Employee satisfaction

AEGON has a number of measures and initiatives in place to improve overall levels of employee satisfaction. These include employee recognition programs and initiatives to strengthen internal communications. During the financial crisis in particular, efforts were made to ensure employees were well informed both of AEGON's own position and of broader developments in world financial markets. These efforts included articles on AEGON's intranet site and in the company's internal magazines, as well as interviews with senior executives and letters sent directly to employees.

In 2009, AEGON measured employee satisfaction at business units which represent a total of 76% of the company's global workforce. At these units, approximately 23% of employees were surveyed during the year.

According to these surveys, employee satisfaction declined overall by 7.5%[1] compared with 2008, due mainly to the impact of the global financial crisis. AEGON regularly asks its country units to rate employee satisfaction on a scale of 1 to 100. However, not all AEGON country units measure employee satisfaction every year. At those country units that conducted surveys, employee satisfaction levels were rated at an average of 74 in 2009, down from 80 in 2008.

In 2010, AEGON intends to carry out a survey of its 1,000 most senior managers. This survey is part of a wider leadership communications plan, designed ultimately to strengthen overall employee satisfaction and engagement. The survey will gauge managers' understanding of AEGON's strategy and businesses. AEGON believes senior managers play a vital role in helping communicate the company's strategy to employees. Alongside the survey, AEGON is also planning to hold a summit meeting of the company's leading executives in Baltimore in the United States in May 2010.

During 2010, AEGON will make an inventory of employee satisfaction surveys currently being carried out across the company. On the basis of this inventory, a decision will be taken on whether and when to organize a company-wide employee satisfaction survey. This decision had originally been planned for the end of 2009 or early 2010, but was postponed to allow further work on the senior management and country unit surveys.

[1] Please note that this figure is based on surveys carried out in the following countries only: United States, Spain, Hungary, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Canada and Turkey.