Our people - our culture
"You cannot teach people everything they need to know, but you can help them to learn where to access the information they require."
– Katja Müller, HR and Talent Partner
At Deloitte, people are valued and respected for who they are and are trusted to add value for their clients, teams and communities in a way that reflects their unique qualities.
In people-centric business leadership, learning and well-being are paramount. We believe these elements form the bedrock of a thriving organisational culture, where continuous learning fosters adaptability and innovation, while prioritising well-being ensures the holistic health and resilience of employees. Embracing this broader perspective underscores the commitment to nurturing a workforce that is not only skilled and knowledgeable, but also supported and empowered to flourish both personally and professionally.
With our team of nearly 900 professionals in three locations (Helsinki, Tampere and Turku), we have grown in headcount and competencies, and we have strengthened our core skills and collaboration. We are ready to serve our clients in their complex needs and in adapting to the ever-changing conditions through our renewed operating model, ‘a common storefront’. We were excited to open our new office, We Land, in August 2024 in Ruoholahti, Helsinki. We Land combines the business and individual needs of modern work by gathering Deloitte people, as well as our clients, in one place, supporting collaboration and well-being in a modern, flexible and stylish working environment.
Good leadership creates a solid foundation for our culture
Approachable leadership and the promotion of prosperity are integral to a well-functioning work environment. Our approach involves regular training for leaders at all levels in coaching skills through various forums, informational sessions and learning programmes. In FY24, we implemented a new listening strategy and conducted biannual employee engagement surveys, including the Engage for Change survey. The latest net promoting score from the survey stood at 23, surpassing our Nordic benchmark of 17. Our employee turnover rate remains at the targeted level, standing at approximately 12% at year to date.
To gauge our leadership quality, we actively seek upward feedback from our professionals regarding our leaders. The national score from the latest survey reached 4.2 on a scale of 1–5, marking a positive increase of +0.03 from FY23 and aligning with the Deloitte Nordics’ average.
Rewarding and recognition
We follow an equal pay strategy. A third party conducts annual salary surveys to ensure a gender-equal pay strategy, and no significant deviations were found. Compensation guidelines are reviewed annually based on market conditions and salary surveys. This year we have made some updates, aligning our rewarding principles and practicalities, for example,.harmonised partner-bonus criteria and timeline.
Diversity, equality and inclusion
At Deloitte, we value and respect our professionals for who they are, and we trust them to add value to their clients, teams and communities in a way that reflects their unique qualities. Treating professionals equally and respecting diversity are important aspects of Deloitte’s work culture.
Everyone in our work community has the responsibility to act and behave in a way that promotes respect, diversity and well-being at work and allows us to attain our ambitions. As a company, we recognise and affirm differences in age, education, ethnicity, race, family status, gender, national origin, physical ability or qualities, religion, sexual orientation, thought processes, personalities, lifestyles and any other characteristic that make a person an individual. Unequal treatment based on any of the above qualities is not tolerated.
Diversity, equity and inclusion focus areas in Finland
Deloitte’s ALL IN strategy for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) prioritises a workplace culture based on respect, inclusive behaviour and appreciation for diversity in all its forms. Locally, we have chosen the following three main focus areas:
- Gender diversity: We want to lead the way in gender diversity, ensuring that women occupy a proportionate number of leadership roles.
- Equality and family-friendliness: We have an inclusive view of family – everyone at Deloitte has a family and all family situations should be considered and treated equally. A family consists of who you feel belongs in it.
- A culture of well-being: We want to develop a culture of well-being based on flexibility, choice and support.
In addition to these focus areas, we are also building cultural diversity, supporting mental health and well-being, fostering LGBT+ inclusion and offering inclusive leadership training.
Gender balance and family-friendliness
We aim to establish a gender balance as the norm throughout our organisation and we regularly monitor progress towards aspirational goals. These goals are integrated throughout the entire career lifecycle, including recruitment, promotion, succession processes, development, mentoring, sponsorship and flexible working.
Deloitte Finland has achieved gender parity between women at junior levels and at manager and senior manager levels.
There has been a positive trend towards gender diversity in senior management positions, with nearly 50% of these positions now held by women.
Our goal is for at least 35% of our partners and business leader roles to be held by women by the end of the fiscal year 2025. We have had positive development in the number of female partners as we have now exceeded our interim goal of 30% as 32% of our partners are women.
In a few years, we have virtually doubled the share of female partners in our organisation, but we still have a long way to go. We need to focus on advancing the number of females in leadership roles and between business units. A concrete example of supporting the gender balance is The Wave sponsorship programme.
