Working together with our partner, who is developing natural language analysis as well as value and culture analytics, we added a few in-depth open questions to our latest job satisfaction survey. These questions allowed us to review what matters the most to our employees and how they experience their workplace. The answers were analysed with a tool based on artificial intelligence. 

The in-depth questions included in the survey were:

• Describe your workplace/employer.
• What makes you proud of your workplace?
• What frustrates you about your daily work?
• How should we change in the future?

Employees proud of our professional and helpful work community and mutual trust in the employer-employee relationship

Based on the analysis, the personnel of the National Land Survey of Finland are very satisfied with their employer. This was also reflected in the numerical answers, and you can read more about the topic in my previous blog post.

The responses depict a progressive employer that cares for its employees and trusts them, is large and stable while also being surprisingly flexible. The work itself is interesting, varied and meaningful. We are proud of our expertise and the ambitious level of our work. The employees trust each other, and there is also mutual trust in the employer-employee relationship. A close work community where people are happy to help each other is also seen as a significant factor. Flexible work methods, multi-locality, freedom, and the culture of cooperation were also brought up in the descriptions of the workplace. 

Rush and organisational silos as causes of frustration

The general dragging pace of the organisation as well as the slow and poorly functioning information systems brought up feelings of frustration. Other critical areas to review are the meeting culture, information flow, rush and excessive workload. Some of our employees feel that the NLS has organisational silos and although attempts have been made to remove these, they have only moved from one place to another in organisational reforms.

Change is a divided issue. Most feel that the pace of change is too fast. However, a slightly smaller group of respondents feel that the pace of change is too slow and the change processes tend to drag. This divide in experiences sets challenges to both the implementation of changes and the communication related to them.

More clarity for leadership and proactivity in developing digital services as hopes for the future

In the future, employees would like to see a clearer leadership approach and more cooperation, both inside the NLS and with other agencies. Unification of methods and processes is also on the wish list. Proactivity in developing digital services and continuing the good customer services was also brought up as an important aspect for the future.

The results of the analysis have been reviewed carefully. They reinforce the ongoing development measures and provide us with a direction for future development operations. It is vital to understand what employees are thinking and how they experience things. It is easy to build our future upon our strengths, and the challenges identified can be overcome. Communication can be improved further by using the right words. 

Johanna Snellman
Director of human resources

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In the National Land Survey of Finland blog, different authors discuss various matters topical to the National Land Survey of Finland.