In 2018, we focused specifically on strengthening a self-directed and experiential working culture at Yle and developing ways to listen to our employees better.
We wanted to find out what drives Yle’s personnel. That is why we conducted surveys and asked them how they felt about their work, and also covered the topic in meetings with our new CEO Merja Ylä-Anttila. Here’s a summary of the messages Yle employees conveyed.
Yle employees are motivated by the meaningful work they can do for all the Finns.
“Yle’s values, its public service mission, its number one position among the media; a top player also among its European counterparts. A continuous feeling that my work is meaningful.”
– a Yle employee
We are also motivated by our good colleagues and working together as well as by the diverse and varied duties.
“You feel that you are part of a fine team of professionals. We help one another. My childhood dream became a reality, and that still makes me enthusiastic about my job. We are always offered opportunities to learn something new.”
– a Yle employee
Yle is a company of opportunities that enables employees to be creative, learn and develop new things and themselves.
“Creative and varied work, an awesome work community. In addition, Yleisradio’s opportunities to carry out projects that influence society and to serve all people in Finland by providing Finnish programming.”
– a Yle employee
The development of experimental and self-directed working culture is part of the daily activities at Yle. We have compiled a list of tools proven useful.
Read more about our agile journey towards change and download Yle’s Lean Culture Toolkit.
We encourage Yle employees to be mobile in their jobs and, therefore, implemented team-specific remote work agreements during the year. These agreements covered more than 1,000 employees at the end of the year.
We want to celebrate our success stories. That is why we celebrated the millionth Yle ID with coffee and pastries.
Well-functioning supervisory work for smooth daily work. We have been focusing on the development of leadership and supervisory skills on a long-term basis and challenged supervisors by means of training, mentoring and coaching. The ‘A Good Day at Work at Yle’ survey gave immediate supervisors high scores. Read more about the results of the ‘A Good Day at Work at Yle’ survey.
Together with Yle employees, we launched work to create a vision of what an ideal Yle would be as a workplace. At the same time, we will define future competence areas and the principles of good management. The work will continue in 2019.
Competence development
Our sights are set on the future in competence development and we will try to foresee what kind of knowledge and skills Yle employees will need in the changing world. We launched workshops in which teams themselves define their future competence areas and the development plans supporting these.
All our units also had their own projects to develop competence and working methods. Important themes included digital skills, interaction with audiences, application of artificial intelligence and data, as well as visuality.
Many employees wanted more opportunities for job rotation at Yle, so we made job rotation more systematic. During the year, over a hundred Yle employees experimented with other job duties within their own team or the company as part of short-term job rotation.
We increase work in expert and cooperation networks
Topics that required additional focus were supported by the establishment of seven editorial micro networks in the Finnish-language news operations in Pasila, Helsinki. In these networks, editors and other news experts, such as cameramen and -women, layout editors and meteorologists, cover topics and produce stories in a network setting by challenging each other and brainstorming and develop their topic-related competence by means of visits, for example.
The topics selected for the editorial micro networks were the European Union, International economy, Safety and security policy, Food, Digitalisation and the future, Climate change as well as the Network of young journalists. At the beginning of 2019, we also established the eighth network, Health.
The editorial micro networks have been very popular and attracted lots of applications. Currently, approximately a hundred Yle employees from the news and current affairs operations work in the networks.
The Academy of Journalism
The Academy of Journalism started operating. It focuses on the quality of journalism. The Academy helps Yle employees provide ethically sustainable and diverse journalism for a variety of audiences. About 450 Yle employees attended the training during the autumn. In addition, 1,000 Yle employees discussed building trust and interaction with audiences in Yle’s Journalism Days in November.
The Academy of Journalism discussed the building blocks of good, reliable and meaningful journalism.
More than half of the Yle employees are engaged in journalism through the written word, image, audio, graphics and programming code. The variety of topics is wide as well, including news and current affairs, investigative journalism, and journalism covering sports, entertainment, music, science, health, learning and the environment. The forms of journalism also vary from discussions to documentaries and videos on social media.