Shocking employee engagement results at Basemark

By Paula Wranger, Basemark’s Head of HR | July 7, 2021

As promised in April, we will be brutally transparent and share our BES -results (Basemark Employee Survey). With a record high of 92% of our employees feeling either very engaged or somewhat engaged in their work, we are shocked in a very positive way!

Also, the all-time high 67% response rate is really something to make a note of. To my experience, the response rate is equally important as the actual engagement result. It reveals how much people care. There will be good times and bad times, but if the response rate drops, I get very concerned.

So, what have we done to deserve good results?

1. We don’t compromise when we hire. We seek those people who accommodate to our culture. One “bad apple” can destroy the fun for all. This is difficult, because we’d need to find new talent faster because we have less wo-/manpower than planned. Still, we dare to say “no thank you” to those people who don’t fit our culture – despite the great technological expertise they might have
2. We conduct ourselves according to the culture
3. We keep on rotating the “bad joke of the week” tradition in our All Hands -weekly meetings where we share all kinds of news and introduce new team members.

What will we do to keep the engagement on this level?

1. Keep on living according to our culture

Instead of going with the trendy flow towards 100% remote work, we will not surrender to it. As “Culture Ambassador” Panu Luukka states in his blog (in Finnish), work should be performed from where and when it is wisest. But since people often resist changes, and we have now been remoting over a year, we need to remind our team members what it was like to come to the office to meet each other and to interact. In practice this means that we need to give Basemarkians some nice benefit to return to the office (in a manner which is safe) and when they have experienced again how it feels to work in the office, we will then listen to each and everyone about how they think is the best way to work in the after-covid-19 era.