The Wave aims to support women in achieving leadership positions by providing them with the necessary development and resources. The programme has been in operation in Finland since FY2020, with a growing number of participants each round for a greater impact. Deloitte leaders personally commit to acting as sponsors for the participants in order to help them achieve their leadership goals.
Another concrete example of making an impact on gender diversity is creating a family-friendly working environment that is built on empathy, understanding and flexibility. A family-friendly culture benefits both employees and the company by increasing well-being, work motivation, satisfaction and commitment. Deloitte follows family-friendly policies and offers a Family Leave Mentoring programme for new parents transitioning back to work. Deloitte supports all parents equally by offering three months paid leave for all parents.
Health and well-being
Deloitte has a holistic approach to well-being, meaning that well-being is supported by an engaged mind, energised body and a sense of purpose. For having an engaged mind, we foster an environment where everyone can be themself and we respect the individual choices people make. For having an energised body, we provide hobby clubs and other support for physical well-being. We also support our professionals in finding a sense of purpose by leading with our values, offering coaching and meaningful discussions, building on strengths and fostering a culture where the well-being of our people is a priority.
Our well-being strategy is preventative, and we work very closely with our occupational healthcare service provider, Aava. Deloitte’s sick leave rate is low (1.79% in May 2024), and we offer our professionals extended occupational healthcare services that provide extensive support for the prevention and treatment of illnesses. We offer a large scale of benefits to support physical and mental well-being, for example, ePassi for lunch, commuting and health or well-being services, as well as Auntie, a preventative mental well-being service.
During FY24 we conducted a statutory workplace survey, and according to the results, the majority of our employees are well and healthy, there is a great working atmosphere, and having supportive team leaders and colleagues is a strength. However, some employees felt that they have too little time for their own well-being and would need a better balance between the different aspects of life. We also identified a need to focus on supporting coaches and leaders and developing their knowledge and skills in leading well-being.
Societal impact – building better futures
Deloitte’s global societal impact initiative, WorldClass, aims to impact on 100 million futures through education, skills development and access to opportunity, thus empowering people to succeed in a rapidly changing global economy. In Finland we want to make efforts to help people to develop job skills, improve educational outcomes and access opportunities to succeed. We invest time into our people, provide volunteering opportunities and donate in order to support students, teachers and education leaders.
Our goal is to create a positive impact through education, skills development and ensuring access to opportunities so no one is left behind in the new normal. We have several initiatives in Finland that support our WorldClass social impact goals. We have already positively impacted 44,531 individuals through our WorldClass programmes since 2018 in Finland alone. In total, we have achieved more than two thirds of our initial target to impact 60,000 futures in Finland by 2030.
One of our key focus areas is the partnership with the Children and Youth Foundation and selected other charity organisations with whom we are targeting supporting Generation Z to reach their full potential. Our programmes have a focus on themes related to the future of work, such as digital learning, developing critical skills for future workers and investing in educators.
- Deloitte, together with the Children and Youth Foundation and other corporations, has been involved in developing a new nationwide platform: TET.fi. This platform is designed to help young secondary school students to discover work placements that align with their interests and provide them with the opportunity to gain insight into the world of work. The TET.fi platform empowers youth to identify and secure a work placement aligned with their ambitions while offering companies an inclusive channel through which to provide valuable work opportunities and access emerging talent. The new website is now open and offers hundreds of work opportunities for young students. By offering more diverse work experience opportunities, we increase diversity and receptiveness in the workplace. The development work continues and the ultimate goal is that the TET.fi platform will serve 30 000 young people in Finland by 2025. In total, 125 000 young people complete the TET period each year.
- A group of young students attended a TET work placement campus week in our Helsinki office during the autumn and spring terms. During the campus week they had an opportunity to experience working life and learnt to confront tomorrow’s security challenges and skills-based work assignments. The TET campus week was designed and implemented together with other companies in the Salmisaari area, near the Deloitte office.
- The Futures School teaches futures literacy to children in comprehensive schools and provides teachers and education leaders with tools for integrating future themes into their everyday work. The Futures School annually reaches hundreds of professionals and thousands of children and youth all over Finland via training programmes and workshops, coaching activities and innovative projects with schools and municipalities. The Futures School is currently developing a digital learning concept in order to scale and integrate futures literacy into the Finnish curriculum. During this year, the Futures School organised a one-month online training course for lower secondary and upper secondary school teachers on futures literacy and the future of work. A Deloitte professional provided support and voluntary expertise, engaging in discussions on megatrends and the impact on the future of work.