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Fiksuruoka is on Finland’s Best Workplaces™ list again – Big improvements in our focus areas, Respect and Caring

We participated in the Great Place to Work™ survey in Finland again in November 2022. Fiksuruoka is no. 4 in Finland’s Best Workplaces™ list! We rose twelve places from last year's ranking. This is our third consecutive year of participating in the GPTW survey. Getting ranked on the top 20 list is a huge achievement for us, but what's even more valuable is making data-based improvements and keep building Fiksuruoka – Foodello to be even better place to work for our employees!

“With Jessica, we started making big changes according to last year's survey results and data, and the overall results of the survey increased this year from 90 % to 93 %", says Tiina, our HR Advisor.

“With Jessica, we started making big changes according to last year's survey results and data, and the overall results of the survey increased this year from 90 % to 93 %", says Tiina, our HR Advisor.

“With Jessica, we started making big changes according to last year's survey results and data, and the overall results of the survey increased this year from 90 % to 93 %", says Tiina, our HR Advisor.

The places for improvement that were pointed out in the survey last year were our main focus during the past year – and that was really shown in the results as improved ratings by our employees!

Our People team – Tiina and Jessica have worked hard to improve and measure the employee experience during last year.

“We have focused a lot on the employee data – by following our company values we want to utilize data to make decisions. We have upgraded the ways we collect and use data from our employees even to the extent that our people already experienced small "survey fatigue”, Tiina smiles.

Therefore, a total of 39 responses from 43 employees were received from our Finnish team to the GPTW survey. Now, let's dive deeper into the good overall results that speak for themselves!

“We are a Great Place to Work”

“With Jessica, we started making big changes according to last year's survey results and data, and the overall results of the survey increased this year from 90 % to 93 %. We are also proud that 92 % of our employees think that We are a Great Place to Work”, says Tiina, our HR Advisor.

One of the biggest struggles that our employees pointed out in last year's survey was the old office: the location and its facilities. As a direct improvement, our Finnish team moved to new wonderful premises in Helsinki in November 2022, and this obviously made a huge impact on the daily experience of working for our people in Helsinki.

In addition to the new office, other big improvements were made to enhance the things that we found out in last year's survey. As a result, Fiksuruoka is now seen as 15 % more caring in the great place to work survey focus area caring statement’s average, and our employees experience 10 % more respect in the great place to work survey focus area respect statement’s average. This is a strong improvement! What was done about it?

Better benefits and a new partner to provide occupational health care for us

“In last year’s survey, our workplace was already seen as a physically safe environment and a safe space. Still, there were a lot of improvements to be made on how we can support our employees' holistic wellbeing even better”, Tiina says.

Examples of big and small measures that were taken to improve well-being at work:

  • The new shiny office in Ruoholahti, Helsinki.
  • Health care and insurance are statutory services for employees in Finland. The level of these was raised by tendering our partners, so that the well-being of employees can be more comprehensively supported. The right, new partners were chosen for Fiksuruoka.
  • Weekly recurring events at the office. In Helsinki, we have weekly breakfast meetings with the whole team.
  • Concentration on working environment and ergonomics as well as training on the wellbeing topic in collaboration with our health care provider.

“I want to point out that even if the GPTW survey was only about our employee experience in Finland, we are striving to create similar benefits, events and employee experiences for our Dutch team members, too”, Jessica reminds with a smile.

“We are striving to create similar benefits, events and employee experiences for our Dutch team members, too.”

Big improvements to learning, development and onboarding support for everyone

Another big theme that Tiina and Jessica started to work on was professional development opportunities and support at Fiksuruoka. In last year’s survey it was found that our employees didn’t completely grasp their roles, opportunities to have an impact and grow professionally within the purpose and future plans of the company.

“The situation for many of our employees was: I’ve been in the team for some time now, but I don’t see where I could grow next”, Tiina thinks back.

When Tiina joined the company in 2022, she already brought a new company policy with her: the employees at Fiksuruoka could use 1 hour weekly on learning and development. Also company-wide knowledge sharing sessions were already a part of Fiksuruoka’s culture.

