Our people
Our people represent the essence of who we are as a company. Nokia people grow continuously and develop in an open, fearless and empowered culture. A culture that is inclusive and diverse, and creates trust and respect, enables our people to deliver company business priorities in a responsible way.
At the beginning of 2022 we launched our new people strategy. It puts our people firmly at the heart of everything we do and guides us in creating an environment in which people not only work but thrive. Its focus on growth, skills and development helps us establish and maintain outstanding technology leadership.
The new people strategy is built on four pillars: Growing together, Leading Lights, We belong, and Experience is everything.
Growing together
We work together to align personal and professional growth with the need to sustain Nokia’s business growth.
Leading lights
Our leaders create a working environment in which people can be open, fearless, and empowered, developing themselves and their teams.
We belong
We have a sense of belonging at Nokia and feel personally connected to our colleagues and our work.
Experience is everything
Our daily experiences enable each of us to be ourselves, free to focus, create and innovate.
Our people strategy further cements our guiding principles for our ways of working which we call our essentials. They were created in collaboration with our people and customers, and they reflect what we all want to experience working with and for Nokia: being open, fearless, and empowered.
In 2022, we introduced our inaugural ESG mandatory training for all employees in 13 languages. It was completed by over 97% of employees
In early 2023, Nokia was recognized for the fifth time on Bloomberg's Gender Equality Index with a score over 83%
Launched the Technical Career Path program that makes technical opportunities more visible and offers a growth path for all who prefer to pursue a career as subject matter experts without necessarily becoming people managers
Nokia’s Global New Child Leave Policy has been incorporated as a minimum standard into all Nokia countries leave of absence policies. It provides any Nokia employee who becomes a parent, regardless of gender, with at least 3 months paid leave and the right to return to work up to one year following the date of birth or adoption
Nokia’s Global Life Insurance Policy, launched in 2022, ensures that the loved ones of any Nokia employee who dies will receive financial support of not less than one year’s gross base salary, subject to a financial cap
Our people
Nokia people share a culture that values openness, fearlessness, and empowerment, these are the essentials of working at Nokia. Nokians are unafraid to speak their minds and pursue their goals with enthusiasm and confidence. Our culture encourages honesty, transparency, and vulnerability, allowing individuals to express themselves authentically without fear of judgment or shame. Nokia colleagues empower one another to take risks, challenge themselves, and grow both personally and professionally. Our shared beliefs and values, they have created a supportive and inclusive community that celebrates diversity and individuality.
At Nokia, we care about our people. We aim to hire and retain the best talent and provide a work environment where each person can thrive. Our culture is guided by our purpose, strategic commitments and our essentials - fundamental facets of the Nokia culture. It is through our people and culture that we create technology that helps the world act together.
People development
It remains critical to identify, develop, and retain skilled employees in our business. We therefore continually develop our culture and refresh our talent management activities, performance support, and career development.
Our people development focus includes three main pillars:
1
Talent and performance management which covers regular dialog, guided discussion, recognition and feedback as well as career aspirations, among other activities.
2
Future talent growth which includes business group talent initiatives (covering specific skills development and special assignments), executive succession and CEO advisory.
3
Competence development which includes leadership development and assessment, and business critical and technical competence development and related learning offering
Code of conduct
Our Code of Conduct
Our Code of Conduct, Global People Framework, Human Rights Policy and local employment laws, policies and practices are the basis for our labor conditions. We are committed to the principles laid out in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations Global Compact and the International Labor Organization's Declaration of Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. We follow and, where possible, strive to exceed the standards set out by local labor laws and regulations. We publish information related to our employment policies and guidelines on our intranet.
Our policies, Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), and Code of Conduct apply to our employees and suppliers. Our policies cover child labor, forced labor, freedom of association and collective bargaining, non-discrimination, humane treatment, working time, disciplinary practices, compensation and occupational health and safety.
Our third party Code of Conduct
Nokia has a dedicated Commercial Third Party Code of Conduct to address the unique needs of the relationship with commercial third parties. It is available in eight languages (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, Korean and Spanish).
Our Code of Ethics
Nokia also has a separate Code of Ethics highlighting additional responsibilities and is applicable to the President and CEO, Chief Financial Officer, Deputy Chief Financial Officer, and Corporate Controller.
Ready for the future of work
In June 2021 Nokia announced increased choice and flexibility for employees following COVID-19. Around 26,000 employees responded to a company-wide survey about their remote working experience during, the COVID-19 pandemic, and their opinions were also sought on their preferences for working after the pandemic. As a result, new guidelines came into effect from 1 January 2022, that provide flexibility for employees to work up to three days a week remotely, as well as increased support for flexible working hours and fully virtual working.
