Our personnel have the opportunity to receive 40 hours of individual training per year at the employer’s expense. The training focuses on matters that support the organisation’s goals.

We continuously train our personnel on topics such as sustainability, communication skills, information security, operating systems, changes in the operating environment and themes related to well-being at work.

We educate and advise employee representatives at workplaces on legal matters and working life issues. 

We offer our members a wide range of coaching, courses and webinars.

In our Career Services, we guide and encourage members to take part in various training courses, allowing them to develop their competence throughout their careers. We challenge our members to take into account the gender stereotypes related to educational fields and make choices that genuinely suit them.  

The contents of the training and coaching we produce are selected in a member-oriented way, such as basing them on member surveys and feedback.

The training content is produced with responsible and reliable partners.

We actively participate in education policy discussions and recognise the importance of human capital for Finland’s economic growth.

Our education policy lobbying focuses on the development of the quality of business education and study conditions. During their studies, every Business School student should gain the skills to promote sustainable development in their work.

We actively promote themes related to students’ mental health and coping. 

We are involved in ensuring that every Business School graduate has the opportunity to supplement their expertise throughout their career. 

Our work community and working conditions are developed in many ways and in close co-operation with our personnel. The co-operation forum and the occupational safety and health committee meet regularly. The management regularly surveys the views of the personnel and addresses development proposals.

We ensure high-quality working conditions through the following methods:

• We develop supervisory work and supervisors’ leadership skills.
• We provide comprehensive orientation for new and returning employees.
• Our extensive occupational health care also takes mental well-being and work ergonomics into account.
• Regular joint events in the work community help build team spirit.
• We compensate travel time and overtime.
• Holiday pay can be exchanged for time off.
• We have zero tolerance for bullying, sexual harassment and inappropriate behaviour.
• Our workspaces and conditions are safe and healthy.

We choose responsible companies that treat their employees fairly and well as our partners.

We discuss the negative aspects of unpaid or underpaid work placements with our partners, for example.

We also take subcontractors and partners into account in such a way that we avoid issues such as overly tight schedules.

Our legal and lobbying units work closely together to promote decent work. We also work with other Akava unions to address the problems in working life. 

Advising members on employment and public-service relationship issues plays a key role. The legal team supports our members in conflicts in working life and provides legal assistance if necessary.

We encourage and help our members to take care of their own rights in working life. We also actively highlight these themes in our communications.

The training of members and employee representatives promotes the realisation of working life rights in practice.

We promote our members’ job-seeking skills so that it is easier to find a job that suits them. This improves the well-being of individuals as well as Finland’s economy and employment in general.

We participate in collective agreement negotiations and promote fair working conditions in the labour market.

In addition to collective agreement activities, we influence decision-makers and legislation. Our themes include taxation, sustainable growth, equality in working life, competence development and the well-being at work of mental workers. 

We actively maintain media relations and strive to raise important topics for public discussion through the media.

We educate our management, staff and members on diversity and inclusion.

We take equality and non-discrimination into account in recruitment, pay and the treatment of employees.

Whenever possible, our job advertisements include a salary range.

We have an equality and non-discrimination plan that is updated regularly.

We encourage equal distribution of family leave between the genders.

We make it easier to combine work and family life with flexible working hours.

Our management is as transparent and fair as possible.

Gender equality, diversity and inclusiveness are taken into account as much as possible in the selection of speakers and trainers, the selection of interviewees for the Ekonomi magazine and the selection of images for communications and marketing, for example.

We take actions to improve representation whenever we see a need to do so.

In our development work and, for example, qualitative member surveys, we ensure that the respondents include sufficiently different people.

We highlight possible gender differences in our research results.

We communicate using gender-neutral language throughout.

We investigate the current state of equality in working life, for example, in our salary level survey. Addressing the unexplained pay gap between male and female Business School graduates is one of our important initiatives to promote equality in working life.

We communicate and influence transparent pay systems and pay transparency, as they are one of the most important means of promoting equal pay.

