Blog

How our values – caring, courage, passion, easy-going – impact on the employee experience at Solita?

Esa Rauhala Director, Solita

Published 21 Nov 2022

Reading time 4 min

Caring, easy-going, courage, and passion have been our values for a long time, and they still describe well what it means to be part of Solita’s community.

At Solita employees are seen as whole persons

How are the values brought to life at Solita’s culture? If we start with caring, it means that we see our people as whole persons. People have their life, maybe kids and different kind of interests. In life, things happen, and we face different phases. At Solita, work is flexible, and it meets our employees’ needs; whether it means a shortened workweek or another kind of role in a project.

We have our own ”in-house coach” supplemented by a network of coaches, meaning that we provide concrete support for our people in any challenging situations at work or in life. The topics can be, for example, about sleeping, balance or relationship. People are more than their work roles, which is why we want to help more holistically. In addition to this, we also support different leisure clubs, culture and sports gatherings, which also contribute to well-being and the sense of belonging.

Caring is also a structural thing at Solita. We’ve aimed to create organisational structures that give people a lot of autonomy in their work, but don’t abandon them to deal with struggles alone. That means that all team members are taken care of, and well-being and balance is not only individual responsibility. It’s both project leaders’ and team leads’ job to take care of employees’ well-being. They intervene if it looks like someone is running too fast and getting drained. We’ve aimed to build caring and tight safety net, that catches people before situations get out of hand. Because sometimes it’s difficult for passionate people to ask for help.

We also care about our clients and society. Our people truly want to work with purposeful projects that make a long-lasting impact. Our solutions help maintain highways and steering icebreakers and trains. They help take care of people’s health and minimise the spread of coronavirus. Through our solutions, second-hand shop -concepts are developed, or new currency is built for charity by leveraging blockchain.

Values are directly connected to employee experience, that we measure ongoing basis, and the results are very good*. More information about the results you can find here.

Courage and passion lead to excellent results

Courage and passion are a good duo in client work because the combination of those two often leads to the best outcomes. We have a lot of passionate people in the sense that they are truly interested in their industry and want to develop in their work. We, as an employer, also aim to maintain and enable passion. That means providing meaningful growth opportunities; as passionate people tend to be inspired by new challenges and impactful projects.

Solita often has end to end responsibility in projects, which means that the outcome is in our hands. Passionate people have a vision of how things should be done in the best possible way. Courage, on the other hand, makes sure that people are not afraid to challenge the client. Sometimes the best results are born through questioning.

Courage and passion can also mean internal challenging at Solita. We have an open communication culture, and employees also question procedures regarding the development of the company. These opinions are heard, and based on them, we have sometimes taken u-turns or gotten back to the planning stage to figure out better solutions together.

Easy-going attitude strips away unnecessary role-plays

In our context, the fourth value, easy-going, means that we don’t appreciate stiffness and politics. When employees are seen as whole persons, they can come to work being authentically themselves. Of course, we respect others and behave professionally, but in an easy-going manner.

When people can be more than their titles and work roles, there is no need for unnecessary role-plays. People don’t have to over-try, or put in energy in worrying what others might think of them.

In a company that has started from Tampere, Finland you can sense a slight touch of the local mentality; “Let’s not make a big number of this” -attitude means that we tend to appreciate doing much more than talking 🙂

* Based on continuous measurement of employee experience with the help of Peakon

Read more about Solita as an employer and join our community!

  1. Culture