SIDN wants to attract the best professionals and to enable its people to perform to their full potential. With those aims in mind, SIDN provides an inspiring working environment and ample opportunity for development. In 2013, SIDN therefore continued to invest heavily in personnel development through education and training. Courses in Dutch and in time management were organised, the courses in English were continued and programmes on ITIL and DNS were provided for groups of personnel. Numerous employees also took individual training courses. The organisation's workforce grew to eighty-two in 2013.
Employee satisfaction
In 2013, Effectory carried out a further employee satisfaction survey for SIDN. The registry's workers gave an overall satisfaction score of 7.8 out of ten, indicating a continued high level of approval.
New appraisal and remuneration system
SIDN's appraisal and remuneration system was revised in 2013 to make it more predictable and transparent for managers and their staff.
Rollout of the New World of Work
Reduced environmental impact, reduced costs, increased employee satisfaction and a better work-life balance: the New World of Work has many advantages. Although the main provisions needed for place- and time-independent working have been present at SIDN for years, new ways of working are not yet the norm within the business. In 2013, steps were taken to formulate a policy on this subject. Introduction of the policy on a small scale is due to start in 2014.
Development of the invoicing hub
In 2013, SIDN developed an invoicing hub: a flexible application for the invoicing of existing and future products and services. The system is linked to the domain registration system, but was developed as a discrete module. Modular development makes systems easier to maintain and manage.
Modification of the ICT infrastructure
SIDN's ICT infrastructure is accommodated at several locations, which are connected in a ring network. In order to increase system availability and reduce maintenance window frequency, a second ring network was realised in 2013. With two rings, maintenance work can be carried out on the network without interrupting services.
Because of the .nl domain's continued growth, extra capacity was needed. SIDN therefore decided to move all its hardware within two data centres. Although the relocation was a major undertaking, it was realised without any system downtime.
Extension of automated system monitoring
During the year, SIDN extended the automated monitoring of its ICT systems, so that more aspects of more systems can now be checked. The collected monitoring data and the system log data are now retained in a single system. As a result, it is now easy to review historical information and establish links between various system activities. That in turn means that undesirable activities and faults can be detected sooner.
Staff Council
The main subject considered by the Staff Council in 2013 was improvement of the appraisal and remuneration system. The Council was asked to approve two management proposals on the topic, as well as proposals regarding the business emergency plan and the approach plan developed by SIDN following a risk inventory. Finally, the Council was involved with the preparation of SIDN's annual plan and budget for 2014.