HEALTH AND WELL-BEING

Hair is part of our identity. It expresses our own personality and lifestyle, and often also different stages in life, the peaks and the valleys. Hair care is a way of maintaining and highlighting the individual strengths of your appearance that reinforce your positive self-image and confidence.

In principle, hair is a light and fun thing. That is why it’s a shame that the beauty industry is among the most significant reasons for pressure related to the way we look: it produces advertising and imagery that is cut out for increasing our uncertainty and dissatisfaction with ourselves. Almost every hair and beauty brand tells you that you are enough and you are beautiful but also uses images of only a certain type of person, the type that fits into the very narrow mold of beauty used in their advertising.

The goal of the Four Reasons community is to break this narrow mold of beauty that we are forcefully squeezed into time and time again and help everyone feel great by being who they are.

CONSUMERS AND SOCIETY

GOALS AND INDICATORS

Four Reasons is a Finnish beauty industry rebel that stands up for diversity.

Our goal is to break the mold of beauty that we have been forcefully squeezed into over time and help everyone feel great by being who they are.

Indicator: annual brand study used to measure brand relevance for our target group

ANNUAL REPORT 2020

For us, 2020 was a year of soul-searching. We had already decided to advance ourselves to the forefront of the hair salon sector to stand up for diversity. But now we’ve stopped to think about what that actually means. What kinds of influencing opportunities do we have? And what do the members of our community expect from us?

THE NORDIC CONSUMER

To respond to these questions, we listened to those who use our products. We conducted a qualitative study in the Nordic countries and find out about consumer habits related to hair products together with consumers’ values and attitudes behind the use of the products. The study strengthened our observation that the use of hair products is linked to a daily routine with the primary purpose of “making you look like yourself”. When your hair is on point, daily life rolls a bit smoother, and it gives you that little confidence boost.

This is how consumers described their relationship with their hair:

”When my hair is looking good, it is easier to smile and feel good.” “When my hair smells good and clean, I feel good about myself.”

“My hair is an important part of my looks. It means a lot to me to take good care of it.”

We also looked into the brand advertising of the beauty and hair salon sector, and we were startled by the conflict between what we do and what we say in our industry. On the surface, it seems that all businesses in the beauty sector want to encourage people to feel beautiful in their own skin and sufficient just as they are. “You are enough.” “You are worth it.” “Diversity is beautiful.” However, the world of images built by beauty brands is a whole different kind of a reality: the industry uses models that fit a very narrow ideal of beauty, which makes the rest of us try to achieve a better version of ourselves with beauty products. Beauty products are sold as a tool for acceptance.

But the imagery of our sector represents an ideal of beauty that is utterly unattainable for the majority of people. Of course, because what we see in photos is not reality. In photos, models pose as stands for the beauty products they use, leading us to believe that if you buy this product, you will be one step closer to your beauty.

The dialogue with our consumers helped us understand how conflicted the ideas about hair and hair products of those who use the products are with the advertising produced by the players in the sector. We strongly feel that cosmetics brands and hair salon services should come down from their ivory tower of beauty ideals to the daily life of their users and provide, instead, solutions that genuinely solve daily hair problems.

ADVERTISING AS A MEANS OF INFLUENCING

In the Four Reasons brand advertising, we continued along our selected path as a promoter of diversity and self-compassion. The previous year, we organized the Puhu itsellesi kauniisti (“We Love the Real You”) campaign, which led to almost 10 000 new visitors to our website writing an encouraging aphorism for themselves. This year, we continued spreading the message of the campaign on social media and in blog content we produced.

We paid special attention to living up to our words: we chose models with personal faces who consumers can identify with and did brand collaboration with partners who share our values. We started the most significant brand collaboration with one of Finland’s most successful star singers, Saara Aalto.

We showed our support to minorities facing systematic discrimination as part of the Black Lives Matter movement by sharing antiracist information in our social media channels.

We also donated to the Mielinauha fundraising organized by MIELI Mental Health Finland to collect funds for providing acute help during the pandemic. We donated some of the profits of the Four Reasons Professional product line to charity and increased the visibility of the campaign in our media and through our hair salon customers.

Our year of soul-searching led us to the point where we understand that we still have so much to learn and an extremely high mountain to climb to make a true change in the beauty sector. But our enthusiasm for learning and developing has been ignited. We keep on developing while listening to the users of our products and responding to their needs and hopes.

