'We can all make an impactful contribution with our own personal expertise'

For more than 25 years, Johan Stuiver has been committed to improving the quality of Dutch education and our employment. “It gives me energy to support groups of people in increasing their chances on the labour market. Whether that concerns pupils, students, entrepreneurs, employees or job seekers. It always gives me satisfaction to be able to contribute to the solution. Through Deloitte I often come into contact with major social problems in the G4 municipalities. In Amsterdam, for example, we worked with 13 public and private parties on House of Skills, an initiative that is committed to a skills-oriented approach to the labour market so that workers and jobseekers find suitable work more easily and employers attract more suitable candidates. 

Great ambition

The House of Skills project was Johan’s first encounter with the Deloitte Impact Foundation. “I was pleasantly surprised. It is great that Deloitte has an instrument like this. After the first acquaintance, I automatically immersed myself in the Deloitte Impact Foundation and the impact we can make with it. And I started working on more projects, such as Scaling Social Enterprises and the Education Alliance. When I was subsequently asked to lead the national WorldClass Programme, I did not hesitate. Worldwide, Deloitte's ambition is to improve 50 million futures by 2030. For the Netherlands, this means that we want to reach 35,000 people every year for ten years. A great ambition, with a huge impact. At the Dutch Deloitte Impact Foundation, we are going to spend no less than 20,000 hours on it every year. Luckily, there is great enthusiasm for collaborating with Deloitte on projects. And colleagues are already actively signing up to participate.”

Quality is important

But not every project immediately gets the green light for the WorldClass Programme. “To really make a big impact, choices have to be made in the type of projects that can be implemented”, says Johan. “We are therefore not just going to provide a single guest lecture at a primary school. Each project must have a minimum impact on 1,000 people from the target group. We opt for a limited number of large projects, quality is more important than quantity. And we also try to seek cooperation with professional organizations such as JINC, Campus010, the Social Alliance and educational institutions as much as possible. We work with various partners in the field, as well as with various colleagues within Deloitte. We work cross-business, in function, level and portfolio. This not only creates better cooperation and collegiality, it also offers great added value for the development of our employees. Everyone is encouraged to participate, whether you are the CEO or a working student at Deloitte. We can all make an impactful contribution with our own personal expertise.”

Being proud

Contributing to solving social problems is in Deloitte's DNA, according to Johan. “And you notice that in our culture. Using your professional network and expertise to solve social problems makes people happy and grateful. Of course it is nice to be able to tell friends and family about the profit increase or transition you have brought about for an important customer. But if you have also been able to make a contribution to improving unemployment among the underprivileged and improving equity, then you can truly be proud of your work. My ambition? That all Deloitte colleagues structurally contribute to social impact through the many projects of our Deloitte Impact Foundation. What we are doing now is great, but of course there is always room for improvement.”

De Deloitte Impact Foundation

Via de Deloitte Impact Foundation zet Deloitte zich in voor een positieve impact op de samenleving. We geloven dat we het grootste verschil kunnen maken door onze kerncompetenties, kennis en netwerk te delen in maatschappelijke initiatieven. En daarmee impact te maken op het gebied van onderwijs & werkgelegenheid, duurzaamheid en een duurzame samenleving. Samen zoeken onze mensen en partners de verbinding om onze impact op de samenleving te vergroten. Lees meer over de Deloitte Impact Foundation en bekijk onze projecten.