Employee satisfaction
The goal of the development of well-being at work is to increase the commitment of the personnel, to promote health, to raise the retirement age and to develop the employer brand and through these to improve the productivity of the personnel's work.
Personnel survey and results
The personnel survey is one of the most important tools for developing internal working practices and the quality of the supervisory work.
The personnel survey is conducted simultaneously throughout Kesko Group and at some of the K-stores. The personnel survey measures how well our people principles are realized, the engagement of our personnel, and issues related to our managers' performance.
K Voices -employee engagement survey covers several fields in all operating countries. The questions covers e.g. job satisfaction, feeling safe at work, purpose at work, stress management, how do you feel at work, leadership and how managers support employees´wellbeing. K Voices is implemented every second year and it´s response rate has been between 75-80%. Wellbeing index has been at a good level. It decreased slightly during covid pandemic but not significantly. There were total favourable answers 81% (2022), 81% (2021) and 83% (2019). In 2022 Wellbeing Index was implemented as part of Our People -social sustainability survey in all operating countries and the content of index was reshaped to more holistic.
Development activities
What does Kesko do to promote employees' job satisfaction?
Systematic, business-driven employee development is a critical factor for future success. Core areas in competence development include sales and service competence, product line specific projects to provide competitive advantage, immediate supervisory work and leadership, as well as e-commerce and e-services.
Kesko focuses on the development of all of its employees by offering training and diverse career paths, as competent people are needed to overhaul the business. The large size of Kesko Group offers opportunities to employees who aim to expand their competencies and move from one job, company or division to another. In 2021 there were 2369 internal transfers in Finland and about 725 in other operating countries.
Kesko has defined common operating principles to guide our common activities and to convey our way of thinking for employees to act on. The principles aim to encourage employees in solutions development, simplify communications and cooperation across all the departments, create corporate identity and achieve continuity. Our operating principles are: I operate directly, openly and honestly, I show the path, I'm all in, I create trust.
One of the HR functions' key initiatives that underpin the strategy is to renew the K-Group's management culture by making it bold and inspirational. The coaching programmes are targeted at both new and experienced supervisors. The Leadership Boost coachings are aimed at all supervisors and aim to produce enhanced employee and customer experiences gained through high-quality leadership. The selected coaching themes underpin the K-Group's key management competencies, operating principles and strategy-based work as they activate towards an operating and management style that encourages initiative and responsibility.
E-learning
E-learning has become an increasingly popular means of complementing on-site learning and in recent years the focus has been on promoting and developing this option.
Staff responsibility training has increased in recent years. When the K-responsibility concept was adopted, a related web training programme was prepared for food stores and building and home improvement stores. Kesko's online responsibility training will be updated with a new responsibility strategy.
Support for employee´s wellbeing
The starting point for wellbeing at work is that employees can work at Kesko in a safe environment, they are motivated in their work and their competencies are developed on a continuous basis. Employees' wellbeing is also reflected to our customers.
To support workplace stress management Kesko has offered for it´s employees in several ways: e.g. K MindBalance -onlinetraining, Dignity@Work stress management and mindfulness training, Andas Life -online mindfulness training and Prevenia -health & wellbeing training as well as interventions from occupational health that all helps employees in stress management and wellbeing and thrives our competitiveness. Kesko has also offered Be Well -training to support managers at their demanding work and decrease their stress. Kesko provides also it´s employees different sport and other health activities which varies from location to another based on their needs and facilities. E.g. in Finland Kesko provides ePassi which is a benefit for all employees to have sport, culture, wellbeing and commuting benefit that is financially supported by employer.
Flexible working hours and working from home arrangement option continues for knowledge workers. Kesko´s hybrid working model is a combination of on-site and remote work. Instructions were updated in spring 2022.
The employees are provided with reasonable break time and a private place for breastfeeding purposes.
In 2021 Kesko introduced a flexible working time model based on the Finnish Working Hours Act. The flexible working time model is purposed for demanding expert and knowledge work that is not tied to a specific time or workplace. For the time being the model is applicable to limited target groups only.
If employees wish to work fewer hours than their regular working time is, e.g. for social or health reasons, part time work is arranged whenever possible.
We pay special attention to working capacity management. We have also drawn up principles for the entire K-Group's OHS (Occupational Health, Safety & Wellbeing) operations. We will place a special emphasis also on the management of labour protection and safety at work both by developing its organization and harmonizing the tools that support the management of safety at work. We will systematically monitor the entity with the help of agreed indicators.
