Equality and equal opportunities as the standard

At Veritas, equal treatment and equal opportunities are the standard for our daily operations: we welcome everyone to boldly be who they truly are. This is particularly reflected in gender and age equality but also in our strong bilingualism. In a personnel survey conducted in 2023, a total of 88 per cent of the personnel stated that they felt they were being treated equally and equitably. This result has improved by 2 percentage points compared to 2022, which clearly indicates that we have achieved the aim we set in our equality and non-discrimination plan for 2023 to ensure that an increasing number of Veritas employees feel that they were treated equally and equitably. We will continue working to assure equality and equal opportunities, and our concrete measures for the coming years will be defined together with our personnel in the updated plan.

In 2023, we continued to focus on diversity, equity and inclusion by, for example, providing all managers and supervisors with anti-racism training. Furthermore, it is our intention to increase the diversity of our personnel by enhancing our recruiting practices.

We participate in the Responsible Employer campaign and, as a member, we commit to compliance with the principles of being a responsible employer. Veritas placed second among all SME companies in this year’s Responsible Employer survey. We have, further, undertaken a diversity promise to encourage people from different backgrounds to apply for our open job vacancies.

Age distribution of personnel

Managers, %

At Veritas, the pay of all our employees is based on the demands of the relevant task as well as on the individual employee’s qualifications and performance. We apply the Korn Ferry Hay job evaluation system when classifying the demand level of tasks, which renders our pay practices transparent. We particularly focus on ensuring that all employees possess sufficient information on remuneration-related matters and that managers are genuinely able to discuss and provide reasons behind remuneration-related matters with the employees.

According to the equality report of 2023, the women’s euro at Veritas is 99 cents. According to Statistics Finland, the average gender pay gap in 2022 was about 16 per cent (women 84.4 cents and men 1 euro). We have succeeded in levelling out the gender pay gap (the women’s euro was 95 cents in the previous equality report) in connection with, for example, internal and external recruitments.

The foundation for the employee experience is laid already at recruitment

We lay the foundation for a positive employee experience already when recruiting a new employee. We treat all applicants respectfully and fairly, and we communicate openly about the various phases of recruitment and the factors underlying our decisions. All applicants are personally informed about the recruitment process, and no one is left with uncertainty. We always endeavour to conduct our interviews in an open and relaxed atmosphere. We believe that a positive recruitment experience creates a solid foundation for the new employee’s commitment to Veritas.

In order to constantly enhance the recruitment experience and our image as an employer among applicants, we send out a questionnaire to be completed by all applicants at the end of the recruitment process. Additionally, we conduct a newcomer discussion with each new employee during their first months in order to give them an opportunity to tell us how we succeeded in the recruitment and onboarding process, what type of employer image they had of Veritas prior to the start of their employment relationship and how well we managed to meet their expectations. According to the Responsible Employer survey, 100 per cent (74 percent completely agree, 26 per cent somewhat agree) of respondents feel that the image they formed of Veritas as an employer during our recruitment process corresponds with the reality.

Gender allocation per personnel group

Comprehensive onboarding creates a solid basis for competence

At Veritas, an individual induction plan is devised and a personal onboarding trainer appointed for each new employee. In addition to the onboarding concerning the employee’s own job, the plan also includes an introduction to Veritas’ other functions, as well as to the sector of earnings-related pension insurance as a whole. A personal induction plan is also devised for those who move on to new tasks or return to work from a longer period of absence from work. The scope of the plan depends on the employee’s work experience and duration of absence. It is particularly important for us that both new and more experienced Veritas employees are always up to date about the regulations governing the sector. This aspect is further discussed in the Good Governance section of this report.

Onboarding combines contact and remote working as well as takes advantage of online training. During the onboarding phase, new employees have at least one follow-up discussion with their managers and, following the onboarding phase, a concluding discussion. We receive particularly good feedback on our onboarding process from new employees. According to the “Responsible Employer” survey, 89 per cent (68 per cent completely agree, 21 per cent somewhat agree) of all respondents who began working for Veritas in recent years feel that they received sufficient onboarding at the start of their employment relationship. This feedback helps us to develop our onboarding process to be as flexible, comprehensive and individual as possible.

Every year, each employee meets with their manager for a motivation and competence discussion to consider the current state of competence, future competence demands and the employee’s preferences for individual development. The discussion serves as a basis for devising a personal development plan to ensure adequate competence and development in the future. The realisation of the development plan is evaluated and adapted as necessary. We utilise a range of development methods, such as on-the-job learning, different types of training, job expansion, mentoring, participation in development tasks and our internal substitute system.

