Heimstaden Bostad is committed to creating and sustaining a Friendly Workplace that aligns with our core values of Care, Dare, and Share. Our Code of Conduct establishes the fundamental principles that guide our organization. We are dedicated to providing clear and equitable terms of employment, treating all individuals with respect, and ensuring equal opportunities for everyone. Our highest priority is the safety and well-being of our employees. To oversee these crucial aspects, our CEO has entrusted the People & Culture Officer (CP&CO) with the responsibility of developing, implementing, and maintaining a comprehensive People & Culture Policy and Manual.
The CP&CO oversees people and culture matters, ensuring compliance with legal requirements, and contributing to the company's ambitions and goals. Additionally, the CP&CO is expected to facilitate the implementation of P&C functions within the organization and provide support to local countries in adopting the P&C framework. This policy emphasizes the importance of regular reporting and communication between country P&C representatives, the CP&CO, and the sharing of significant matters with the Management and the Board.
We are committed to transparency, and as part of our commitment, we publicly report on a quarterly basis. Our reports include response rate as well as employee ratings in focus areas such as employee engagement, diversity & and belonging, health and well-being, and gender equality.
Equal Rights and Belonging
We believe in fostering an honest and value-based culture. We recognize that a modern working environment, equal opportunities, diversity, and inclusive leadership are essential for a responsible working culture. Our principles guide our actions:
- Your age, gender, ethnicity, transgender identity, religion, disability, or sexual orientation will never influence your salary, working conditions, growth opportunities, or level of influence.
- Equal work means equal pay.
- We support parental leave for both men and women.
Work Health, Safety and Well-being
The well-being of our employees is of paramount importance to us. We prioritize work health, safety, and well-being and are committed to providing a safe and secure physical, psychological, and social workplace. We recognize that it is also the responsibility of each individual within our organization to actively contribute to improving and striving for excellence in Work Health, Safety and Well-being.
To achieve our goal of zero accidents, we conduct proactive risk assessments regularly and document them in publicly accessible protocols.
We ensure our employees have access to the knowledge, supervision, work processes, tools, clothing, and personal protective equipment necessary to perform their duties in a manner that safeguards their health, safety, and well-being.
Every manager is accountable for the Work Health & Safety of their team and subordinates, consistently prioritizing it and conducting monthly follow-ups on team well-being and work health and safety through defined group KPIs.
To ensure we live up to targets we closely monitor hiring, promotions, and turnover (voluntary and involuntary) for different departments also considering gender division.
Inclusive workplace
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) are integral to our organization. We recognize that DEI efforts start at the top and have incorporated diversity training into our leadership and recruitment programmes from the beginning. To eliminate unconscious bias, we utilize testing tools in our recruitment process and have removed the requirement for cover letters.
As part of our social sustainability roadmap, we aim to provide 240 inclusive job opportunities each year, including internships and temporary positions, to young people and those far from the labour market.
Compensation & Benefits
Fair pay and compensation levels in line with market salary is essential to attract and retain talent. We strive to being close to the market median and we work with annual salary benchmarks, gender pay gap analyses and salary reviews to maintain relevant compensation levels and packages. Group wide we work with the Mercer framework complemented with local benchmarks to ensure we pay equally for roles at similar levels and functions. The framework is also used to conduct annual gender pay gap analyses.
Opportunity to Grow
People development is critical if we are to remain successful as a company. We call our common platform for growth initiatives Know2Grow and in this we collect all development initiatives offered to employees. Some sample initiatives included are:
- Mandatory trainings to ensure all employees know what is expected from us in terms of compliance with Code of Conduct, IT security, Anti-bribery, and corruption.
- New@Leading our one-year programme for new managers.
- Leading@Heimstaden, our programme for experienced Managers
- Leadership On the Go and Learning on the Go – 45 minute online sessions for various audiences on different topics ranging from well-being to psychological safety or instructions on e.g., how to conduct performance development talks, salary reviews etc.
- Function-specific training programmes, including safety training.
- Mentorships
- Reflect & Act – our group performance management process where Manager and Employee sit together for a deeper discussion of past performance an upcoming targets and development needs.