I get the best ideas when I'm on the move

"When there’s a pleasant balance between home and work for my family and myself, I function at my best," Roel says. "When our children were small, my wife and I alternated working three and four days a week. This way, we could divide the care tasks well and I had enough time to play intensive sports. When the children grew older and were more independent, I thought it was time to look for a job with more challenges." Roel has now been working as a project & process manager at ICT Group for almost three years. He acts as a pivot between the client and the technical team, and in this role he is a real connector. His work gives him energy, as does his sporting ambition and passion for cycling, cyclocross and triathlons. During the summer, the focus is on road and gravel races, with the occasional triathlon, and during autumn, it’s cyclocross. That means a tight training schedule.

"After a workout, I come back full of energy and I'm back to work. It's the balance I need."

- Roel Siebelink

Flexible set-up

Roel expected that his new job would demand that he takes a step back in his sports activities. Nothing could be further from the truth. "This is not only because of the nature of my job, but also because of ICT Group's flexible attitude," he states. "I organise, facilitate, guide and connect, am no longer an executive and don’t always have to be on site at the customer's premises. If everyone in the team knows what to do and the customer knows exactly where they stand, most of the work is done for me. If everything runs smoothly, I can easily grab two hours in the afternoon for training, then catch up on those hours during the evening. Besides that, I have a four-day working week."
For Roel, it works well if he can alternate between work and sports. "I get the best ideas when I’m in motion. After a workout, I come back full of energy and I'm back to work. It's the balance I need."

Sharing enthusiasm

If you are physically fit and recharged then this is also reflected in your mental state, is Roel's experience. And in turn, that results in balance, overview and room for creativity. He likes to share his enthusiasm for sport with his colleagues. Even colleagues who are not so sport-minded. "ICT Group considers sportsmanship of paramount importance. I would imagine that a few sporty networking activities and clinics could well be added to that. It's nice to feel fit. Moreover, you get to know new colleagues faster this way, which in turn promotes internal communication." That Roel is quite fanatical is evidenced by the fact that he’s now trying to get his unit manager to join him in doing their one-to-one consultations by bike.

Direct approach

Roel is disciplined, communicative, persistent and goal-oriented. Qualities that serve him well, both in his sporting achievements and in his work. He is also a perfectionist and very involved in everything he does. That’s useful if you are a connector, but in his work this sometimes turns against him, he notices. "I’m rather direct and quick to pick up the phone if something isn’t going quite right. That could perhaps sometimes be done with a bit more tact. The advantage is that small bumps and differences of opinion don’t develop into insurmountable problems.”

"ICT Group considers sportsmanship of paramount importance."

- Roel Siebelink

Win-win situation

Roel has experienced that if you want to play intensive sports alongside your work, there’s plenty of room for that within ICT Group. He says: "The same applies to other hobbies for example. Make it clear what you want and the flexibility that you expect from ICT Group. The work-life balance, as it is now in my life, gives me a lot of energy. It makes me a happier person, so I also do my work better. That makes this a win-win situation. I’m very happy that it can be organised like this in my job. I wouldn't want it any other way."