The newly elected members of Damen Naval’s Works Council (OR) were introduced here in the Schelde Schakels earlier this year. Now it is time to meet three members of the Facilities Commission-Offices (Onderdelen Commissie-Kantoren) of Damen Naval’s city-based office in Vlissingen: Rens van Rijswijk, Noël de Clippelaar, and Yvana Halajdenko.

Can you start by explaining what the Facilities Commission-Offices is?
Rens: “This is a sub-division of the Works Council, or OR. We work on the various facilities at the Vlissingen and Schiedam offices; ‘Production’ at Vlissingen-Oost has its own Commission. There are six of us on this Commission; besides Yvana, Noël and myself, there is Arjan Thiellier, Dennis van der Werf, and Thijs Broere.”

What is the purpose of this Commission?
Noël: “Our aim is to make the working conditions at the offices in Vlissingen and Schiedam as pleasant as possible. To that end, we are involved with facilitative subjects to make the offices more sustainable, more comfortable, and more user-friendly. We act as the first point of contact for ideas, discussing them and passing them on to facility management.”

What is the main difference between the OR and the OC?
Rens: “The main difference between the OR and OC is that the OR is there for the whole of Damen Naval, which concerns subjects that also apply in their entirety to the employees of Damen Naval. The OC is more for facility-related topics, where OC-Office only focuses on the Vlissingen and Schiedam offices and OC-Production focuses only on the production location(s).”

You started with new members this year. What have you accomplished so far?
Yvana: “We are seeing that Damen Naval is getting bigger and workspaces are getting busier. Therefore, we have been looking at things like the air quality and sound levels. So far this year we have arranged for the microwaves in the coffee corners, better maintained coffee machines, installation of noise reduction panels, improved ventilation in the toilets, and solar panels on the bike sheds.”

And what is on your ‘to-do’ list?
Yvana: “We are still working on a number of issues such as the charging capacity for electric vehicles and bikes as well as the safety of cyclists around the bike parking area. For building 38, we want to introduce CO2 monitoring equipment, to make sure that every floor has a printer, and we want to address the noise levels, for which we are going to do a trial with noise cancelling headphones. And we have general themes such as increasing the number of meeting rooms and setting up a sustainability initiative.”

How do you get your ideas?
Rens: “People can approach us face-to-face with their ideas and recommendations. Otherwise, we have an email address that people can use. This is: OC-Office@damennaval.com.”

Can people still join this Commission?
Noël: “The purpose of this Commission is to cover as much of the offices as possible. The six of us are fairly spread out over the offices, but yes, if people want to get involved, that is possible too. Currently, our team doesn’t have any colleagues from the Schiedam Office; perhaps with this article being shared, someone from the Schiedam office wants to join our ambitious team?”

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