First employee is a nice intermediate step

Sten Zwartjens (35) has worked at Werkse! for 17 years, including at Groenvoorziening and Post and for seven years at Assemblage. In October, he was promoted to first employee at Assemblage C. ‘I now have more responsibility and an exemplary role and take a lot of work off the foreman’s hands. I’m happy with it.’

Sten is a big guy. You can tell from his broad shoulders that he does intensive strength training in his spare time. Not immediately visible is that he has also found the evangelical faith to be an important driving force in his life. ‘I have found that I get a lot of strength and energy from faith. I can focus much better now and I’m fretting less.’

Confident

That energy helped when he went to apply for the position of first employee. When it turned out that his foreman also thought his application was a good idea, it gave extra strength. The job interview was with the manager of the department: ‘I told about my work experience at Werkse! We also talked about how I developed and which courses I did. Furthermore, I told about the fact that I obtained the mbo trainer’s diploma for bowling in 2018 and what it means to be able to guide people to become better at the sport.’ In the interview, Sten heard that he scored better that required for first employee. ‘That’s when I knew it was going to be me.’

Responsibility

How is it different from his old job? ‘I have more responsibility. And I have a role model function, so I have to pay attention to my attitude and behaviour at work. I manage five employees: I instruct and supervise. I also take care of ordering materials we need to work with on time. And if we can’t get on with the work for a while for whatever reason, I look for useful substitute work: tidying up, sweeping, cleaning the workplace. All in all, I take a lot of work off the foreman’s hands that way.’

Satisfied

Sten is very satisfied with this job. ‘I don’t even do it for the salary. It’s more because I want to grow. First employee is a nice intermediate step for that. The step to foreman is too big to take in one go.’ Sten would definitely recommend it to colleagues who have been working at Werkse! for longer and want to grow further to go for first employee. ‘No you have, yes you can get. It’s ideal to get used to more responsibility and leadership. And when you apply for a job, you have to have a conversation about who you are, what you want and what you can do. This forces you to think hard about yourself. And that makes sure you know a little better where you stand in your development again.’

Text: Jan Dobbe
Photography: Marco Zwinkels