Two new benefit policies were also announced in 2022 in unison with our new people strategy. These new benefits extend support that already existed in some countries to all our people worldwide, turning the benefits that some employees already enjoyed into a global minimum standard for all our people.
Read more details on our flexible working practices: Nokia increases choice and flexibility for employees following COVID-19.
Our Child Leave policy
Provides any Nokia employee who becomes a parent, regardless of gender, with at least 90 calendar days of paid leave and the right to return to work up to one year following the date of birth or adoption.
Our Global Life Insurance policy
Ensures that the loved ones of any Nokia employee who dies - even if they are on a leave of absence at the time - will receive financial support of not less than one year’s capped gross base salary.
Continuous learning
Success in today’s dynamic market requires a workforce with the knowledge and skills to compete in a digital world. We are committed to attracting, developing, and retaining top-level talent by continuously investing in their professional growth. Our skills-based approach to learning across business, human and technical domains enable us to win as people, as a company and as a society. NokiaEDU offers high impact learning solutions to customers, partners and employees with content and formats that bridge geographies, cultures, and generations.
Highlights:
Training hours we provided to our customers and partners in 2021.
the number of customer and employee registrations recorded by end of 2021 for the Nokia Bell Labs Certification Program.
Development, retention and support
We identify, develop, and retain skilled employees in our business. We therefore continually develop our culture, and refresh our talent management activities, performance support, and career development. Our performance and talent management approach creates a strategic and integrated framework which covers company goals, individual performance, talent management, career development, reward, and recognition.
Freedom of association and collective bargaining
We respect the right to collective bargaining and freedom of association. Collective bargaining agreements are local, and in most countries where we have collective bargaining agreements employees who have chosen not to be members of a union are also covered. Employees can choose freely to join, not join, or leave unions and associations and select their representatives based on local and international practices. We encourage active, open communication and dialog with employees and/or their representatives.
In countries where local works councils operate, we work with them as needed. We communicate regularly with employees directly as well as in meetings such as the European Works Council (EWC) in Europe.
Employees and management prepare and participate in the annual EWC plenary. We offer free elections for employees to choose union representatives. The majority of production employees were represented by an independent trade union or covered by collective bargaining agreements.
Employee representatives are entitled to participate in trainings that are a necessity in order to take care of employee representative duties and to increase their awareness of trade union rights and obligations. Additionally, employee representatives are provided the opportunity to use company infrastructure during the workday. Read more details in our annual sustainability report, People & Planet, page 81.
- Algeria
- Austria
- Belgium
- Brazil
- Chile
- China
- Czech Republic
- Finland
- France
- Germany
- Greece
- Italy
- Ivory Coast
- Mali
- Netherlands
- Niger
- Norway
- Portugal
- Romania
- Senegal
- Slovakia
- South Korea
- Spain
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- Tunisia
Inclusion & Diversity
At Nokia, we care about people. We are building a culture of belonging and personal connection. To truly act together we must be inclusive, offering equal opportunities so that everyone feels valued, heard, and able to contribute.
Why Inclusion & Diversity matter for Nokia
For us inclusion and diversity are a business imperative, and a platform for greater innovation, superior organizational performance and excellent customer service. As a large, multinational company, we naturally have an incredibly diverse workforce. But diversity is of little value if we are not making use of it with inclusion.
Target
Increase the share of women employees to 25% by 2030
Target
A minimum of 26% female hires in global external recruits in 2022
How is Inclusion and Diversity managed
Inclusion & Diversity at Nokia is governed by the company's Inclusion and Diversity Steering Committee. The committee focuses on critical Inclusion and Diversity topics and ambitions that make a difference on Nokia-level.
The committee makes recommendations to the company's leadership team and ensures Nokia Inclusion and Diversity’s business relevance through connecting Inclusion and Diversity targets with company operations, strategy, and business objectives.
The committee creates wider accountability for the company's Inclusion and Diversity results.
Nokia's Inclusion & Diversity Steering Committee consists of the Business Groups, People Organization, Employee Resource Groups, ESG, Legal & Compliance representatives.
The I&D plan and programs we have
All our business groups and functions have their own inclusion and diversity (I&D) agendas, ensuring Nokia is advancing I&D both at the corporate as well as the business group level.
On corporate level, as per our inclusion and diversity strategy, we have set ourselves ambitions for the next three years focusing on three specific areas:
Diversifying Nokia’s talent pool
We re-established our female hiring target in March 2022 aspiring to a minimum of 26% female hires in global external recruits by the end of 2022 achieving 26.6% of women in external hiring including the conversion of female trainees into permanent employees. We were able to reach our goal through several actions such as: trainings towards people and hiring managers and Talent Attraction professionals, forming a team of I&D sourcing professionals across markets where we hire most, targeted social media campaigns, Nokia Academies in Bangalore and Poland to attract talent.
