The short answer
An ESG questionnaire received by an installation company typically requests a limited set of personnel figures: total number of employees (in headcount and in FTE), distribution by gender, distribution by contract type (permanent, temporary, on-call), number of workplace accidents and sometimes sickness absenteeism. These are aggregated figures at company level. Names, individual job titles or identifiable data of specific employees are not typically requested.
These figures are, especially in an installation company with a few dozen employees, largely already in the payroll administration. The work does not lie in gathering new information, but in adding up and categorizing what is already there.
Why these specific figures
The voluntary EU standard for unlisted SMEs, the VSME, lists a fixed set of indicators under the workforce section. This concerns the number of employees, the ratio between men and women, the share of employees with a permanent versus temporary contract, and figures on workplace accidents. A customer who must prepare their own sustainability report needs these figures to gain insight into the people working in their supply chain — not to assess individual employees.
In an installation company with electricians, apprentices and a small office team, this typically means: the total number of persons on the payroll at a fixed reference date, how many of them work full-time or part-time, and how many have a permanent versus temporary contract. Temporary and agency workers are named separately in some questionnaires — when completing the form, pay attention to how the question is precisely worded, as not every questionnaire counts the same groups.
Where you get the figures from
The payroll administration usually provides in a single report the number of active employment contracts on a specific date, including contract type and FTE volume. For gender distribution, a count based on the same report is sufficient. The number of workplace accidents is, if recorded, usually noted in the absence file or with the health and safety representative; if nothing is documented there, the honest answer is that the figure is not currently available.
A point often overlooked here: the questionnaire asks for a number, not the underlying list of individual names. It is not necessary to provide or share a document with individual employees to the customer. You count yourself, you confirm the result, and that figure goes into the questionnaire. How these figures are extracted from your own records and documented, you can see how information from your own documents is extracted.
What may not be asked
Since March 2026, a company subject to reporting obligations may not request more information from a supplier with a thousand employees or fewer than is set out in the VSME. A request for educational level per individual employee, for age categories traceable to the person, or for an extensive diversity policy with underlying data goes beyond what the standard prescribes. An installation company may refuse such questions with a proper reference to the standard where the question falls outside.
Whether a specific question falls within or outside the VSME is not always clear at first glance — the wording used by the customer often determines how much research is required. An overview of what may and may not be asked in each situation can be found under the topics that have been worked through per situation.
Collect once, reuse thereafter
Because personnel figures as a total or full-time equivalent are relatively stable, this count does not need to be repeated with every new questionnaire. If the number of employees or contract distribution changes significantly, an update is sufficient. This is also why a documented dossier with these figures saves time as soon as the next questionnaire — from another customer, the bank or the insurer — arrives.
Questions that come up frequently about what does and does not belong in such a dossier are collected at answer to frequently asked questions.
Would you like to quickly see which personnel figures are relevant in your case and which questions fall outside this scope? Take the free quick-scan and you will have an initial indication within a couple of minutes, without needing an account.