Mikko Kuitunen and Pekka Virtanen set up Vincit (software development and IT outsourcing) in 2007 in the Finnish town of Tampere. They dreamt of a ‘business where people were happy to go to work on Mondays.” In recognition of its innovative HR resource management practices that are particularly tailored to younger generations, Vincit has just been awarded the “best European Workplace’ prize from the Great Place to Work® organization. The company currently employs 300 and is growing fast. For the past two to three years bigger companies struggling to attract and retain young talent having been studying Vincit and they are looking to rise to the challenge by adapting their own management style.
Goodbye to managers. Vincit was built on a foundation of employee trust rendering the intermediary level middle manager unnecessary, as it had no value to add. Since Finnish law requires employees to have a supervisor, two managers operate at Vincit, the CEO and the Head of HR. Project leads manage the workloads, however these are technical roles with no managerial influence over the project team members.
Employees decide their teleworking arrangements, and work out their leave periods amongst themselves. No managers get involved in these issues. If an employee works with two separate teams then that employee manages the individual team relationships.
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