Thanks to the broad and diversified job descriptions, we can offer our customers and beneficiaries comprehensive and holistic customer service. At Veritas, every employee has the opportunity to influence their own work, learn new and develop themselves. In addition to their expertise and competence, all employees are expected to uphold their service approach and technical skills.

The ever-changing operational environment and technological advances call for new types of competence and the ability to change. Continuous improvement is our way of doing things; our operating methods, processes and skill sets are continuously evolving as part our everyday activities.

“Veritas culture” as a part of our daily work

At Veritas, the well-being of our employees is a priority. In 2023, we made extensive efforts to further advance our corporate culture. We focused particularly on increasing the sharing of competence and knowledge and multilateral feedback dialogue as well as on improving cross-organisational co-operation and communication.

At the beginning of the year, we were able to summarise our target culture, the Veritas culture, with the help of a working group consisting of our employees. The “Veritas culture” is comprised of the following target concepts:

• We work together with an agile, customer-directed and entrepreneurial mindset
• Our work community is psychologically safe
• Our work community is fair and responsible
• Each of us is responsible for the continuous advancement of our own and shared work.

The “Veritas culture” facilitates the generation of a positive employee experience and improves the well-being, job satisfaction and commitment of our employees. The “Veritas culture” is built on our existing strengths. We are engaged in socially meaningful and interesting work, and we have a functional work environment that is further enriched by wonderful co-workers and a varied and flexible working life.

We focused on instilling our target culture throughout the year 2023. Around the start of the summer, the units arranged Veritas culture workshops, in which they defined the key areas of development and strength. On the basis of the discussions held during the workshops, development plans were drawn up that will be followed up regularly, for example, in monthly meetings. Furthermore, the “Veritas culture” is an active aspect of our monthly manager forums and communication events for the entire personnel. Each quarter, to highlight good and functional practices, we award one or more actions that reflect the Veritas culture. This is our way of showing that even small daily actions are an important contribution to reaching our overall target. Our progress in terms of instilling the Veritas culture in the work environment is monitored regularly using Pulse surveys.

The most important prerequisite for the instilling of the Veritas culture is functional interaction. At the start of the year, we further strengthened our internal communications by creating a new Teams channel for the use of our entire personnel, namely Veritas Torg with several subchannels. The use of Teams as an internal communication platform alongside our intranet enables for more spontaneous and interactive communications as part of hybrid work. The Veritas Torg subchannels provide a low-threshold means for employees to, for example, share topical issues, give co-workers feedback and thanks, celebrate successes, organise shared activities and exchange knowledge. Furthermore, Veritas Torg contains an idea box, where anyone can send their own development ideas, and the Veritas Planner that provides access to the work planners of different units. This enables all employees to follow what is going on in different parts of the organisation and improves transparency between processes.

Another significant prerequisite for the instilling of the Veritas culture and implementation of our strategy is a shared understanding of Veritas’ goals. It is crucially important that we are all working towards the same goals and that every Veritas employee understands their own role in achieving those goals. It is the task of our managers to ensure that all team members have a clear understanding of how their own tasks contribute to the achievement of common goals. According to the Responsible Employer survey, 92 per cent (56 per cent completely agree, 36 per cent somewhat agree) of respondents feel they know their own role in achieving common goals.

A positive employee experience is comprised of small daily actions and, therefore, Veritas strives to acknowledge its employees in different ways. Our employees receive a small token of appreciation when their trial period ends. This is our way to show how much we appreciate and value the employee’s desire to continue working at Veritas. Every six months, we award three employees with a paid day off in recognition of actions that are in line with our values. This is a way of actively keeping our values at the forefront and assuring commitment to them in our daily working life. Once a year at our annual celebrations, we award a Veritas Employee of the Year in accordance with a changing theme. The Employee of the Year honour has long traditions at Veritas and the recognition is highly valued among our personnel.

Working life flexibility and well-being at work

We support the harmonisation of work and life through flexible working hours and remote working possibilities. Being family-oriented is a daily reality for us. It is a significant part of the work of every manager to support the work ability of their team members and to jointly identify flexible solutions, for instance, to the challenges inherent to different life stages. According to the Responsible Employer survey, 90 per cent (50 per cent completely agree, 40 per cent somewhat agree) of respondents feel that Veritas is a flexible employer in different life situations. Additionally, 92 per cent (58 per cent completely agree, 34 per cent somewhat agree) of respondents feel that they have the possibility to openly discuss the balancing of their work and private life with either their manager or HR.

Well-being at work affects many other factors both on the organisational and individual level. We are constantly working to improve well-being at work and, according to the eNPS indicator in personnel surveys conducted regularly throughout the year, we have also succeeded in this area. We have endured the challenging year of 2022 largely with the help of shared discussions and the development of our operational methods.

eNPS*