Meet the Experts at Reputation and Trust: Susanna Saarenpää
Expert
Hey there, who are you?
I am the mother of two adult children and the owner of two cats, and I currently live in Nokia with my spouse, my youngest child, and the aforementioned cats.
Music plays a big role in my life. I love live music, and I actively attend concerts by bands that usually play heavier music. To balance this out, I sing in the Tampere Philharmonic Choir. I’m also on the choir’s board, where I just finished my term as chair. However, my volunteer work takes up so much time that I’ll be stepping down from the board after this year and focusing solely on enjoying singing with the choir.
Culture is generally very close to my heart, and it’s probably no coincidence that I’ve had the opportunity to work with several organizations involved in the cultural sector.
In addition to my cultural hobbies, I work out regularly at the gym and try to take as good care of my physical fitness as possible.
How and when did you end up working at Reputation and Trust Analytics?
I started working as a specialist at what was then T-Media in the spring of 2021, in the midst of the pandemic, when remote work had already become the norm. During my first six months, I saw most of my colleagues only on Teams. When we finally met in person, we weren’t always sure if we’d met before or if we were just familiar with each other from the computer screen.
I ended up working here on the recommendation of a former colleague. He had already joined T-Media and recommended me when the company was looking for a new employee to focus on sales of employer reputation surveys.
In the years leading up to that, I had worked quite extensively in B2B sales, and I also had HR experience from previous years; I had worked as a staff developer and coached employees—especially customer service representatives—in customer interactions. My experience in sales and HR combined well in promoting our employer brand—though my role soon expanded beyond that. My current role is a great mix of all my areas of expertise.
What do you do and what have you done at Reputation and Trust Analytics?
My main responsibility is to help clients understand their reputation and the business implications that stem from it. So, I mainly focus on client work: I reach out to new clients and review reputation metrics with existing clients.
My client base is really diverse, which suits my personality perfectly. Overall, I really like my job.
What is the best and most inspiring part of your job?
Customers, definitely. I love meeting new people and learning from them.
My coworkers share the top spot. One of the best and most meaningful things about my job is that I get to work with great people.
In my previous roles in human resources, I spent a lot of time thinking about how to make people feel proud of their work and their workplace, and I consider this to be a truly important matter in my current job as well. I’m happy to share the results of the reputation surveys with absolutely every employee in the company—even the janitor, as my colleague pointed out.
I think it’s important that everyone involved in building our reputation—in other words, practically the entire staff—is aware of our reputation metrics. This way, everyone receives the recognition they deserve, gets to feel proud of their work, and remains committed to reputation management going forward. Reputation plays a truly central role in employees’ experience of their work and their pride in what they do.
It is extremely important that all employees understand that senior management views reputation as a key enabler of success and a competitive advantage. This will certainly increase employee engagement. No one wants to work for crooks.
Suskia was interviewed by Anu Räsänen, a communications specialist at Reputation and Trust Analytics.
