Dozens of witnesses speak of ‘toxic’ culture at Plopsaland: name-calling, bullying and overwork | show

The newspaper spoke to 52 people between November 2022 and February 2023. These are mainly former employees of various departments of the Belgian Plopsa branch, such as marketing and the Plopsa Hotel. 45 of them testify to incidents with management between 2003 and now. The Plopsaland parks, with the well-known children’s figures from Studio 100 such as Kabouter Plop, are also known in the Netherlands.

The conversations reveal a pattern of transgressive behaviour. The witnesses talk about name-calling, insults, bullying and an excessive 24/7 work culture in which holidays and rest periods are not respected. At the Plopsa De Panne amusement park, which has about 75 permanent employees, turnover is high. Steve Van den Kerkhof, the CEO of Plopsa, is appointed as the driving force, supported by his two directors.

The CEO says he has never received any complaints about the practices his company is now accused of. ,,It hurts that certain people have had such experiences”, Van den Kerkhof responds HLN. “Fortunately, we have hundreds, almost a thousand employees who have different experiences with our companies.”

He denies that people are humiliated during ‘hard meetings’. “Swearing is also completely out of the question,” he says. It is true that departments with new directors or managers, or departments that are not performing well enough, are ‘much more closely monitored by myself, and adjusted if necessary’. “Under no circumstances are departments and/or individuals set against each other, and/or gossip spread by myself.”

Studio 100, the parent company of Plopsa, has appointed lawyer Christine Mussche to investigate the corporate culture. “Studio 100 does this because they believe that the standard channels for raising issues have apparently not worked,” she says. ,,It is of course somewhat unusual for a lawyer, who normally almost by definition has a subjective role, while I keep my distance in such a case. I’m also not going to start contacting people looking for stories. Internally, current employees have been informed that they can address me. And now that the case is public knowledge, former employees also know that.”