How ROC Da Vinci College reduces workload through employee surveys and effective follow-up
With approximately 700 employees, 7,000 students, and multiple locations across South Holland, Da Vinci College plays a vital role in educating motivated students. But their commitment doesn’t stop there — they care just as deeply about their employees. In a climate of tight labor markets and high workload pressures in education, Da Vinci College has chosen to invest in structural, long-term solutions. Since 2012, they have partnered with Effectory to run employee surveys aimed at increasing satisfaction and engagement, reducing workload, and retaining staff. The results speak for themselves: genuinely listening to employees creates a more positive work culture and greater job satisfaction. Senior Policy Advisor People & Organization Iraja Rijken-Hospers walks us through the feedback process, the concrete actions taken, and the meaningful results that followed.
Da Vinci College is a regional vocational training center in South Holland with approximately 700 employees. They offer vocational programs across a range of fields, including technology, economics, and Health & Welfare, as well as corporate training programs, education and civic integration programs, and adult secondary education (VAVO). Their strength lies in the personal attention and genuine care they bring to both students and employees. Guided by their vision of Growth through Attention, they focus on the development of students, employees, and regional partnerships. Da Vinci College is building an environment where talent thrives and ambitions become reality.
Da Vinci College has been working with Effectory on employee surveys since 2012. These surveys are facilitated by the Education Council to create a reliable, comparable picture both at school level and across the education sector on themes such as employee engagement, satisfaction, and employer practices.
Senior Policy Advisor People & Organization Iraja Rijken-Hospers is central to this effort. Having worked at Da Vinci College for 25 years, she has been closely involved in survey policy for the past five years. The main challenges were clear: raise the response rate, improve overall satisfaction and engagement, and reduce workload. But equally important was building employee confidence that their feedback would be taken seriously and lead to real change:
“It was important to us that employees could see their feedback actually makes a difference and leads to improvement. Employee satisfaction isn’t just a People & Organization project — it belongs to all of us.” — Iraja Rijken-Hospers, Sr. Policy Advisor People & Organization, Da Vinci College
Organization-wide surveys analyzed at four levels
To drive continuous improvement and deepen employee engagement across the organization, a comprehensive employee survey was conducted. The focus was on specific topics, with results analyzed at four distinct levels:
Organization level: The Executive Board, Works Council, and P&O (People & Organization) use the findings to inform strategic decisions, shape or adjust policy, and set priorities.
Sector level: Directors translate insights into concrete sector plans tailored to the specific needs of their teams.
Team level: Each team reviews the results together and draws up an action plan with clear improvement points.
Individual level: Managers and employees discuss personal learning goals and development in one-on-one conversations.
“We didn’t want the survey to exist in isolation. Alongside a vitality scan (PMO) and a safety scan, we also have a workload plan and a quality agenda. From there, we started the conversation: what are we seeing, and what do we want to work on? We focused on three core themes: workload, vitality, and social & psychological safety.”
—Iraja Rijken-Hospers, Sr. Policy Advisor People & Organization, Da Vinci College
Da Vinci College’s surveys cover engagement, employer practices, working conditions, and eNPS, alongside specific topics such as workload, giving them a well-rounded view of the entire organization. The results provide valuable insights that feed into a targeted plan for boosting engagement and retaining employees.
By conducting regular Psychosocial Work Stress surveys, Da Vinci College is able to identify early indicators of work stress and high workload. The findings drive active steps to prevent and address psychosocial risks, while also ensuring compliance with the Dutch Working Conditions Act.
With workload, vitality, and social & psychological safety as the three core themes, Da Vinci College developed what they call a “menu”: an internal document outlining a range of solutions teams can draw on when building their action plans. While the three main themes provide the framework, there is also space to address topics such as work processes, enablement, work environment, team dynamics, collaboration, leadership, communication, feedback, and development. Teams are free to choose what works best for them.
The menu gives teams a clear picture of what’s available. We’ve introduced sports classes to support vitality, and a range of workshops, training sessions, and webinars to help tackle experienced workload. Teams decide what they want to take up — nothing is mandatory. We made that a deliberate choice, because needs and preferences vary from team to team. For some, a webinar is the perfect fit; another team might prefer an in-person session with a coach. This encourages ownership, which in turn increases the chance of success.
Iraja Rijken-Hospers, Sr. Policy Advisor People & Organization, Da Vinci College
The three themes of workload, vitality, and social & psychological safety are relevant to every team. Beyond that, teams also have the freedom to raise topics of their own, meaning each team ends up with an action plan that genuinely reflects their situation.
We continuously monitor how things are progressing,” explains Iraja. “It’s important to keep evaluating and adjusting goals where needed. That keeps teams motivated to take ownership, and it keeps us all moving toward our shared goals. Rome wasn’t built in a day — real change takes attention and time. At the same time, we’re an agile organization that can adjust quickly when needed. Some initiatives can be put in place right away; others require more careful analysis. We deliberately invest — alongside managers and teams — to make this a sustainable reality across the whole organization.
Iraja Rijken-Hospers, Sr. Policy Advisor People & Organization, Da Vinci College
By building trust in the process and strengthening employee engagement, Iraja, together with the project group and the board, set clear goals for the survey. Measuring overall satisfaction, engagement, and workload sat at the heart of these goals, alongside concrete targets such as improving the response rate and raising scores around workload and engagement. The results of listening to employees are visible in the numbers:
“The focus of our objectives is on overall satisfaction and the employee experience, with the aim of increasing engagement across the whole organization. Our response rate last time was 70%, and for our most recent survey we set a minimum target of 75%. We’re therefore absolutely delighted that we reached 85% — that’s a 15% improvement!”
Da Vinci College continues to work with Effectory on improving employee satisfaction and reducing workload. What began as a sector-level agreement within the education sector has grown into a lasting partnership.
The positive experience we’ve built up over the years with Effectory, combined with the sector benchmarking data, has been decisive. The Effectory platform is also very user-friendly. Managers can see at a glance exactly what percentage of their team has completed the survey. It’s a clear, practical insight that provides real support. We firmly believe that an employee survey shouldn’t be a one-off exercise, and it’s important to us that it truly lives at every level of the organization. That’s how we achieve our goals together.
Iraja Rijken-Hospers, Sr. Policy Advisor People & Organization, Da Vinci College
Discover how ROC Da Vinci College embedded feedback at every level to cut workload, raise eNPS from -18 to +2, and hit an 85% response rate.