Creating a culture of high inclusion
Logging year-on-year improvements in employee inclusion experiences in business groups and functions, based on the yearly annual employee survey results. As most recent initiatives we are starting to conduct diverse interview panels in hiring, focus on the needs of people with disability and ageing workforce.
Being the preferred choice for customers and investors by role modelling best I&D practices
We want to score above the industry average in external benchmarks such as Bloomberg Gender Equality Index and Workplace Pride measuring LGBT+ inclusion the results of which we make visible for our customers and investors, these benchmarks provide us feedback for our continuous improvement.
Who do we collaborate with or get rated by
We want to role-model the best Inclusion and Diversity practices and consistently benchmark ourselves against other players in the tech industry. Our target is to consistently improve our position in global benchmarks such as Bloomberg Gender Equality Index and Workplace Pride which measure LGBT+ inclusion.
In 2022, for the third consecutive year we were awarded Ambassador status by the Workplace Pride Global Benchmark alongside nine other companies and institutions.
Human Rights Campaign Foundation (HRC) awarded Nokia a score of 100% percent on the 2022 Corporate Equality Index and with this award HRC designated Nokia as a Best Place to Work for LGBTQ Equality. This Index is a US national benchmarking tool on corporate policies and practices supporting equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer employees.
For the 5th time, Nokia is ranked on Bloomberg's GEI.With 83.3% our score is considerably higher than the tech industry's average score of 72.36%.
Awarded Nokia in the "Promote of Diversity" category per concrete I&D strategy, target setting and commitment by top leadership.
For the 3rd time Nokia assessed for its GLT and Board of Directors diversity across gender, age, nationality and educational background. Nokia ranked 2nd in the Helsinki Large Cap category.
Nokia diversity data
Read more about Inclusion & Diversity at Nokia
Key Health and Safety standards and programs
Our key Health and Safety standards Working at Height, Rigging & Lifting, and Driving and Electrical are implemented with non-negotiables for effective controls to manage risk on a global scale in all markets. Incident management, and reporting and investigation programs encourage all employees and contractors working on our behalf to report all incidents including near misses and high potential incidents.
Driving
- Always wear a seat belt in any vehicle
- Do not drive distracted or tired
- Always drive at a safe speed for road, traffic and weather conditions
Work at Height
- Always attach yourself and your equipment when working at height
- Always make sure that no-one enters the space below when you are working at height
Electrical work
- Do not work live. Do not work on any electrical system unless you are trained
Wellbeing
A key aspect of the ‘Experience is everything’ pillar of our people strategy is Health and Wellbeing. At Nokia, we empower employees to manage their personal well-being, feel safe talking about their mental health at work, and provide access to the support they need, when they need it most.
Nokia’s Personal Support Service provides confidential, professional support and advice on a range of emotional, practical and work-life issues, and is available to all Nokia employees and their family members. This service played a critical role in providing support to those impacted directly, or indirectly by the war in Ukraine. In addition to the normal support service for individuals, group sessions supported people managers and teams through guided discussions on the challenges they faced during this difficult time, particularly in relation to managing geopolitical conflict within teams. Group support was also provided to Nokia volunteers who worked tirelessly to support refugees from Ukraine. Pre-recorded webinars in multiple languages supported employees on a variety of topics such as supporting your child at a time of conflict and maintaining team resilience during a crisis.
Our global mental health and wellbeing training series educates on a wide range of topics, from ergonomics and movement to sleep and burnout. Regional trainings are also available in local languages and across all time zones.
The annual Nokia Sports Festival emphasizes the importance of movement to enhance physical and mental wellbeing so that everyone can perform at their best. The nine-week festival not only aims to increase movement, but it also creates a sense of belonging and personal connection to the broader Nokia community.
At Nokia we want to break the silence around the topic of mental health and for people to feel safe and heard, because we know that when people feel safe to talk it makes a positive difference. With a supportive culture around mental health, people are truly able to be more open, to know where to go for help and much more likely to enjoy their experience at work.
The ShareToCare Employee Resource Group supports this goal - an employee-led group with the purpose to connect people with common experiences on the topic of mental health and wellbeing – this is a forum where people can feel safe sharing personal experiences and offering emotional support, whether that’s personally based on lived experiences, as a caregiver, through a family member, or as an ally. This group facilitates open dialogue and storytelling to reduce feelings of isolation and stigma, to create belonging and community, and to encourage more people to access the right support earlier.