Things that were added in our roster of ways to develop yourself professionally:

  • Knowledge sharing sessions were changed so that experts outside the company are also invited to share their knowledge. Before, the session was completely about internal knowledge sharing – we wanted to break the bubble and bring valuable knowledge from outside the company as well.
  • Training budgets for everyone to attend external seminars, trainings and events of choice.
  • New onboarding plans to ramp everyone up for high professional growth after joining our team. For example, as a newcomer you will get a buddy from another team to guide you into our culture and business. We strive to support everyone in improving their competence in the needed areas.
  • New tools and practices were created and introduced to team leads in order to grow their leadership competences.
  • We implemented the Frame of Growth model.

“It’s important for us to create a culture where everyone has the courage to say “I need more support in learning this”, when needed. Then we can provide that support. This leads to, for example, being able to hire people with potential over experience when we can support people better with growing their competence with us”, Tiina says.

“It’s important for us to create a culture where everyone has the courage to say “I need more support in learning this”, when needed.”

“When we create tools for both team leaders and their team members to support the development of their competence, it flows into the development of the entire company. This is remarkable stuff”, says Jessica.

“I just had a chat with our chairman of the board: we agreed that we have a waterfall of positive development going on at Fiksuruoka, and it cannot be stopped! Our team leaders independently realize the importance of these development processes and these processes progress continuously”, Tiina says enthusiastically.

Things to improve next: customer experience, growth paths and rewarding models

“I have to say, our employees are very, very ambitious”, Tiina says.

“Our people have incredibly high standards and expectations when it comes to the quality of our own service, products and apps. One of the biggest challenges that was found in the survey is the pride towards our own work. That’s why we have taken and will take a lot of concrete measures to improve our service so we can feel even more proud of what we’re doing day to day”, Tiina says.

“Our people are very, very ambitious. – One of the biggest challenges that was found in the survey is the pride towards our own work.”

So, it can be directly stated that good quality of work is really important to our team. Our people want to deliver excellent services and for example, the NPS must be top notch. It’s deep in our culture that we analyze the feedback and data from our customers a lot – and improve every day.

What kind of things have we focused on so we can be even more successful and proud of our work, service, products and apps?

  • We changed our warehouse partner. Fiksuruoka teams up with partners that maintain our warehouse and deliver the products to customers. This was felt as a huge bottleneck for us internally, and changing the partner and moving our warehouse to a new location is expected to raise the level of our service, customer satisfaction and feedback a lot. These changes were not seen in the GPTW results just yet, but let’s see what kind of results the next year will bring!
  • Our product team is constantly doing a remarkable job in enhancing our customer experience regarding the visible product: our online store. Huge pilot projects and tests are being run all the time. Read more about our product team’s testing culture>>

Overall focus points we’ve chosen to improve our employee experience and become an even greater place to work next year:

  • Our service, customer experience and quality towards our customers. These are expected to create more feelings of pride towards our own work.
  • Career paths at Fiksuruoka. We already have started to improve these with good results, but the next steps will be taken. Also, our international expansion will bring a lot of opportunities for career growth for our employees.
  • Recognition and rewarding models are being reviewed. What we have already implemented is, for example, the Recognition Closet: you can choose a reward for your colleague and give them kudos for a good job. There will also be big and small improvements in celebrating our different achievements such as workaversaries, birthdays, personal celebrations such as engagement or family news, team achievements and individual successes daily and weekly.
  • Rewarding. For rewarding we have our bonus system in place. The bonus system’s aim is to reward everyone, if we reach our common goals. We are one company working towards one common goal, so the program is the same to all employees in different countries!

“I believe that next year, all of us can pat ourselves on the head for the good job and be proud of our achievements. Of course, there will always be room for improvement, that’s for sure. This growth mindset can’t ever be wiped away from our culture”, Tiina says with a warm smile.

Tiina Hahtovirta has been appointed as our HR Advisor from 1st of June 2023 onwards.