Brainstorming. Mindfulness. Innovation funding. Courage. Excitement. This all sounds more like a trendy startup company than a Finnish business travel agency, doesn’t it? However, these have been important themes for the daily work performed at SMT for several months already.
In January of last year, I published a blog post on the Kauppalehti website about wanting to find new ways of thinking and corporate culture innovations. In the absence of free ideas, we started thinking about ways for us to change and renew ourselves. There are several research and development projects under way that deal with the same topic, such as leadingpassion.fi, sisu2015.fi and tulevaisuus2030.fi. These involve the perspectives and competences of the worlds of science, society and business.
Work is so important for all of us that some very serious questions regarding its future are being thrown around. What will remain after digitalisation and the transformation of the working life? Frank Martela, a researcher at Filosofian Akatemia, recently provided me with at least one answer. Work that requires creativity and human contact will come out on top.
SMT wants to pioneer new ways of working and leadership.
In recent years, we have been boldly developing new and flexible ways of working and improving the operation of our location-independent organisation. We want to create a new culture of leadership and organisation that supports our community and sociability, while taking into account that SMT has employees in every corner of Finland. The value and significance of human contact will increase both internally and in customer service alongside digitalisation.
Our most important strategic project for 2015 is the extensive Matkalla voittoon (“Way to victory”) personnel programme which is done in cooperation with Tekes, the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation. In the programme, all of the personnel participate in the development of results-oriented activities, new activity models and a functional working community.
The cooperation with Tekes makes the development work more systematic and results oriented. The development time has been relatively short, our time investment has been substantial, and great results are already surfacing on several fronts. We are feeling very good about the project. Everyone has the opportunity to further develop and learn new activity models, both in their work and as individuals. These are becoming increasingly more interconnected in the modern age, as the borders of working time and place are being torn down. As we develop, we also create something new that others can learn from.
We are excited about this and want to share our success with you. Challenge us. Ask us. Send us your comments. We would be happy to tell you how we did it.
Anna Ruotsalainen
Director, HR
[email protected]