We take care of the personnel’s well-being
Social responsibility comes under the following UN Sustainable Development Goals:
- Gender equality (5)
- Decent work and economic growth (8)
- Peace, justice and strong institutions (16)
At the PRH, social responsibility primarily means responsibility for the development of working conditions, occupational safety and health and skills as well as an obligation to reduce inequality and enhance gender equality.
The goal is diverse personnel and an attractive employer
The PRH’s management has set responsibility targets for 2023–2028 in each area of responsibility. Our social responsibility objectives are as follows:
- We have diverse personnel
- We are an attractive work environment for everyone regardless of such factors as age, gender, native language, ethnic background and partial work ability.
- We are an attractive and responsible employer.
- When assessed on the basis of the meaningfulness of work and competent and satisfied personnel, we are the best employer in our size class.
The aim of the PRH is to be a workplace providing equal working conditions where everybody has equal opportunities for development in an encouraging and positive atmosphere.
Our aim is to provide equal opportunities for participation and leadership for everybody by- paying more attention to the diversity of personnel
- ensuring that equality and non-discrimination are fully reflected in the composition of working groups
- ensuring that equality is fully reflected in recruitment and career development at the PRH.
In terms of their ethnic background, our personnel is still fairly homogeneous. Thus, in the coming years, we will take measures to gradually boost the diversity of our staff. However, the statutory language proficiency requirements for central government personnel are one factor posing challenges in this respect.
The Lean project aims for continuous improvement
Throughout the year under review, the PRH has continued an extensive one-and-a-half-year Lean PRH coaching programme. The programme is based on an apprenticeship and involves 24 trainees, their 17 workplace instructors and a number of other enablers, including members of the management group. The programme is a continuation of two Lean Master programmes implemented in recent years.
The key objective of the programme is to bring about a cultural change aimed at continuous improvement at the PRH. During the year, the participants have carried out and directed dozens of workshops and development tasks related to their own work and the working environment, while at the same time extensively involving other employees of the agency. The progress of the programme, the lessons learned, and the results have been presented during the year in the open Studia Generalia matinées.
Key themes of the programme include the customer first, involvement of personnel in developing their own work and the work community, continuous improvement and continuous learning.
Proposals for acts of responsibility
During 2023, the PRH’s staff members were asked to submit proposals for acts promoting the agency’s responsibility goals. Proposals could be made in connection with the responsibility fair, and there were 78 proposals. The proposals were considered by the management, which selected a number of them as measures that would be promoted from the year 2024 onwards.
The measures have been scheduled and responsibilities have been assigned, and their implementation is regularly monitored by the responsibility group.
Measures proposed for the goal “We have diverse personnel” and their implementation schedule
| Proposal | Schedule |
|---|---|
| Piloting anonymous recruitment | 2026 |
| Recruitment of people with an immigrant background (easing of language requirements) | From 2026 |
| Making each floor of the PRH’s office accessible | From 2026 |
Measures proposed for the goal “We are an attractive and responsible employer” and their implementation schedule
| Proposal | Schedule |
|---|---|
| Get career paths in shape and make them visible | Ongoing |
| A team-specific responsibility day for each staff member | From 2025 |
| Information bulletins on responsibility | Ongoing |
| Breaks between meetings | From 2025 |
| Clear processes and communicating about them | Ongoing |
| Community events 2–3 times a year | Ongoing |
Information bulletin on responsibility: social responsibility
A staff proposal for measures already implemented is increasing information and organising information bulletins on responsibility. In 2024, we organised a series of three information sessions in which responsibility was examined in line with the so-called ESG framework: environmental responsibility (E), social responsibility (S) and business responsibility (G).
The training in the information bulletins is provided by experts from the consulting office Gaia, which specialises in responsibility.
The social responsibility briefing dealt with solving challenges affecting people, such as the working conditions and well-being at work of employees, as well as the treatment of employees’ equality and opportunities for competence development.
