Meet our Equality and Non-discrimination team

Equality and diversity are fundamental values to our people. To walk the talk we formed the Equality and Non-Discrimination Team to regularly meet to discuss and plan actions to support these values in our culture.

The first step was to make an equality plan. We kept some old goals from our legacy and defined new ones. And the plan continues to be regularly updated.

“We have become truly international in a short space of time. Culture changes fast when people join the company directly from abroad”, says our Chief People Officer Kristiina Vainio.

“We just recently surveyed inclusion, because we had received feedback from our eNPS survey that someone didn’t feel included. We immediately wanted to find out whether many people in our culture felt that way.”

Gender and cultural background might matter

In the IT field native language and gender can have an impact on salary. 

“That’s why we also carried out a gender and language background wage survey to find out if they had an impact on salary at Houston. “We didn’t find any alarming inconsistencies in salaries between different genders and language backgrounds.”

However, we did find that in some cultures asking for a pay raise is not appropriate and that can impact the pay equity.

“We also found that there aren’t many women in lead consultant roles. That’s why Mimmit koodaa and other networks play a key role so that there would be a representation of women in the IT field, of different roles, and career paths.”

Keeping the conversation going

When asked about future plans the answer is simple.

“The aim is to keep the conversation on the table and feed the culture and atmosphere where these matters are actively discussed. When this kind of group gets together, new ideas, perspectives, and thoughts are always born. You should hear how deep and philosophical our conversations turn at times!”

“Understanding these issues is also a huge resource in leadership”, summarises Kristiina.