We contribute to ensuring that the Finnish family leave system supports an even distribution of family leave for the parents who give birth and those who do not.

We make it possible for under-represented groups to make their message heard.

Our goal is to be a carbon-neutral organisation by 2025. This is how we intend to achieve this goal:

• We review the carbon footprint of all our operations and change our ways of operating to be more climate and environmentally friendly. The carbon footprint is calculated annually using the University of Helsinki’s “Hiilifiksu järjestö” (Carbon-Smart Organisation) calculator. 
• Our climate and environmentally friendly ways of operating are defined in the climate programme, which has been drawn up as an internal guideline for the office. We follow it in everything we do.
• We compensate all necessary emissions annually through the 4H association’s Taimiteko project. The project creates carbon sinks by planting trees. At the same time, young people are employed to plant the seedlings. 

Akava’s climate policies 

We have also been involved in drafting Akava’s climate policies. 

We follow the ethical guidelines of the Council of Ethics for Communication (VEN).

We comply with the International Chamber of Commerce’s (ICC) marketing rules applied by the Council of Ethics in Advertising and its own principles of good marketing practices.

We procure advertising materials and promotional products from a responsible operator.

Ekonomi magazine is printed in Finland in a carbon-neutral manner and as Finnish work.

In career coaching, we follow ICF Finland’s rules for ethical coaching. 

We manage our investments responsibly.

Suomen Ekonomit is a community of Business School graduates and students. The Code of Conduct, that is, the good practice of Business School graduate community events, is our guideline for responsible, ethical and legal operations.

This Code of Conduct describes what acting in accordance with our values means in practice.

Who is the Code of Conduct for?

The Code of Conduct applies to every member of the Business School graduate community, including the Suomen Ekonomit office’s employees and the Board of Directors, committees and working groups, the Local Associations’ Chairpersons’ Network (EPV) and the Student Associations’ Chairpersons’ Network (KPV), the Union Conference, local associations and their boards and clubs. We all form the community of Business School graduates and students.

Each of us plays an important role in building a functional, good, safe and responsible community, and we are each responsible for doing our part in following this Code of Conduct.

Harassment, discrimination, inappropriate treatment or sexual harassment in any form is not tolerated in the community.

• Harassment is the infringement of the value and integrity of a person or group of people by creating a threatening, hostile, degrading, humiliating or aggressive atmosphere.
• Discrimination means treating people unequally or placing them in a different position without an acceptable reason. Discrimination also includes creating a threatening, hostile, degrading or humiliating atmosphere and ordering or instructing to discriminate.
• Inappropriate treatment is behaviour that is contrary to common good behaviour towards others.
• Sexual harassment is unwanted, unilateral sexually coloured behaviour or discrimination based on gender.

As an employer, Suomen Ekonomit and the entire Business School graduate community are obliged to intervene immediately in cases of harassment.

Intervention also means that the bullied/harassed person immediately expresses that they feel bullied or harassed in the situation and clearly insists that it stops, whether the issue is speech, gestures, etc.

All major events in the community must have a separately appointed harassment contact person.

The task of the harassment contact person is to listen without judgement and to intervene in harassment situations that have emerged when requested. After receiving information about the harassment situation, the harassment contact person acts in confidence and with the consent of the person being harassed.

What we do:

• If you feel that you have been bullied/harassed: Immediately tell the perpetrator that you do not accept the behaviour in question and ask them to stop it. Contact your supervisor or the event organiser.
• Investigating the situation: The supervisor or the chairman of the local association will investigate the situation impartially. The bully/harasser will be brought in for a discussion. Possible joint discussion.
• Follow-up measures: The bully/harasser changes their behaviour and the matter is resolved. Ultimately, it is considered whether the bully/harasser can act in the role in question.

This Code of Conduct obliges all Business School graduate and student associations to commit to common principles.

All members have the right to participate in activities safely. Business School graduate and student associations are responsible for their own members – both those who behave badly and those who are victims of bad behaviour.