Solvay is a multinational company in the chemical industry with its headquarters in Brussels. 85 staff members are employed in the Netherlands, especially in production units in shift work (24/7). The average age is 43 years; there are 9 nationalities among the personnel; and there few rarely working women (only in administration and in a laboratory). One third of the employees in the Netherlands are members of a trade union, especially FNV, which is far more than the national average in manufacturing. FNV is the only trade union that is party to the collective agreement. Officially, the white collar union ‘de Unie’ is part of it as well, but due to limited members they have delegated to FNV. Solvay in the Netherlands has a company agreement (in the chemical industry in the Netherlands, there is no sector agreement for the chemical industry). The Dutch site has also appointed a works council. According to the HR manager in the Dutch plant: ‘employee participation has a central role within our organisation, both globally and locally in the Netherlands. The relationship is more than good and the transparency in our actions keeps it that way. Technological changes are discussed with the body at all times.’
Throughout Solvay, AI is used in some sites to manage technological maintenance and in administration. In the relatively small Dutch site, AI is not used that much (‘we are not a forerunner in AI’, int HR); AI is mostly introduced by employees who use ChatGPT for communication tasks. The HR manager in the Netherlands thinks that AI will have more impacts in the coming years. He is already seeing more and more data-driven applications in his field of HRM, such as in sickness absence analysis and strategic personnel planning.
Solvay in the Netherlands has experience in other technological innovations, such as robotisation around 6 years ago in production and recently, the installation of security cameras (int HR). Because this change did not lead to fewer jobs, it was not an important subject for the works council. Since this robotisation, production processes in the Dutch (and other) factories have been under ongoing change to make processes smarter and more sustainable. Also, HR departments are dealing with digital innovations, for example through the campaigns for recruitment and for employee satisfaction surveys. This is driven by the headquarters in Brussels. One issue more controversial for the works council was the installation of security cameras two years ago. The assurance of the management that camera images would not be used to track employees satisfied the works council (int HR).
