Description

The risk that the change programmes that have been initiated will not provide the required results (or will not do so on time), as a result of which NS fails to fulfil the agreements and expectations of its stakeholders.

Explanation

We have started a number of organisational and other changes in order to improve the service provided by NS and achieve the operational targets. As a result of dependencies between improvement initiatives, making the right choices every time remains a challenge. Additionally, the underlying processes of NS are very complex. Finally, a number of improvements also require behavioural changes from the staff. All of this means it will not always be easy to achieve the required changes on time and in full.

Measures

The effectiveness of NS is increasing. By managing the project portfolio, we are able to detect and address bottlenecks on time. In addition, we are holding discussions with the employee participation bodies and trade unions about NS's long-term strategy and the changes this necessitates. The agility of NS is an explicit theme in these meetings. The collective labour agreement results show initiatives that focus on the lasting employability of staff in order to reduce staff absenteeism.

Risk control trend

The scope of the portfolio management has been extended further in the past year, which has improved control. However, there are still a large number of improvement programmes and projects, which accordingly require considerable efforts from staff; this number should however fall over the next few years. Given the growing pressure on financial returns for the organisation, it is essential that the planned improvements are made and that the numbers of programmes and projects are reduced.

Residual risk

High. The current risk profile does not yet match the desired risk profile.