YLE Interviews Trustmary about Knitting and Well-Being at Work

International SaaS business and knitting. Do they even belong in the same sentence?

The combo is so unlikely that the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE visited us to see what that looks like in action.

What is going on during meetings?

It’s not the first thing that comes to mind when imagining a meeting in a SaaS company, but you can notice some team members knitting.

Our Marketing team’s Aino and Erica are avid knitters, and they use knitting as a way to reduce multitasking and focus better.

Trustmary decided to sponsor some yarn on the condition that everything the team knits is to be donated to charity.

Erica shared the news in a Finnish Facebook group dedicated to knitting and crafting, and it got a lot of sympathy. Based on the comments, many people across the country use knitting as a way to focus on long internal meetings and relax during the workday.

The topic even attracted the attention of the media, and the Finnish national broadcasting company Yle (Yleisradio) interviewed us about the knitting project.

The short video was shown in regional TV news and published on Yle’s website along with a news article. Read the article and watch the video in Finnish here.

What about those who don’t knit?

At Trustmary, we want to encourage employees to work in ways that support their well-being, stress management, and concentration.

While knitting and crafts are not for everyone, we encourage other ways to boost mood and health during meetings.

When sitting down and using a computer is not necessary, we encourage people to walk during meetings. For example, 1-on-1 meetings with the supervisor are a great chance to chat freely while walking.

Many employees shovel snow during larger meetings where they have no active role. At the same time, they get to enjoy the few sunny hours of the Finnish winter and get a clean driveway.

Does all this hinder progress and productivity?

Someone might have a doubt in their mind that this takes away from the company’s goals.

Trustmary has SaaS users in over 170 countries, a product localized to multiple languages, and everything is managed by our 20-person team in Finland.

It’s crucial to invest in employees’ well-being and support their work-life balance as much as possible.

These practices have not proven to be disadvantageous to the company. On the contrary! When people focus on one manual brainless task during meetings, their minds are free to focus on the discussed topics, as opposed to multitasking with emails or work tasks.

When there is less multitasking, there are fewer interruptions and less repetition during the meetings. Employees are also able to retain more of the information discussed in the meeting.

Promoting work-life balance and wellbeing

Trustmary invests in employees’ well-being in many other ways as well.

While companies are summoning their staff back to offices, we continue to support working from home – or anywhere in the world!

On top of typical benefits like occupational healthcare, we offer flexible working hours, a yearly budget for improving the working environment and home offices, and a bicycle benefit.

Additionally, we organize optional and fun challenges and initiatives that promote both physical and mental well-being.

For example, we organize small competitions on who takes the most steps or spends the most time outside.

Sometimes, we gather for a book club to discuss literature and share ideas not related to work.