Our people

Employee engagement

We conducted a global employee engagement survey for the sixth consecutive year in 2025. The response rate for the survey was 91%. 

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. We also conducted a mid-year engagement pulse survey with open comments to get a touch point on our organizational health. 

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 culture of accountability 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. In 2026, we conducted Culture Workshops on all our sites for our employees. 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, 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 and inclusive 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 employment decisions, for example when recruiting, promoting, rewarding, or developing our employees, we pay special attention to equality and inclusion.

Suominen’s way of working is based on respect for 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 interpersonal risk. 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 2026, we have continued to execute Suominen’s competency framework, aligned with our company values, 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 have offered training in high-quality development and career aspiration discussions to all our professional employees.

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. Training during the year have included management trainings and various quality, safety and process training for targeted roles. We launched onboarding paths for all professional employees and managers and a supporting eLearning for managers to organize a well-thought-out onboarding for new employees. Our factories refined skills matrices for our production employees to ensure a safe training progression in new roles. We also piloted a leadership training program for shift leads.

Suominen’s sustainability training program 

Sustainability is one of the key factors guiding our decisions and operations. Our goal is 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. Development of the training program is underway, and it will be rolled out across the organization in support of this target. 

To support this goal, we will provide comprehensive training to all our employees to strengthen sustainability awareness across the organization. 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 the total number of employees covered by the target.