“It took us a while to identify the elephant in the room, but it’s never been a happy marriage,” says Storm. Care for the elderly and mental health care are two different branches of sport, the directors now judge. The financing comes from different pots, the level of education of employees varies, they have their own collective labor agreements and so on. It turns out that it does not pay to share all the overhead; support services such as HR, P&O and the facility services work too inefficiently and have become ‘too cumbersome’.
The merger has meant too high costs for Dignis, the directors now state. With a turnover of 80 million, the elderly care branch is significantly smaller than Lentis’ mental health branch with 220 million per year. Director Johan Oostinga of Dignis: “The financing flows of Dignis, for example, are simpler than those of Lentis. But we do charge the two organizations with the costs for the relatively more expensive finance department. There are more examples that are based on mental health care, which actually be too big for Dignis.”
The organizations are therefore now being pulled apart from each other. Employees of all support services will either go to Dignis or to Lentis, RTV Noord reports. They have been able to indicate their preference and the unions have been involved in the process. According to the directors, layoffs are out of the question. The so-called unbundling should be completed by the end of the year.