Icare

Introduction

Icare is part of the Espria Group and the care provider in the Netherlands. Espria provides care to all ages and caters for every care need, such as post-natal care, home-based care and support, youth healthcare, childcare and care in nursing homes. Its starting point is to allow people to maintain control of their own lives for as long as possible. This extensive service can be provided also thanks to a large association of members representing at least 400,000 households. Icare offers its clients (nursing) care within the homecare system. Icare’s audacious goal states its ambition to be the natural first choice for customer and employee by 2015.

The client’s question

Icare’s future is about creating value and becoming more efficiënt. Icare wants to go in that direction, while maintaining respect for its employees and customers. Therefore, the question in January was: how can we work more efficiently based on the value of and for employees and customers and how do we work this out in the long term?

Solution

Icare’s question fully fits &samhoud’s consultancy philosophy, which is based on the Value Profit Chain developed at Harvard Business School. Adding value is central to the Value Profit Chain and employee value, customer value and financial value are closely connected.

In order to determine the right value, Icare developed a vision in collaboration with &samhoud. This vision has been translated into a strategy that provides frameworks and guidelines for a new way of working for the whole organization. This new way of working means that the customer and the employee take centre stage in a process of continuous improvement that is fully in line with LEAN philosophy principles. In order to anchor the vision, strategy and new way of working in the organization in a sustainable way, we assist both Icare’s leadership, management and employees to learn new skills.

Breakthroughs achieved

Icare achieved the following breakthroughs since January 2010:

1. Leadership, management and employees jointly developed and agreed a vision. This vision is supported within all of Icare.
2. Through Inspiring, Disciplining and Learning, a visible cultural change was realized in Icare’s Top 100 executives.
3. Fun and Performance go hand in hand in the first district where the new way of working is currently being implemented.