Our team

The most important task of our team is to provide a reliable and high-quality service to the residents, which is what our close-knit and hard-working team stands for. It is definitely the people, who are the key in maintaining and growing the vitality of a company, and supportive work environment is an essential prerequisite for good performance and the staff to enjoy their work.

The number of our staff has been relatively stable in the last few years. As at the end of last year, a total of 323 people worked in AS Tallinna Vesi and its subsidiary OÜ Watercom, under employment contracts with unspecified term.

Involving the employees

We consider the involvement of our staff in the decision-making process instrumental for them to understand and be able to support the Company in its pursuits. Equal treatment of every member of staff is also something we pay close attention to. Our staff can vary to a large degree in age, nationality, nature of work and in many other aspects. This requires us to be resourceful and flexible in our communication with the staff in order to involve, engage and listen to them. This is done using several opportunities and channels of communication, such as regular staff meetings with the management, information boards, intranet, informative letters, team events and a quarterly internal newsletter.

Commitment in the team

Two-way interaction is of high importance in the team work and therefore, feedback from the employees plays an important role in the company culture. Employee commitment surveys are being carried out in our company on an annual basis. The 2015 survey gave positive results and we have managed to maintain the high level of commitment of our employees. According to the survey, our company’s score is significantly better than the Estonian average. In 2015, a record of 93% of our employees participated in the survey. We believe this is a sign of our employees understanding the importance of their feedback. The results of the survey are discussed separately in all teams to develop action plans for further improvements.

Development and succession planning

Characteristically for a stable manufacturing enterprise, the average age of the staff both in AS Tallinna Vesi and its subsidiary is high (47 years) and in larger operating units a considerable number of staff is over 50 years old. Therefore, it is of critical importance for us to take a systematic approach in working with the new generation and passing on the knowledge and experience, in order to successfully cope with the change of staff expected to occur in the coming years. We believe that the teams, containing both recently graduated people with fresh ideas and more experienced people of advanced age, make the strongest teams of all. We provide training and support to our managers to be able to effectively manage such teams. We agreed upon a good retirement practice and have a set of principles in place for spreading the know-how in a team. In 2015, we launched 2 significant succession-related programs – program for trainees and a young specialist program. This way we are able to engage young people in the activities of our company already whilst they are studying and provide them with valuable work experience and development opportunities.

We encourage our employees to continuously learn and develop themselves and we try to find development opportunities, which serve the interests of both the employees and the Company. As part of our constant development and learning process we revised the company’s training programme, which entails such integral parts as annual performance reviews, individual development programs and providing feedback. The majority of trainings concern the following areas: occupational safety, management, technical trainings, language- and computer trainings. We also inspire our staff to develop and rotate between different teams.

Occupational health and safety

Occupational safety is an inseparable part of our business, being central to everything we do. No work duty is worth getting injured for. Therefore, we are committed to ensuring a safe work environment and guarantee that our employees use equipment that meets the required standards and needs. The award “Good Working Environment 2015”, granted by the Labour Inspectorate to the Company in 2015 is an excellent demonstration of the many years of commitment and efforts made in the safety area. Last year, such award was given to two companies, who value highly the occupational health and safety of their staff.

Our Company’s work environment performance is compliant with the requirements of national legislation and international occupational health and safety management system standard OHSAS 18001. Work environment management system is based on the assessment of risks and execution of activities aimed at preventing or reducing dangerous situations. Workplaces are subject to constant internal monitoring. Furthermore, internal and external audits of the management system are carried out regularly.

Together towards occupational safety

Key aspect in creating and maintaining a safe work environment is definitely the awareness of the employees themselves. The involvement of staff in various work environment-related initiatives and activities is fundamental in improving the awareness. We organize informative gatherings, providing the staff with the opportunity to share information, but also – through discussions – make people’s behaviour and way of thinking to become more conscious, to which various informative materials are helpful, too. We also carry out work environment trainings on a regular basis. During these trainings, various topics are addressed, e.g. training and in-service training in first aid, occupational hygiene, hot works training, chlorine safety training at the Water Treatment Plant, various safety trainings for working with chemicals, machinery and electricity, and trainings on several other material topics in our work. In 2015, two larger trainings were organised in cooperation with the Rescue Board and related authorities to be prepared for and practice cooperation in major high risk situations. In spring, a rescue and pollution cleaning exercise was organised in the territory of the Water Treatment Plant, aimed at testing the readiness for large-scale rescue operations in case of a plane crash into Lake Ülemiste. In autumn, a chemical training exercise was carried out on the area of the Wastewater Treatment Plant to test the ability to react to and resolve a chemical accident caused by a leakage of chemical (methanol) in a dangerous enterprise. Systematic engagement of employees has resulted in considerably increased attention to one's work environment, which is where the occupational safety starts in the first place.

Continuous improvement of work environment

Occupational health and safety is central to everything we do, and we make absolutely no compromises in that regard. Therefore, despite the good results achieved so far, it is important not to rest on our laurels, but to carry on channelling our time and energy into maintaining a safe work environment and making further improvements therein. Safety audits carried out by the management team members across the Company since the beginning of 2015 are a good example of such improvements. To date 80% of several hundred observations have been resolved and the rest are being actively dealt with. We will definitely continue carrying such audits out also in the coming years.

In 2016, we will focus seriously on promoting a healthy life style among our staff. For example, our employees have the opportunity to use our own gyms, take yoga classes and with the help of our partners restore their energy in different sports facilities in Tallinn for special rates. Our employees can have affordable meals in our canteens, we participate in the health promotion weeks across the town and our health cabinet is there for our employees to make the measurements that are essential for good physical health.

All of the above initiatives as well as several other actions help us to gradually make our work environment safer and more comfortable. All this is part of the work environment in our company, supporting each and every one of our staff.