What employee figures does an ESG questionnaire ask for in the metal and manufacturing industry?
An ESG questionnaire from a buyer, bank or insurer almost always asks for a block of employee figures: the number of staff, the gender split, sick leave absence, staff turnover and sometimes the number of training hours per employee. These are always figures at company level, not about who has which role or what someone earns. For an installation company or metal processing business, this means the figures are usually already available in the payroll system or from the HR provider, and adding them up takes more effort than finding them.
The questions that come up are largely traceable to the VSME standard, the voluntary EU standard for unlisted SMEs. That standard describes a limited set of employee data that is considered reasonable for a supplier of up to one thousand employees. What a buyer asks on top of that — for example figures by job category, salary scales or individual assessments — in most cases falls outside what may be requested from a smaller supplier since March 2026. How you make that distinction for your own questionnaire is explained in the overview of topics per situation.
What figures actually come up
It usually involves five groups of figures. The total number of employees, expressed in headcount and in fte, at the end of the financial year or as an average. The split by gender, often only at company level and not by department. The sick leave absence percentage over the past year. Staff turnover, meaning the number of people who joined and left. And the number of training or education hours per employee, sometimes broken down by permanent and temporary staff.
None of these figures requires names. The payroll system provides the figures already aggregated as soon as you request a period overview or annual overview from your payroll processor. An HR manager who already reports the absence percentage to the occupational health service only needs to transfer that figure. Where things often go wrong is not with the figure itself, but with the question of whether it covers the whole business or only the Netherlands, and which period — that determines whether two annual figures are comparable.
Collecting figures without recording names
To substantiate a figure you do not need to open a personnel file. A printout from the payroll system with only totals per month is sufficient, as is an export from the absence system with a percentage instead of a list of employees. Keep that printout as it is: an aggregated overview is sufficient evidence, and adding names or ID numbers provides no added value for the questionnaire, only an extra risk for handling personal data. How esgia handles this and what data is stored is explained on the page about handling your data.
You only need to build a file with these figures once. As soon as the next questionnaire arrives — from the same buyer or from the bank — the same figures are often reusable, with only an update of the period. This saves time especially for companies that receive multiple questionnaires per year, from different buyers with slightly different wording for the same figure.
What if a buyer asks for more than the standard
Some questionnaires ask for more: job levels, salary differences between men and women to the nearest euro, or individual assessment scores. That is the moment to check whether the question fits what the VSME standard describes for a supplier of your size. If the question falls outside that, you do not need to determine yourself how to phrase that to the buyer — a cap check shows for each question whether it fits within the standard, and immediately provides a neat formulation for what you may refuse.
If you're not yet sure whether this applies to your company, you don't need to read the entire standard first. A few questions will show whether, and to what extent, this topic is relevant to your business, via a brief indication of your situation. If you're still unsure what remains free and what comes with a subscription, you'll find a clear overview on the page with answers to the most frequently asked questions.
This explanation is descriptive and does not address the situation of any specific company. For an assessment of your own questionnaire or position in the value chain, a lawyer or the competent supervisory authority remains the appropriate point of contact.