Our people

Employee engagement

Increasing employee engagement was one of our key people-related targets in our Sustainability Agenda for 2020–2025. We conducted a global employee engagement survey for a sixth consecutive year in 2025. The response rate for the survey remained at a strong level and was 91%. The survey results identified both positive areas and opportunities for improvement. 

The survey results are used as a basis for our people-related development work. Team-specific results are shared with the team leaders, who will then review and discuss them within their teams. Based on the results, on top of Group level action plan, each site and function leader will create a targeted, actionable development plan for their respective organizations and will follow up on the progress. In 2024 we piloted a pulse survey in one of our production sites related to competence development and this was used as a baseline to decide further development. 

Based on the global results, our employee engagement index was 62%, which is five percentage points lower than in the previous survey. The index is a combination of questions concerning our people’s likelihood of recommending and staying in the company, organizational pride, and commitment. The result means that 62% of the survey participants responded favorably to those questions.

In pursuit of high performance

Building a high performance culture is an important element in Suominen’s strategy and Sustainability Agenda. We strive to build a culture in which people are encouraged to exceed expectations – to go the extra mile – and are enabled to perform to their full potential. To support the successful implementation of our strategy, we ensure that our employees’ targets and actions are aligned with the company’s strategy and objectives.

We strive to develop our processes and practices to identify, foster and reward excellent performance and to drive a pay-for-performance compensation model. Further developing our recruitment and onboarding processes is an important long-term target for us. In addition, we aim to strengthen and promote our employer brand actively to increase employee commitment, retention, satisfaction, and attraction. 

In 2025, Suominen developed a new People Strategy to strengthen people management practices and reinforce our commitment to a safe, engaging, and innovative work environment. With safety as a cross-cutting foundation, the strategy is built around three priorities: attracting and retaining talent, supporting personal growth and career development, and increasing employee engagement through a collaborative One Suominen mindset. The strategy establishes a clear pathway toward these goals, with a defined roadmap for 2025 and 2026 that includes targeted trainings, workshops, and surveys designed to actively involve employees in our culture change journey.

Promoting equal opportunities and supporting professional development

Suominen has over 650 employees, representing more than a dozen nationalities working either at one of our seven sites across three continents or at our headquarters in Finland. We recognize the business benefits of having a diverse workforce and are committed to offering a fair workplace with equal opportunities for everyone. We do not tolerate any kind of discrimination, including discrimination based on age, gender, religion, or ethnic origin. When making employee-related decisions, for example when recruiting, promoting, rewarding, or developing our personnel, we pay special attention to equality and inclusion. 

Suominen’s way of working is to promote human rights and equal opportunities for all employees. In our sustainability agenda 2025–2030, we are pursuing diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) index of 80% by 2030. We aim to develop our DEI index by improving open and honest two-way communication and making sure employees are rewarded equally and fairly. We are building a culture of diversity, where ideas and opinions can be shared without the fear of negative consequences. While setting the target, our own employees were invited to participate in a survey where the current status of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) was mapped. 

Career development and identifying and developing the competencies that are essential in reaching our strategic objectives have been identified as areas for improvement in our previous global employee engagement surveys.  

In 2025, we continued to execute Suominen’s competency framework to systematically support our employees in their professional development. The framework also strengthens our processes for recruitment and succession planning and enables the mapping of competencies. We offered trainings in high-quality development and career aspiration discussions to all our white-collar employees. In addition, we enhanced our competence and leadership capabilities by increasing human resources to individual and organizational development.  

We continued to support the development of our personnel with various development and training programs that the manager and the employee have identified together in their performance development discussions. Trainings during the year included management trainings and various quality, safety and process trainings for targeted roles. In 2024 we launched a compulsory training path for all white-collar managers, which includes topics such as psychological safety, giving and receiving feedback and coaching essentials. The completion of the training path will be followed up during 2025. Additionally, we launched onboarding paths for all white-collar employees and white-collar managers and a supporting eLearning for managers to organize a proper onboarding for new employees. 

Suominen’s sustainability training program 

Sustainability is the core principle of all our functions. Our goal is to ensure that every employee, regardless of their role or function, understands and contributes to our sustainability objectives. Sustainability is not just a corporate responsibility but a collective effort that requires the active participation of everyone. Thus, one of our targets in our Sustainability Agenda 2025–2030 is that all employees have completed Suominen’s sustainability training program by 2030. 

To achieve this goal, we will provide comprehensive trainings to all our employees to increase the sustainability awareness in our company. The target includes all existing and new employees who have started working for Suominen between Q1 to Q3 of the year reported. Target progression is followed as a relative target, employees who have completed the sustainability training program, compared to total number employees.