"Happy Staff means a Healthy Organization!" says Wittenborg's New HR Officer, Sanne de Jong

25.07.2016

Sanne de Jong has been WUAS’s human resource officer since April, but her ties with the organisation go way back. Fresh out of high school in 2003, she started at Wittenborg as housing officer when it was still located in Deventer before moving on to further her studies in Amsterdam. (See the interview on YouTube)

“Wittenborg is very people-driven"

She is excited about how Wittenborg has grown since: “It is really good to see how far the university has come over the past 13 years!” As human resource officer she takes care of matters such as developing and executing policies and procedures relating to employees at Wittenborg. She describes the organization as “very people-driven”.

Sanne de Jong - Human Resource Manager at WUAS

Before returning to Wittenborg, Sanne worked first as an on-board courier then as a quality coordinator for Time Matters, which is a spin-off of the Lufthansa Cargo Group and has offices in Frankfurt, Paris and Amsterdam. The company develops customised logistics solutions. The job took her all over the world – from Japan to Mexico. She started with a Bachelor in Aviation Studies from the Hogeschool Amsterdam but switched mid-way to Human Resource Management after discovering where her interest lay.

"I love seeing people reach their career goals"

Why did she decide to work for Wittenborg? “As you see from my experience, I like working in an international environment. The organisation also offers a lot of room and opportunity for development.

“For me, the most important part of the job is to have a good relationship with staff and students, although I have less contact with students. I love seeing people reach their career goals within the company - to see them progress in their profession.

How do you motivate people?

“Coaching is part of it. I also think of myself as a mirror – to make people aware of their own capabilities and to make those capabilities work to the advantage of themselves and the organisation. I think that makes people happy and with happy people you have a healthy organisation.”

What does she do to relax outside work?

“To relax I like going to saunas. I am also an active person who loves adventure sports such as snowboarding and mountain biking.”

That doesn’t mean she would do something crazy like sky-diving out of a plane, right?

“I would!”