The asset management company Helsinki Capital Partners (HCP) has been honored by B Lab for its way of working, which takes into account unusually widely employees’ interests.
HCP is praised for its unusually small pay gaps between employees and for having all permanent employees own part of the company.
Communications and customer experience manager Miika Koskela bought a partnership stake in the company in spring after working at HCP for two and a half years.
”I invested in the opportunity to eat the fruits of my labor. Now that I own HCP shares, I am even more interested in the sustainability of the business and the value it creates for owners, employees, clients, and the society around us.”

Communications & Client Experience Manager Miika Koskela
HCP is also honored for its low hierarchy and openness in the work community. All projects that go on in the company are logged into its intranet, which all employees have access to. Anybody in the company can start a project whose cost is less than 10,000 euros without a supervisor’s approval.
Employees are encouraged to manage themselves. Nobody’s working hours are supervised and remote work is always allowed
Pasi Havia, an HCP portfolio manager with a background in the IT sector has made use of remote working by having his office first in Spain and now in Estonia. He considers free working hours self-evident.
”If I dug ditches for a living, keeping track of working hours might make sense – in the IT sector, not so much. Bad code does not become better by throwing more hours at it. This applies to all knowledge work.”

Fund Manager Pasi Havia
In 2017, HCP was the first company in Finland to receive B Lab’s B Corporation corporate responsibility certificate. B Corporation companies are profit-seeking firms with a mission. They seek to take into account all stakeholder groups – not just the company’s owners.
”You might compare a company to an individual person. If the entire purpose of your existence is to make profits, your life is rather poor,” comments HCP’s CEO Tommi Kemppainen.

CEO Tommi Kemppainen
B Lab, B Corp, and Best for Workers
The non-profit B Lab grants the B Corporation certificate to companies who meet extremely stringent environmental, societal, and governance criteria. The world has 3,000 B Corporations in 64 different countries and in 150 different branches of industry.
B Lab honors 10% of certified companies who take into account their employees and other stakeholder groups particularly well. HCP has already been named two years in a row as best for workers.
”Best for Workers honourees have an exceptional corporate culture, work environment, worker health and safety practices, ownership and compensation policies, and other employee-centric practices. Companies like HCP represent the kinds of impact-driven business strategies that are inclusive, regenerative, and delivers value to all stakeholders, not just shareholders,” comments Anthea Kelsick from B Lab.
The list of all honored companies: bcorporation.net/2019-best-for-the-world/