This blog post was first published in 2022 and has since been updated.
With our monthly engagement survey, we continuously take the temperature of how things are going internally at Visma. One way we do that is by measuring employee engagement through the employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS). The eNPS is a summary of our employees’ likelihood to recommend Visma as a place to work, reflecting their loyalty to the company, belief in our products and general work satisfaction. It’s one of the most important metrics for recruiting and retaining talent.
Our employees are asked questions about relationships with colleagues, autonomy over work tasks, and mental health. For example, employees rate how much they agree with the statement “Visma really cares about my mental wellbeing”.
Measuring the work environment in this way gives our leaders real-time data, enabling them to quickly adapt and make changes as needed. The data is supplemented by our Diversity & Inclusion Index, a proprietary measurement of our inclusion efforts, both locally and at Group level.
In our most recent employee engagement survey, Visma’s eNPS places us in the top 5% of the IT industry. By prioritising employee engagement, we maintain a supportive and resilient internal culture that can weather standard ebbs and flows in the industry, as well as unforeseen events. During Covid-19 for example, our eNPS remained stable and in some cases increased from pre-pandemic levels. In addition, when we include questions related to wellbeing, it allows HR and leaders to keep a pulse on employees’ overall mental health, and how that relates to their engagement.
So why are Visma’s employees so engaged?
Inspiring people to grow
Learning and development is a key area to keep employees informed and engaged. We’ve established Visma Learn, a company-wide learning platform that facilitates online learning experiences. This platform covers a diverse range of competency areas including Security, Sustainability, HR, and Customer Success, providing our employees with valuable opportunities for growth.
Using Visma Learn data, we’ll be able to track time spent on digital learning and development to a much larger extent in the years to come.
In addition to digital learning, we offer a comprehensive network of peer-to-peer communities that employees can join to connect with and learn from their peers.
Learning and development activities, whether originating from our communities or other initiatives, take place in meetings and workshops — both in-person and online. Leaders and specialists across various fields, such as legal compliance, pricing, and sustainability, conduct voluntary sessions. These sessions offer opportunities for individuals throughout the company to enhance their personal and professional growth.
Putting mental health first
Good mental health is paramount at work, and nothing has made this clearer than the pandemic. The requirement to begin working full-time from home was challenging for many, leading to social isolation and lack of movement and exercise.
One way we’ve tried to reduce these challenges is by encouraging our people to be more active. We’ve offered a series of 10-minute stretching videos featuring Norwegian track-and-field athlete and coach Yngvar Andersen. Over the course of the 15 sessions, employees could stand up, take a break from work, and learn various stretches they could do throughout the day.
We also launched our own podcast called Walk’N Listen. The goal was to encourage our employees to go outside to get some fresh air throughout their workday. Each podcast episode was hosted by two leaders from HR, who covered topics such as leadership, work-life balance, planning an ideal day and more.
Always leading our leaders
More than anything else, we believe that winning in this business is about having — and keeping — the right people. And it starts with our leaders, who have the largest impact on our employee wellbeing and engagement. We are continuously working on developing our leaders’ skills, starting from the moment they become one.
Through Visma Leadership Onboarding, new leaders are properly introduced to the common processes we share in Visma and get insight into how to succeed as a leader. This includes a set of webinars covering core leadership skills like coaching, giving and receiving feedback, communication, performance development, and others.
To create an active leadership network, Visma launched a leadership community in 2021 — an internal community for leaders who wish to share inspirational and success stories and their leadership philosophies. This community allows our leaders to learn from common challenges by sharing their solutions, experiments, and best practices.
More experienced leaders can be nominated to take part in Visma Management Academy which allows participants to evolve as a leader, develop personal and professional skills, and build a broader network in Visma, strengthening opportunities for cross-company collaboration.
Benefits beyond the company
When it’s all said and done, prioritising employees benefits everyone, whether we’re talking about our colleagues, the company, our customers or society. By working on learning and development, mental health, and leadership, we have built a resilient culture where people feel supported and engaged.
