Social responsibility

Alma Media’s commitment to the 10 principles of the UN Global Compact means a clear commitment to the prevention of child labour, human trafficking and forced labour in its operations and supply chain. 

In addition Alma Media is committed to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Rights and Principles at Work, and other core international human rights conventions and recommendations. 

Alma Media adheres to multi-location work principles, which facilitate and increase flexibility in the reconciliation of individual life situations and work, and improve well-being at work. The company provides its employees with workspace, equipment, technology, support services and occupational health care to support work performance.

Competence development of own personnel

The development of competence in aconstantly changing business environment is key to securing future competitiveness. Alma Media’s HR strategy supports the Group’s business through the goal-driven development of employee competence, amongst other things. It is based on competence targets, which are defined at the team level at a minimum. The Group’s aim is to have a personal plan prepared for each employee to support the development of their competence. Goal-driven competence development is followed up on in one-on-one discussions between the supervisors and employees. Alma Media arranges training programmes that support the development of employee competence and invests in the collaborative learning of employees and knowledge sharing by organising mentoring programmes, competence workshops and theme events, amongst other things. The company takes a long-term approach to the development of managerial work and develops an international network of supervisors to support the sharing of best practices related to leadership and management. 

The employees set targets for their work annually. The targets are discussed with the supervisor to ensure their alignment with the company’s targets. This operating model is called the Performance Management Process and it applies to all of the company’s employees. The joint performance assessment takes place at the end of each year as part of the Performance Management process. 

Diversity, equality and inclusion

Alma Media’s equality plan describes the company’s commitment to promoting equality, diversity and inclusion in its work community. The company updates its units’ non-discrimination, diversity and equality plans at two-year intervals under the guidance of the HR function. The plans cover topics such as differences in pay, the justification for fixed-term employment relationships and the job-specific gender distribution in each unit. Alma Media recruits new employees purely based on their competence and aptitude.  

More than 90% of Alma Media’s number of employees were permanently employed during the year under review. Most of the employees worked full time. In 2024, the largest age group in all of Alma Media’s country units was 30–50. In Finland and Sweden, employees over 50 years of age were the second-largest group. In the other operating countries, the second-largest age group was employees under 30 years of age. 

Alma Media’s Board of Directors had seven members in 2024. Two (29%) of them were women. The average age of the members of the Board of Directors was 53 years. During that year year, Alma Media’s Group Executive Team consisted of 10 members, four (30%) of whom were women. The average age of the Group Executive Team was 55 years.  

Women accounted for 33% of supervisors in the Group as a whole and 45% of supervisors in Finland. 

Responsible media

Alma Media’s editorial teams are committed to the Council for Mass Media Guidelines for Journalists, and they comply with the principles of responsible journalism that are based on the media sector’s self-regulation. Alma’s media outlets are guided by principles that supplement the Guidelines for Journalists and are published on the media outlets’ websites. The Group’s target for the reliability and accuracy of content is that the number of condemnatory decisions of the Council for Mass Media addressed to the Group’s media must not exceed the threshold of five (5) condemnatory decisions. 

Alma Media does not receive or grant political or other contributions that could compromise its independence. The Group’s media grant discounts on advertising to non-profits and non-governmental organisations as well as parties and candidates in election advertising, and the terms of the discounts are the same for everyone.  

Our editorial teams have open and direct feedback channels for their audiences, and the media outlets’ own discussion forums facilitate active and open dialogue. In addition, financial independence ensures that Alma Media’s journalism can operate freely and be fully committed to promoting freedom of expression.  

Responsible marketing

Marketing is an integral part of the consumer’s and end-user’s media and service experience, and it affects engagement with content and services. Consumers and end-users who encounter marketing in services or content must also be able to trust the commercial content. If a consumer or end-user encounters disturbing, unethical, dishonest or false advertising, their trust in the media or service will be eroded. 

The truthfulness of marketing and preventing the misleading of consumers is a basic condition for campaigns published in the Group’s media and services. 

Alma Media complies with the legislation governing marketing as well as the marketing communications industry’s self-regulation in monitoring the advertising activities of its customers and when engaging in marketing communications for its media brands and services. The company promotes good commercial practice and complies with the marketing rules of the International Chamber of Commerce and the guidelines of the Council of Ethics in Advertising. 

Alma Media complies with the IAB Europe Transparency & Consent Framework (TCF), which increases the transparency of advertising data for consumers. This Consent Management Platform (CMP) was deployed across all of Alma’s consumer and business services in August 2020. For example, these changes make it possible to display or measure programmatically bought advertising targeted on a data-driven basis, personalise content and create advertising profiles only for users who have consented to it. Alma Media refuses to publish advertising campaigns that have deficiencies related to the collection of personal data or include content that does not correspond to ICC Code. 

The automation and internationalisation of advertising and the increasingly complex digital advertising ecosystem also require Alma Media to continuously make significant investments in maintaining a high-quality and safe media environment. Alma Media also increases advertisers’ awareness of the environmental impacts of digital advertising and the factors that influence the carbon footprint of advertising, and encourages advertisers to choose advertising solutions that have a lower environmental impact. Alma Media is the first company in Finland to enable all of its customers to measure the carbon footprint of their digital advertising. 

Secure service use, data security and data protection

Alma Media develops its online services with a long-term approach with the aim of providing consumers and advertisers with safe and versatile services with the best customer experience. The users of digital services in all of Alma Media’s operating countries can feel confident that their customer data is stored, managed and used responsibly. Alma Media assesses its performance as a responsible digital operator primarily from the perspective of the users of the Group’s services. Accordingly, the Group has selected the security of its services as the focus area of its responsibility efforts. The target in this area is that there are no serious data protection violations in the company’s online services.

Alma Media has prepared guidelines and prevention plans to enable an effective response to potential personal data breaches or technical data security incidents. These include processes for identifying, managing and investigating personal data breaches and data security incidents, and for notifying the parties concerned. When cooperating with third-party vendors or service providers, the company requires that the vendors and service providers also implement appropriate security measures. 

Alma Media organises regular training events and awareness-raising programmes for all of its employees to help them maintain a high-level understanding and awareness of data protection and data security. This helps to ensure that employees are aware of their roles and responsibilities with regard to processing and securing data. 

Green ethical service design

Alma Media has a framework for ethical and green service design. Most of Alma’s services run in cloud environments that are optimised as necessary to deliver the services as cost-efficiently and energy-efficiently as possible. The Group’s media have continued the deployment of a design system, and platforms have been updated to take accessibility requirements into account even better than before.

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Read more from the annual report.

Read also about Alma Media’s environmental responsibility and good governance.