Little did we know when 2020 began, it would be an exceptional year in many ways. Despite all of the hardships, the year taught us a great deal, and it even included its share of highlights as well. Without further ado, let’s take a look back at what 2020 looked like at Valamis.
“Valamis has essentially built the modern end-to-end learning platform every company dreams about.”
– Josh Bersin
In the beginning of 2020, Valamis established an office in Jaipur, India, and welcomed new employees and culture. The management team visited Jaipur to set things up and to celebrate Holi together with our new team members before the outbreak of Covid-19.
Highlights in the year 2020 are few and far between, but it certainly has been a year of learning. That’s why we asked some of the Valamisians the question: “What have you learned this year?”
Every month, we celebrate our Nestors – the Valamisians who have been at the company for 3 or more years. They are the walking databases that know the company inside out!
In 2020 we celebrated:
The Valamis team has traditionally participated in the Finnish bicycling challenge Kilometrikisa, which helps collect money for charity. This year, Valamisians did a fantastic job and bicycled more kilometers than any previous year!
Due to Covid-19, our company mascot Valbo stayed home this year.
238 new lessons created in our internal learning environment.
3300 trees planted around the world with our donations.
1050 bottles of Valamis beer DubbelOps brewed (yes, we have our own beer).
1 new office located in Jaipur, India.
8 photo challenges in Slack to bring cheer to remote work.
188 custom emojis were created – Valamisians just have a lot of feels about things.
At the end of 2019, our CHRO Maria Vihtkari set a vision for 2020:
“Instead of growth, our HR goal for 2020 is to make the organization excel in its line of business by finding the best roles for every employee, caring for all employees and achieving operational efficiency.”
– Maria Vihtkari, Chief Human Resources Officer
We followed up with Maria at the end of 2020…
“I am glad to say that despite the pandemic, the goal we set for 2020 has played out as planned. Through internal recruitments, career development, and team rearrangements, we have been able to keep our workforce and the company thriving. During this unusual year, we have paid special attention to our employees’ wellbeing. In particular, finding new ways to support mental wellbeing has been in our focus.”
According to our 2020 Employee Wellbeing & Satisfaction Survey, 92% of Valamis employees agree or agree to some level with the statement that employees’ wellbeing is well taken care of at Valamis.
“When we started to create Valamis in 2009, our goal was to develop a learning solution which would make learning more engaging and productive by leveraging more varied learning approaches than just formal course-based training. For me, the year 2020 was a milestone when this goal was fully realized as Valamis has matured and been recognized as an exceptional end to end solution for digital learning. My vision for the year 2021 is to take this approach to the maximum and have inspiring discussions with our clients to maximize the potential of learning in their organizations.”
– Jari Järvelä, Head of Business Development
“In 2020, we took giant leaps with our processes and product development and secured several new customers, including our first customer in South-America. The digital learning market is growing fast, and my prediction is that the growth will only accelerate this year. Investment from Adelis Equity will help us grow along, and one of our goals for 2021 is to increase our personnel numbers significantly.”
– Jussi Hurskainen, CEO