According to the latest employee feedback survey, VTT employees are deeply committed to their workplace community. VTT strives to further solidify this commitment, for example, by supporting encounters and fostering a sense of community at the workplace. Our goal is to build the world's most meaningful place to work.
Every year, VTT conducts the Navigator employee feedback survey to measure employees' commitment to the workplace community. The results of the latest survey are excellent: as in the previous year, employee engagement remained high throughout the organisation. In addition, an increasing number of VTTers said they would recommend their employer to another person.
VTTers feel that they can be their true selves, be appreciated, and express themselves freely.
Meaningful work and good reputation increase employee engagement
According to the survey, VTT's organisational culture as a whole has remained at an excellent level. VTT also scored remarkably high in job satisfaction and wellbeing at work. Employee engagement at VTT is most impacted by meaningful work and a good reputation, and both were at excellent level at VTT.
Other key factors that impact employee engagement in a research organisation are learning and development as well as collaboration and a sense of community. At VTT, these are all at a good level, and we will continue to invest in developing them. For example, at the beginning of 2023, VTT introduced a new flexible work model to further support encounters and community spirit at the workplace.
VTTers value an appreciative and diverse work community
Work community plays a significant role in employee wellbeing and engagement. According to Universum's earlier survey, an appreciative and friendly atmosphere also attracts potential employees.
VTT employees feel that their work community is psychologically safe and embraces diversity. "I am particularly delighted and proud that VTTers feel that they can be their true selves, be appreciated, and express themselves freely,” says Marja Lindgren, Head of Learning and Development at VTT.
To foster psychological safety, we have launched, in collaboration with the VTT Young Professionals network, a Gala of Failures event where we celebrate our failures. Speaking up about our mistakes requires courage and willingness to take the plunge, but it is also rewarding. "When we talk about the mistakes we have made and share the lessons we have learned with a wider audience, we create a culture where failing is nothing to be ashamed of," says researcher Nicolaas van Strien, one of the founders of the event.
Over 600 VTTers have already mastered their emotional skills in the workplace via the emotional agency training.
We have also invested in emotional skills in the work community. First, we trained 200 VTT leaders in emotional agency, i.e., in their awareness and understanding of emotions and how to take them into account in their actions, interactions, and organisational practices. The experiment strengthened the emotional skills of VTT employees on both personal and organisational levels. The emotional agency training is now being offered to the entire organisation. Over 600 VTTers have already mastered their emotional skills in the workplace via the emotional agency training.
VTT is a diverse workplace: we employ top professionals from a variety of educational backgrounds, and our employees represent more than 50 countries and all age groups. 40% of our employees are women and 60% are men. Diversity is an important aspect of VTT's sustainability work and something we have invested in when building our organisational culture. The work is paying off: according to the survey, VTT employees feel that they are being treated equally, and they perceive their work community as diverse and inclusive.
VTT is building new working life and the world’s most meaningful place to work
VTT's organisational culture is built on the foundations of joy, curiosity, and courage. Based on these foundations, we strive to build the world’s most meaningful place to work. At the same time, we want to be at the forefront of renewing working life and responding to the transformation of work.
New ways of working are being actively developed at VTT through experiments where we aim to, for example, strengthen community spirit or control work-related stress. We integrate the best practices into our everyday life and step by step get closer to our desired work culture.
87% of VTT employees responded to the Navigator staff survey. They responded to 52 statements related to engagement. The willingness to recommend the employer to another person was measured with Employee Net Promotor Scores (eNPS). VTT's eNPS was now 29, compared to 26 in the previous year. This is an excellent score: the average eNPS in the reference data of Finnish working life is 21.
