In Hämeenlinna, we all play for the same team
Hämeenlinna utilises ice hockey rhetoric and the repetition of key messages in marketing its organisational culture. Bold and renewing leadership is at the core of this development.
Not all development work needs to reach the finish line every time. It creates psychological safety to communicate that it is better to try than not to try at all.
HR Development Manager Mervi Kangasniemi
Mervi Kangasniemi started as an HR Specialist at the City of Hämeenlinna five years ago and immediately sensed that
there were opportunities for development here. Even in the recruitment video and job interview, it was stated that in Hämeenlinna, one is encouraged to be enthusiastic about development. Over the past five years, she has held three different roles. Currently, Kangasniemi works as an HR Development Manager, studies renewing leadership, and feels a strong sense of belonging to the “Hämeenlinna people” – which is the name given to the City of Hämeenlinna’s organisational culture.
At the core of our organisational culture is the idea that we work together towards our goals. In leadership, personnel are encouraged to develop their work.
HR Development Manager Mervi Kangasniemi
and future maker Laura Latomäki. In the foreground, Wellbeing Manager Jore Vaara.
A development mindset stems from networks
Kangasniemi believes that although development work is more prominent in some roles than others, it should be part of everyone’s job. The Organisation enables and supports development by strengthening development expertise, ensuring the right tools, and building networks and interaction between sectors and units.
Traditional suggestion boxes and outsourcing development to someone else are not genuine forms of development.
HR Development Manager Mervi Kangasniemi
Another lesson from Kangasniemi is that people work together when they know each other. Therefore, it is important that different types of expertise collide and that people learn from one another.
Every year, the Mayor of Hämeenlinna, Olli-Poika Parviainen, selects one development initiative from the personnel to receive the Mayor’s Innovation Award. One of the awarded initiatives was the “Build Your Career Like a Masterpiece” coaching, which offers participants the chance to stop and examine their own skills, career path, and future direction. Innovation awards have also been granted for developments in knowledge management and processes. An award-winning innovation aimed at all residents has been, for example, the Valoilmiö city festival.
At the annual gala for the Hämeenlinna people, development acts are recognised with the “Smart Work” award. In 2025, a total of 517 development ideas, acts, and successes were rewarded in Hämeenlinna.
Psychological safety around development
For four years, the City of Hämeenlinna has systematically increased the development expertise of its personnel. The city has, for example, offered its employees the opportunity to complete a Specialist Qualification in Product Development tailored to the needs of Hämeenlinna. This is part of the Hämeenlinna people’s organisational culture. The study groups have been called “developer tribes.” There have now been seven of these tribes, each consisting of about 25 people.
The training has resulted in concrete ideas for developing services, processes, and cooperation. The training also aims for a change in the personnel’s mindset: when developing, failures are also needed.
Training is just one way to ignite the flame of development. In Hämeenlinna, internal career paths are also encouraged. When employees move into roles such as project or initiative tasks, it is always about learning something new.
How is your own team coached?
In building a solid organisational culture, supervisory work is paramount. Twice a year, a joint meeting is organised for frontline managers in Hämeenlinna – the Frontline Managers’ Encounter, where leadership work, expertise, and wellbeing are supported in many different ways.
We also provide bold training in renewing leadership. This involves reflecting on, among other things, how we can make the Hämeenlinna people’s organisational culture come alive in everyday work with the support of leadership.
HR Development Manager Mervi Kangasniemi
According to Kangasniemi, important questions for frontline managers include: What is enabling leadership? How do we create a psychologically safe work environment? How can you fuel the enthusiasm of the work community with your own positivity?
The City of Hämeenlinna has also committed to a shared leadership promise, according to which frontline managers enable success, support collective achievement, and ensure top-level expertise.
Marketing can also include humour
All activities of the Hämeenlinna personnel are guided by the Hämeenlinna people’s organisational culture. The organisational culture was strongly integrated to support the implementation of the strategy in 2019. The culture is crystallised into four cornerstones: I am allowed to be inspired, I value every encounter, I work together, and I promote shared goals.
At the time the Hämeenlinna organisational culture was launched, Finland won the Ice Hockey World Championship and the Hämeenlinna Pallokerho (HPK) won its second Finnish Championship in history. Since the people of Hämeenlinna are ice hockey fans, ice hockey rhetoric was utilised in marketing the organisational culture.
It doesn’t matter who scores the goal, as long as it’s our team.
Director of Personnel and Preparedness Anne Iijalainen
Hämeenlinna even received permission from the television channel MTV3 to use a video clip of Sauli Niinistö.
In it, the President gives a speech to the ice hockey team and says how wonderful it was to see how the team members helped each other succeed. This video clip was part of the description of the organisational culture for a long time.
Internal communication is a priority and has recently been resourced in a new way. There has been a shift from traditional information sharing to more journalistic content and easy-to-read highlights. The Hämeenlinna people’s
newsletter arrives in employees’ emails every six weeks.
Iijalainen has noticed how personnel-driven development is a continuous process. Some things progress strongly, while others remain in the background.
Repetition, repetition, repetition
Lessons have also been learned in strengthening the organisational culture in Hämeenlinna. If you want things to take root, they must be repeated, repeated, and repeated.
Once, twice, or even three times is not enough. Initially, things were only linked in our minds, but it wasn’t visible externally.
Director of Personnel and Preparedness Anne Iijalainen
That is why all material serves as a reminder of the organisational culture, of the Hämeenlinna people.
Text: Venla Seuri
This is part of the first article in the “Best Bits” series, which showcases pioneering cases in the municipal and wellbeing sector. A total of 25 article packages will be published in the series. The series is part of the “Our Work – Results Through Cooperation” project.