It was learned in the training that successful responsibility work can:
- improve the well-being of personnel and influence the availability and permanence of personnel
- minimise the adverse effects of the PRH on the environment;
- increase trust in the PRH
- produce communication value
- gain reputational benefits
Responsibility fairs were followed by community fairs
In 2023, the responsibility fair inspired the PRH to continue this idea of fairs. In 2024, a fair on the sense of communality was organised in connection with the PRH day. Among other things, ideas regarding the impact of hybrid work on communality and new office space plans and their functionality were shared at the fair.
In many respects, the communality theme was related to the objective of social responsibility: we want to be a good employer and improve the working conditions of the personnel.
Staff satisfied with the realisation of equality and non-discrimination
The PRH sets out its goals for the development of equality and non-discrimination in the equality plan prepared every second year and in the non-discrimination plan drawn up every four years. In 2024, we updated the gender equality plan for 2025–2026. The non-discrimination plan was last updated in 2022 for 2023–2026. Both plans will be next updated in 2026.
We monitor our personnel’s experiences of the realisation of equality and non-discrimination through the annual State personnel survey (formerly VMBaro) and a separate equality and non-discrimination survey, which will be next conducted in 2025.
Realisation of equality at the PRH (State personnel survey)
The PRH has scored high marks for perceived equality for several years. In 2021–2024, the average score was 4.5 (on a scale of 1–5).
Realisation of non-discrimination at the PRH (State personnel survey)
The score for the realisation of non-discrimination at the PRH decreased slightly in 2024 compared to previous years. In 2024, the average score was 4.3, in 2023 it was 4.5, and in 2021–2022 4.4.
Pay equality continued improving
The PRH monitors trends in women’s and men’s pay in pay comparison reports and in the equality plan. The pay comparison report and the equality plan examine women’s and men’s pay at different requirement levels and the percentage of women and men at different requirement levels.
Equal pay between women and men within requirement levels is measured on the basis of the equal pay index. Over the past few years, the index at the PRH has been close to 100, which means that women and men enjoy more or less equal pay within requirement levels. In 2024, the equal pay index was yet closer to full equality than in the preceding year.
Using the equal pay index, we can monitor the impact of the measures already taken on pay equality and react to any new measures required.
Unfortunately, the central government equal pay index is not compatible with the requirement level classification used by the PRH and thus it is not practicable to use it for comparisons in these measurements.
Equal pay index at the PRH (Tahti)
The equal pay index at the PRH in 2024 was 100.3 (comparative month August), 101.4 in 2023, 101.7 in 2022 and 101.9 in 2021.
Well-being at work is important for each of our employees
We want to ensure that the well-being at work of each of our employees is genuinely taken care of at the PRH.
It covers working conditions, occupational safety and health, skills development, work to reduce inequality and ensuring that our operations are in full compliance with the law. In 2024, we prepared a guideline specifically intended for customer advisors on challenging customer situations.
We support and ensure well-being at work in many ways. Our operating culture supports coaching management. We recommend internal discussions for teams in which the teams agree on the objectives of the activities. The purpose of the annual development discussions with individual staff members is to agree on competence development measures and to ensure that job descriptions are up to date.
With these measures, we can form a common understanding of work situations, organisation of tasks and of any support needed to achieve the objectives.
The operating model also supports the principles guiding the activities of the PRH: open, respectful and competent.
We also provide comprehensive occupational healthcare services and monitor wellbeing at work on the basis of indicators and regular surveys. In addition to the extensive job satisfaction survey conducted annually, we also carry out mini surveys.
On this basis, we conduct discussions in teams and maintain a situational picture of management and supervisory work, working conditions, workload and other factors impacting wellbeing at work.
We review the results at different levels of the organisation, promote wellbeing at work, act in accordance with the principle of early support and take early corrective action to tackle problems. We support our employees when their working capacity is weakening and work together to find the right solutions.
In order to improve our well-being at work, we will begin developing the new work ability management model at the PRH in 2025.
Overall job satisfaction in 2024 was 4.0. Read more about the results of the job satisfaction survey in our annual report.