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 early 2024, we drafted an equality and non-discrimination plan for 2024–2025. Our goals include promoting diverse recruitment and pay equity, enhancing psychological safety and standardizing supervisory and leadership practices. In the future, we will pay increased attention to diversity in employer communication, and we will examine the requirements of our recruitment system as needed for anonymous recruitment.

We hold regular info sessions about our pay system for the entire organisation and we are preparing for the entry into force of the EU Pay Transparency Directive. We are constantly developing our feedback dialogue and the communication culture of our work community at large. We regularly organise supervisory training, and in 2024, we also renewed our leadership principles.

For many years, we have participated in the Responsible Employer campaign and, as a member, we commit to compliance with the principles of being a responsible employer. In 2024, we placed first among all SME companies in the annual Responsible Workplace 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, %

Gender allocation per personnel group

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. We personally inform all candidates about the progress of the recruitment process and leave no one in a state of 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 candidate experience and our employer image among candidates , we send out a questionnaire to be completed by all candidates 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.

Continuous learning provides a strong foundation for success

In 2024, we renewed our onboarding process by publishing the “Welcome to Veritas” online course, which new employees can access before they start working with us. The course provides a wide range of information about Veritas and the onboarding process. The course has received positive feedback from new employees.

When the onboarding process begins, each new Veritas employee is assigned a designated onboarding trainer and an individual induction plan. 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. This feedback helps us to develop our onboarding process to be as flexible, comprehensive and individual as possible.

During the year, we also advanced our motivation and competence discussion practice. The aim was to better integrate the development plan into everyday working life. Before the motivation and competence discussions, the teams discuss and determine the type of competence needed for each particular job now and in the future. Every employee prepares in advance for their own discussion on the basis of separate material. As a result of the discussion, the supervisor and employee devise a development plan for the employee that supports their working life and any development requirements with clearly specified measures. The employee is responsible for realising and updating their own development plan. 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 an 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. Continuous improvement is our way of doing things; our operating methods, processes and skill sets are continuously evolving as part of our everyday activities.

The ever-changing operational environment and technological advances call for new types of competence and the ability to change. Artificial intelligence is developing rapidly and Veritas is also thinking of ways to stay atop of this development and ensure it is used responsibly. During the autumn, we implemented Veritas’ own AI training programme, which involved independent online learning, testing and joint discussion forums. The programme culminated in December with an employee afternoon event with an AI theme. During the day, everyone was able to test generative AI themselves and discuss the topic in groups.

“Veritas culture” as a part of our daily work

At Veritas, the well-being of our employees is a priority. In 2024, we made extensive efforts to further advance our corporate culture. In particular, we focused on improving cross-organisational co-operation and communication, increasing multilateral feedback dialogue and standardising our leadership and supervisory approach.

In 2023, we summarised 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.

Throughout 2024, we focused on instilling the devised target culture. Each team drew up their own development plans, which defined their strengths and main areas for development.

Development plans are regularly monitored, for example, in team meetings. Furthermore, the Veritas culture is an active aspect of our monthly manager forums and communication events for the entire organisation. 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. According to the surveys, the goals of the Veritas culture are known to 97% of employees and 92% feel that they steer their own activities. Through Pulse surveys, we have also mapped out how different cultural objectives are currently being achieved and in which objective employees feel we should be focusing our attention.

The key requirements for instilling the Veritas culture and realising our strategy include a shared understanding of Veritas’ goals, seamless co-operation and effective interactions. 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. The task of our supervisors is to ensure that team members clearly understand how their tasks and targets support the achievement of the common goal. This strengthens the sense of meaningfulness of the work, increases motivation and commitment, improves productivity and innovation, and is also positively reflected in the customer experience. We have endeavoured to develop cross-team collaboration through the Planner application shared by the entire organisation. The application improves transparency and interaction by, for example, streamlining the communication channels.

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. We have also organised various theme weeks at our offices, such as a gratitude week and a responsible co-worker week, during which employees have been able to share their appreciation and feedback with their colleagues.

Working life flexibility and well-being at work

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.

eNPS*

In 2024, we introduced a work ability indicator based on self-assessment. With long-term monitoring of this indicator, we believe that we can anticipate risks related to work ability and reduce them in a preventive manner. Work ability is affected by many factors, some of which can be affected by actions within the workplace. At Veritas, we are primarily engaged in cognitive work, i.e. brain work, and in addition to our primary tasks, the working methods and environment can increase the cognitive load. We continuously enforce solutions to reduce harmful loading and, when necessary, conduct separate surveys on loading.

During 2024, we increased employees’ knowledge about brain work and, in particular, solutions that streamline such work. At the personnel afternoon event in the spring, we considered how to do brain work sustainably and productively without burning out, and we learned about different ways to recover from work (breathing exercises, yoga, singing bowl relaxation, etc.).

Veritas has a family-oriented approach. It is an approach that extends to different stages of the life cycle and takes into account different types of families. We support the reconciliation of work and other aspects of life in many ways. Every supervisor has the important task of supporting the work ability of their team members and jointly seeking out flexible solutions, for instance, to the challenges inherent to different life stages. These solutions often involve, for example, adapting the job description and allowing for flexible working hours and remote work opportunities. Although the actual solutions are often individual, it is important to ensure that the methods are uniform and known to all.