Balancing work and leisure Promoting a balance between work and leisure is something we value at Etteplan. As our CEO, Juha Näkki has said, “You can’t do a good job if your job is all you do.” We believe in this. Is it something important to you, too? We ensure a balance between work and leisure by making sure our employees’ workload is reasonable. Well-being, regeneration and development go hand in hand. Workplace ergonomics and internal communication that supports building the workplace community are also important themes for us. We welcome remote working in many situations and actively support ways of working that make it easier to balance work and leisure. Highly competent and committed employees with a high level of well-being are what make Etteplan grow and reach our common goals. What do we mean by a balance between work and leisure here at Etteplan? We want to support our employees in different life situations. We are a family-friendly workplace, and we encourage our employees to take leave according to the local practices. Maternity and paternity leave are a natural part of life. It is normal for us to organize our work so that people can have time for their family, too. Flexibility in where and when you work Work flexibly in different locations and flexible working hours were already familiar to us before the pandemic in 2020. In Finland, for example, we have more than 30 offices across the country. It is a part of everyday work that people are in different locations with different schedules. We also have flexible working hours. Of course, when we work for customers, we need to follow their guidelines, too. There are some tasks with planned and fixed working hours, but most of the people working at Etteplan can take the advantage of adjusting their working hours within certain hours. In many cases, it is possible to pace your own daily work so that it supports you in the best possible way. Some people like to start the day earlier, some like to exercise in the morning and start working a bit later. Some people need a bit longer lunch break with a walk in the park, others need several small breaks during the day. During 2020, most Etteplan employees quickly switched to remote work. We engaged in various social activities and supervisors maintained active contact with their people through digital channels. At the same time, interaction between teams moved online. This introduced important themes for training, for example how to manage remote work, build trust and support everyone over long physical distances. These will continue to be important topics in the future, too. How do we support our employees in practice? At Etteplan, we have a wide range of practices that support well-being and a balance between work and leisure. We support our employees with sport and culture perks. Some of them are global, some vary by country due to the local legislation and customs. We “etteplanians” have many kinds of sports teams, from football to electronic sports. Remotely, we have opportunities to exercise with co-workers during breaks. Sometimes the exercise is guided by a professional coach and sometimes by a colleague. Etteplan has also sponsored many events and tournaments that our employees take part in. We support many free-time activities that develop the skills of our employees. There may be meetups, training or personal projects that are not part of your work but still develop your skills and support your professionalism. At Etteplan, we train our supervisors to equip them with knowledge and tools to support our employees. Some of the training is global and some training is organized locally to support leadership, well-being and the use of remote tools. We abide by local regulations pertaining to workload and number of working hours. Supervisors are trained to be alert and discuss the amount of workload with the employee, that is, whether it is too much or not enough, or whether it is unmotivating. According to our internal FuturETTE survey, our employees feel that the supervisors know their team and can also help in offering projects that challenge the expert in a good and motivating way. It is an advantage for all of us to have a good balance between working hours and free time. We continuously develop occupational health and safety. We strive to harmonize our processes, tools and methods to ensure optimal working conditions for Etteplan employees working at our offices and at our customer companies. Our occupational healthcare is organized in different ways in different operating countries, always in accordance with the local legislation and operating culture. Starting from 2020, all appointments with occupational healthcare have counted as working hours, unless a suitable time outside office hours is available. Etteplan GO! challenge promotes team spirit and wellness People have a significant need to meet each other, and we have developed new opportunities for that. EtteplanGO! is a community-oriented campaign promoting physical activity. It has really been a success. During 2020, a total of 74 global teams participated and registered 14,866 training activities. The participants exercised an average of 4.3 exercises and 317 minutes per week during the challenge. It is a lot of fun and motivates us all to be active. It also promotes team spirit, belonging and togetherness at work! Still studying? For students, we offer many kinds of trainee opportunities. The practices may vary from country to country, but in any case, we encourage our studying employees to complete their degree.
