Sini Luukkanen: Tailored company benefits make employees feel cared for

Well-being, joy, and work-life balance are highly valued at UpCloud. People who feel good at work create a great company such as ours. That’s why our offices, after-work activities, and benefits are tailored to our people’s wishes and promote health and good work-life balance.

Join us in a conversation with Sini Luukkanen, Senior HR Manager and Learning Lead, to explore what well-being means to UpCloud. 

Sini joined UpCloud in 2022. In her role, she’s responsible for managing and developing people processes and leading the employee experience team in People Operations as well as the learning activities within UpCloud. We discussed the importance of well-being and work-life balance as well as various employees’ free time initiatives in UpCloud and people’s indispensable role in shaping our benefits system.

“Many of us dedicate a significant portion of our lives to work, whether that work transpires remotely or onsite. That’s precisely why we’re committed to creating a working environment that promotes well-being in all aspects, making it our top priority in People Operations.”

Sini Luukkanen, Senior HR Manager and Learning Lead, UpCloud

Kart racing or free nanny for a sick child? Benefits to satisfy employees’ needs

UpCloud promotes well-being through various initiatives, such as comprehensive local healthcare services designed to support physical and mental health or going on regular team and company-wide retreats. Our offices are also home to diverse hobbies, fostering camaraderie and personal interests among our teams. 

The hobbies are part of UpActivity – a company-wide international initiative encouraging people to suggest activities around their hobbies or interests that the whole company can enjoy together, be it a cooking club, reading, or saunas. This enables sharing new experiences with colleagues outside of work time.

“UpCloud organises regular trips and event days, such as amusement park visits, kart racing, archery, or mushroom picking trips. Besides bringing the teams together, it also allows our remote colleagues visiting the office to get familiar with exciting local places and culture.”

Balancing work and life involves more than having a comfortable office and doing fun activities with colleagues.  Everyone’s ideal work-life balance looks different and depends on diverse life situations and personal preferences.

Recognising the different needs of our people, UpCloud offers benefits such as a childcare service for sick children, flexible working hours to balance work and studies, and a dog-friendly office.

And for all our employees, including the newcomers, we have introduced an additional 6th holiday week on top of the annual accumulation.

“We know some people can be very invested in their work, but we encourage them to balance it with some time off. So, in the end, if our people have had their full annual holiday, we reward them with even more!”

Tailoring benefits based on the feedback and wishes from employees

Creating a working environment that promotes well-being requires actively listening to people, getting ideas on benefits they would like to introduce and regularly reviewing what they do and don’t like about them. 

“The wishes can vary from small adjustments to your ergonomy settings or choice of devices to bigger benefit plans. For example, our colleagues expressed a wish for easy access to massages, and in response, we’ve set up bi-weekly massages right at our Helsinki office!”

Would you like to work at UpCloud? See our open positions.