Flemish Service for Employment and Vocational Training

Enjoying a 360-degree view

VDAB, the Flemish Service for Employment and Vocational Training, is a complex organization that includes a large network of local job centers. Last year, the agency implemented SAS Strategic Performance Management for the visualization of its balanced scorecard system. Strategic Performance Management provides the steering committee with an online, 360-degree overview of the company. 

It enables managers to communicate the organization's vision with maximum efficiency throughout the entire work force and ensures that all employees are actively pursuing the same objectives. It leaves top managers free to concentrate on long-term strategies, while also motivating local managers.

Dynamic Customer-Oriented Organization
The VDAB provides an extensive package of employment services, including temporary labor, vocational training and education, recruitment and selection, career counseling and outplacement. Since its creation in 1989, it has continuously fine-tuned its structures and internal processes to reflect the needs created by a labor market that is forever in flux. The VDAB has been a pioneer in ICT innovations like e-business and customer relationship management (CRM), allowing the agency to constantly improve the process of matching job seekers with employers.

Modern Management with Balanced Scorecards
This modern and dynamic approach not only improves VDAB's services to the public but also gives it an internal management edge over competitors. VDAB has followed management-by-objectives strategies since its creation. This approach measures a wide variety of critical and strategic parameters within an organization, including everything from job offers to the number of job seekers. It then uses these numbers to monitor and guide overall performance.

"To make sure our service stays perfectly in tune with the market demands, VDAB is continuously evolving," explains Bart Van Schel, director of data management and analysis. "The problem is that the amount of data we collect is increasing exponentially as the strategic importance of local job centers becomes more critical." To keep such a complex organization on track, managers need a constant and clear view of organizational performance, not just numbers.

"Frankly, the volume of information in our Enterprise Information System (EIS) was becoming too complex and extended for the steering board to reasonably work with," Van Schel explained. "We needed a powerful communication and visualization tool on top of our existing EIS system to sort out and provide truly relevant and strategic management information to all management layers. For us, the system of balanced scorecards, visualized with SAS Strategic Performance Management, has proven to be a very comprehensive answer."

Dashboard View
Balanced scorecards permit the measurement and management of business performance in every layer of the organization. This means an optimal balance of financial and operational perspectives. Every aspect, from finance, clients and staff to markets and innovation, is represented. "Now, defining and monitoring our key metrics is very easy, thanks to the customized interactive user portals in Strategic Performance Management." says Van Schel. "Every division and local job center is included on the start screen. One click brings the user to a lower organization level and more detailed information. Clear graphs and charts show the evolution of every parameter. Conveniently arranged tables with symbols and colors permit interpretation and comparison of the performance of each unit at a glance. There are even several alarm thresholds built into the metrics. This enables management to respond immediately and execute the appropriate adjustments.

"Strategic Performance Management is an enormous help in keeping us on our defined growth path by providing accurate threshold values," he explains. "Objectives always remain realistic."

This process takes place "ultra-fast and online via the intranet," he adds. "Managers can now make decisions based on comprehensive and up-to-the-moment data. We know the actual performance of the entire company, not just what we think or hope is happening."

Stimulating Responsibility
Strategic Performance Management assures the continuous transfer of internal knowledge. Vital information is easily and quickly communicated company-wide. Best practices are spread much faster to every level of the company. "Strategic Performance Management has made it possible for us to evolve from a centrally managed organization to a bottom-up-aligned management. This has been especially significant in stimulating responsibility in regional managers," adds Van Schel. Local managers can benchmark their results with other local centers, stimulating internal competition and responsibility for rapid and appropriate new actions. As regional managers report successful new ideas and activities to the Comment Manager, the steering committee stays informed about local activities and can adjust them if necessary, he explained.

Strategic Performance Management's efficient communication means that information not only migrates vertically (top down and bottom up), but also horizontally. This way, local centers keep fully informed about the actions of their colleagues throughout Flanders.

"Local managers are enthusiastic about Strategic Performance Management since it helps them evolve from directors to real coaches with increased responsibilities," Van Schel adds. "The traditional MBO [management by objective] approach often leads managers to focus only on the numbers as their objective. With the balanced scorecard, on the other hand, numbers represent only a starting point for management actions. Strategic Performance Management creates a wide variety of possibilities for management to consider."

SAS – A Real Partner for the Long Term
Van Schel is very enthusiastic about SAS service. "They provide intensive support during the development and implementation phase as well as total training of the end-users. They transfer their specialized knowledge into our company. This in turn allows us to continuously optimize and refine the product ourselves, precisely what we expect from our partners." The implementation of Strategic Performance Management was not the first collaboration between VDAB and SAS. Van Schel reports that "SAS has been our partner since the very beginning. They have always provided us with innovative and powerful solutions. SAS thoroughly understand the intricacies of our business. They bring the full force of their experience and knowledge to bear on our strategic needs in business solutions, data warehousing, and data mining. It is absolutely clear to us that in SAS, we have found a partner that shares our ambitions and vision of modern knowledge-based management."

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