PERSONNEL

During the financial year 2022–2023, we focused particularly on our employer image. The tourism sector is still suffering from a labour shortage, and it is important for us to ensure that we are an attractive employer for both existing employees and potential recruits. We established an employer promise for Lapland Hotels & Safaris:

We offer our employees diverse career paths as producers of Lappish atmosphere and adventures. Our warm-hearted corporate culture and easygoingness are present in everything we do in our hotels and restaurants, on safaris and on the ski resorts.

From the north to the south and through experiences to people’s hearts.

Our employer promise lead to an employer communications plan and new recruitment concept, which will be extensively used in our internal and external communications and recruitment marketing. We work constantly to ensure that we have enough competent personnel.

We continued to focus on competence development by revising and updating our training plan, for example. We engaged many of our employees in that effort. We also organised a number of HR sparring sessions to support supervisors in their work. Held 1–2 times per month, the sparring sessions were found to be important tools for internal training. Led by the HR team, the sessions were focused on the practical implementation of various policies and new operating models.

Focusing on orientation training pays off

We monitor employee satisfaction on a continuous basis. It is at a good level, and we achieved a slight improvement compared to the previous financial year. One factor behind the improvement is that we have focused particularly on the orientation of new employees.

Our employees enjoy working for us, and the personnel turnover among our permanent employees is very low. The seasonal employee retention rate improved during the past financial year and was as high as 50–60%. Depending on the season, we employ approximately 600–1,800 professionals.

Our employees are highly motivated and competent – we have a genuine passion for our work, which is directly reflected in our customer experience and excellent customer satisfaction. Based on customer feedback, the service attitude and professional competence of our employees is rated 4.6/5. Going forward, we want to invest even more heavily in well-being at work and coping with work. This will be accomplished through various campaigns and incentives.

Accelerating internationalisation

The rapid internationalisation of the tourism sector is continuing. At present, the internationality rate among all of our personnel is approximately 20%, and we believe it may increase further. We have also managed to increase the number of people returning to the tourism sector – and our organisation – among Finnish professionals.

We are in the process of updating our Ahma competence development platform. We are developing agile and diverse content of various kinds, including training courses, guidelines and messages. The new Ahma will be rolled out in October 2023. We are also developing our internal communications by preparing a plan and considering the use of new methods and channels. We will also continue our efforts related to employee orientation, competence development and supervisor training.