programs to make strategic choices that meet the foundation’s ambitions and goals for the coming years. The Lovinklaan Foundation is continuously looking for new ways to support employees while continuing to support ongoing programs with a finite annual budget. The Lovinklaan Foundation considers itself an incubator for employee programs, supporting identified needs for employees.
Update – SuperQuest
In 2017 the Lovinklaan Foundation launched a redesigned SuperQuest pilot program, with the ambition of helping Arcadians reach their full potential personally and professionally. This pilot program enabled Arcadians, either single specialist or multidisciplinary teams, to spend a couple of months in another region to apply their expert knowledge and support Global Business Lines or regions with the implementation of strategic projects or programs. While the SuperQuest pilot projects had very positive and valuable outcomes, Lovinklaan decided not to move forward with continuing SuperQuest funding at this time.
We would like to emphasize that this decision only impacts SuperQuest. We will continue supporting the Quest program and are happy that the Quest program will continue to benefit a large number of Arcadians while allowing them to connect and exchange knowledge with colleagues around the world. Since the start of the program in 2008 almost 700 Arcadians participated in this international transfer program as host or Questee.
Update – Satellite/Imagine
The Foundation, in conjunction with Arcadis, determined more than 10 years ago that innovation by Arcadis employees was critical to be competitive in the market and critical for career development for Arcadis employees. From this desire to support innovation, came the Imagine awards competition beginning in 2008, recognizing the best innovative ideas each year, followed by the Satellite program beginning in 2014. The Satellite program provided seed money to help innovative and entrepreneurial Arcadians get great ideas off the ground. Both Satellite and Imagine programs have been a joint effort by Arcadis and the Lovinklaan Foundation.
In nearly 10 years of supporting Imagine and Satellite, the Lovinklaan has funded approximately 100 project ideas and invested more than € 1.2 million. The Lovinklaan Foundation is very proud of the work completed by so many innovative thinkers. Over this time, the Lovinklaan Foundation has seen an evolution in the importance of innovation within Arcadis. Recently, Arcadis announced exciting changes to its strategy including its plans for innovation. The Lovinklaan Foundation is also making changes to align with Arcadis’ Innovation strategy. The Lovinklaan Foundation feels that the commitment to innovation by Arcadis confirms that Arcadis is taking this to the next level both by allocation of funding and by allocation of personnel, and that the need for incubation of an innovation program has changed.
At this time, the Lovinklaan Foundation announces that it will not continue new funding for Satellite projects going forward into 2018. The Foundation will honor all commitments to funding through 2017 projects and will continue to support the Imagine awards competition. The Lovinklaan will continue to support innovation for Arcadis employees and is actively looking for ways to partner with Arcadis in this mission in 2018.
Welcoming two new pilot programs
We are very delighted to announce we will invest in two new pilot initiatives Expedition DNA and Roots of Arcadis in the upcoming year. More on these new additions will be shared in 2018! The Lovinklaan Foundation will also continue to support Quest, Global Shapers, Shelter, and the Global Share Plan.
The board will continue to consider initiatives that contribute to the Arcadis strategy and meet Lovinklaan’s mission to help Arcadians grow and reach their full potential personally and professionally, while enjoying this journey.