Last year Hannakaisa Länsisalmi noticed that job satisfaction among the personnel of OP Pohjola’s financing services had experienced a downturn. Chief People and Culture Officer at OP Pohjola, Länsisalmi realised that a change is needed.
“I walked over to our researcher responsible for HR surveys and told them we’re now going to analyse what is causing this,” Länsisalmi says.
The researcher started crunching data. They analysed data from surveys and studies. Based on the data, ways to improve job satisfaction were recognised. This information was passed on to the management and supervisors of personnel working in financing. The next step was to decide together what to do.
“Now the situation has been rectified”, says Länsisalmi.
This happened because the decisions were based on research-based and analysed knowledge. on.
Finding her thing in general upper secondary school
Higher education did not come down to Länsisalmi from her family.
“Our family was very ordinary, my parents did not even study at general upper secondary school, but they encouraged studying.”
Länsisalmi got the spark for studying psychology during her general upper secondary school studies. She enrolled to study it at the University of Helsinki.
The studies included a compulsory six-month traineeship, which Länsisalmi completed at the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health. After completing her psychology studies, she continued there conducting research in organisational psychology. This also gave her the impetus to start working on her doctoral thesis.
While doing that, she also worked as a consultant for various companies.
“These two things supported each other really well, since I was studying my own profession.”
Länsisalmi completed her doctoral thesis in 2024. It examined what kinds of circumstances give rise to successful innovations, new products, services and operating methods in organisations. Following the doctoral thesis, two of her dreams came true; a doctoral degree and a dress.
“I had decided that having worked on the doctoral thesis for seven years, I would design precisely the kind of dress I wanted for the post-defence party,” Länsisalmi says chuckling.
Länsisalmi is responsible for OP Pohjola's personnel, customer experience and brand as well as marketing and communications. She leads 340 employees, a large group that cannot be guided by intuition.
“Nowadays, all leadership is based on data. And it flows continuously from all directions.”
A researcher’s background provides tools for critical thinking and discerning which data are valid, as well as what kinds of conclusions can be drawn from them: Which things are small and which are big? What is significant and what is less important?
According to Länsisalmi, scholarly thinking is the backboard you can trust when making decisions.
“The world is full of noise and fake news but you can continue to trust scholarship.”
Years back, a job interview awakened Länsisalmi to the fact that not everyone understands the benefits of in-depth competence.
“They asked me whether I can do anything practical, being a doctoral graduate. What an unbelievable prejudice. In-depth research provides precisely the valuable understanding and knowledge that can be applied to practice.”
At heart Länsisalmi is a curious researcher, which is why she occasionally still wants to delve deep into research articles.
Luckily, she has not been forced to leave them behind altogether, since OP Pohjola collaborates closely with the academic community. A key partner of the University of Helsinki, the company and the University share a vision for promoting the sustainable financial success of people in Finland by means of research. On occasion when someone writes a doctoral thesis on OP Pohjola’s business operations, Länsisalmi gets to participate in conducting research.
“Every now and then I get to co-author articles with researchers."