A good employee experience and job satisfaction
K Well model takes into account both wellbeing at work as well as wellbeing in rest and leisure time, which both support optimal work-life balance.
A good employee experience ensures quality and an excellent experience for our customers.
The K Well operating model provides every K employee with the opportunity to promote their wellbeing through different means. Employee wellbeing is supported through a range of operating models, and wellbeing programmes and coaching. We focus on the management of work capacity and coaching of supervisors. We have set clear objectives for wellbeing and occupational safety, and we monitor their progress systematically. We have also drawn up principles for the entire K Group’s OHS (Occupational Health, Safety & Wellbeing) function.
What are we doing to improve the employee experience?
Systematic and business-driven personnel development is a critical factor from the perspective of future success. The core areas of competence development include sales and service competence, product line-specific competitive advantage initiatives, immediate manager work and leadership, and e-commerce and e-services.
Kesko focuses on the development of all its employees by offering training and diverse career paths, as competent employees are required to enable renewal. The large size of Kesko Group supports employees' opportunities to deepen their competence and transfer from one company or division to another. In 2023, a total of 1,920 internal transfers were made in Finland and a total of 552 in the other operating countries.
A set of common operating principles that guide our common activities and convey our way of thinking have been defined at Kesko and our employees act upon these. The aim of the principles is to encourage employees to develop solutions, to facilitate communication and collaboration across all departments of the company, to create a corporate identity and to achieve continuity. Our operating principles are: I operate directly, openly and honestly, I show the path, I'm all in, and I create trust.
One of the HR function’s strategy-supporting key projects is to renew the K Group’s leadership culture so that it is bold and inspiring. Coaching programmes for supervisors are aimed at both new and experienced supervisors.
Leadership Boost coaching is targeted at all supervisors and its aim is to achieve the best employee and customer experience through high-quality leadership. Other selected coaching themes underpin the K Group’s core leadership competencies, operating principles, leadership cornerstones and strategy-driven work, as they activate a proactive and responsible operating and leadership approach.
Listening to the personnel; Continuous development of employee experience
In the K Voices employee engagement survey, questions on the subject of wellbeing cover job satisfaction, feeling safe at work, meaningfulness of work, stress management, feeling good at work and the way in which supervisors support an employee’s wellbeing. The personnel survey is carried out every other year and the response rate has varied between 75% and 80%. The wellbeing index scores are at a good level: in 2024 our wellbeing index was 83. Favourable responses were 83% (2019), 81% (2021) and 81% (2022).
K Voices personnel survey is conducted in Kesko Group and some K-stores at the same time. The personnel survey addresses such matters as personnel commitment, the personnel's experiences on management work, performance enablement, well-being and psychosocial load. Based on the survey results, the teams prepare an action plan with suggested development measures and, where necessary, are provided with support to develop the way they work. Personnel pulses are used to monitor progress on the themes requiring development, based on the previous survey. They support listening to the team members on an ongoing basis and everyday managerial work by immediate managers.
K Group’s hybrid working model and flexible working hours
We want to strengthen the sense of community. Therefore, a hybrid working model that combines office and remote work is used in K Group's office work. We have uniform practices instead of team and unit-specific approaches.
We have a flexible working time model for demanding expert and knowledge work that is not tied to a specific time or place of work.
Employees are offered, where necessary and if possible, the opportunity to work reduced hours for social and health reasons, among other things.
Employees returning to work after family leave are provided access to a private resting room and adequate breaks to enable breastfeeding.
Support for personnel wellbeing
Wellbeing at work is based on ensuring that employees can work in a safe working environment, are motivated to do their jobs and that their competence is developed. Personnel wellbeing also benefits our customers. Personnel wellbeing is supported, for example, through various measures in the wellbeing at work programme.
The services offered include the K MindBalance online service to support mental wellbeing in particular, Dignity@Work for stress management and to support self-management, Andas Life online mindfulness coaching and Prevenia health and wellbeing coaching. We also support our employees’ participation in various physical activities and offer the ePassi benefit to all employees in Finland, for example. The ePassi benefit includes a sport, culture, wellbeing and commuting benefit, which is financially supported by the employer.
We also offer other services to support personnel wellbeing through occupational health. Our own occupational health service and our partners carry out proactive and purposeful work to promote the health, wellbeing and safety of our personnel, in close cooperation with the business areas. At Kesko, occupational health care is provided in compliance with the operating countries’ local legislation and practices. Kesko’s occupational health care in Finland is comprehensive and includes activities that support working capacity and promote health. Kesko provides its employees in Finland with medical care that is more comprehensive than required by legislation. Kesko’s employees are also covered by leisure time accident insurance.
We recognise the important role of supervisors in supporting personnel wellbeing and have therefore invested in coaching for supervisors on employee work capacity and, for example, mental wellbeing and how to support it. In addition, we have a range of operating models to ensure that employees receive the necessary support from their supervisor and that the supervisor receives support for their supervisory work.
Competence and career development
We offer different models for career planning and support your development in many ways.
E-learning has become an increasingly common method alongside contact teaching, and more focus has been placed on the promotion and development of e-learning in recent years.
The training of personnel on sustainability has been increased in recent years. In connection with the introduction of the K-responsibility concept, an e-learning programme on the K-responsibility concept was developed for the grocery stores and building and home improvement stores. The e-learning on sustainability provided to Kesko employees will be updated in line with the new sustainability strategy.