ACTION PLAN FOR 2021

We admit that we are incomplete. Our goal is massive, and we continuously catch ourselves making mistakes while reaching for it. Over the years, the mold of beauty has been ingrained so deep in our brain that changing it takes tremendous courage and skill. But we are only human, always stumbling in front of this major challenge.

Every photo we post and every advertising content we distribute shapes the reality of the people around us for its part. As a corporate citizen reaching millions of people, we bear a high responsibility for the products and marketing content we produce and share. That is why our key actions for 2021 are focused on clarifying our business’s internal rules and operating principles and ensuring that they are understood and shared by all of our employees.

We want to be a rebel in the beauty industry that stands up for diversity. However, inequality and systematic discrimination of minorities are ingrained so deep in our culture and our unconscious ways of working that we require a lot more training and education to better understand the problem and to do the right thing.

As a result, 2021 will be a year of increasing understanding and internal growth. We are organizing training about inequality for our entire personnel with the goal of increasing understanding about the discrimination faced by minorities and shaking loose everyone’s own values and attitudes. We will provide indepth training for the use of the Four Reasons image concept and tone of voice aimed at breaking the mold of beauty for everyone working with content production and direct customer contact.

In our marketing communications, we are breaking the mold of beauty most visibly with the launch of the Four Reasons Original product line. The “Stay Weird” campaign encourages you to set yourself free of pressure related to the way you look and enjoy life just as weird as you are. The same theme continues on a daily basis in our social media channels, our website and in the channels of our influencer partners. In addition, the renewed product packaging of the Four Reasons Original line includes empowering messages with a twinkle in the eye that encourage users to believe in themselves and set themselves free of beauty standards also when it comes to daily hair care routines.

CUSTOMERS

Professional hair stylists play a key role in enabling the good hair days of their customers. However, a hair stylist’s work is never about only the hair: the social interaction of a hair salon visit is just as integral a part of the service experience as the hair is. You can confide in your go-to hair stylist about personal, even difficult, matters like in a close friend. Long-term, trusting customer relationships bring an enormous amount of content and significance to the work of a hair stylist. In addition to physical strain, the work of the hair stylist is often also mentally straining.

The Four Reasons principle has always been to provide professional hair stylists with extensive service – not only exceptional products but also services that support the business operations of hair stylist entrepreneurs. As a partner of professional hair stylists, we feel it’s our responsibility to ensure that hair stylists aren’t worn down by their work. Investing in well-being is particularly important in the current situation as the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the financial and mental load of hair stylists significantly.

GOALS AND INDICATORS

Our goal is to have the healthiest customers in the hair salon sector Factors contributing to well-being*: • health • financial well-being • experienced well-being

Indicator: annual survey for professional hair stylists used to measure the factors contributing to well-being, a) financial well-being b) health/work ability c) experienced well-being *Source: The Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare

ANNUAL REPORT 2020

In our operations, our goal of having the healthiest customers in the hair salon sector means that we make choices that promote the financial, physical and mental well-being and health of professional hair stylists.

HEALTH AND WORK ABILITY

We engage in continuous product development in which we pay special attention to preventing hair stylists’ occupational diseases. We try to avoid raw materials and consistencies that create allergies and skin or respiratory tract symptoms within the boundaries set by the products’ purpose of use and characteristics. Examples of the results of our development work include our fragrance-free Four Reasons Optima hair color line, our dust-free Four Reasons Bleach and our fragrance-free Four Reasons No Nothing product line developed in collaboration with the Allergy, Skin and Asthma Federation. The latter was launched in 2020.

Since the outbreak of the pandemic in spring 2020, hair salons experienced the need to pay special attention to preventing the immediate health risks of hair styling work. According to a survey we conducted in June in the hair salon sector, almost all hair salons reported making at least some changes to their safety and hygiene arrangements. The most common procedures were related to hand hygiene and more efficient cleaning. For our part, we supported the implementation of new hygiene practices in hair salons by adding cleaning and hygiene products, such as face masks, visors and hand sanitizers, in our selection and instruction our customers in how to use them.

We adapted our own business operations to minimize any immediate risk of infection related to our operations. During the early stages of the outbreak of the pandemic, we minimized customer contacts and as we got more information, we continued our normal customer work within the set safety and hygiene guidelines. We cancelled large public events and replaced them with digital trainings. The sector quickly acquired the new remote way of training: our training sessions reached more than 8,000 participants.

FINANCIAL WELL-BEING

According to a survey we conducted in June in the hair salon sector, the restrictions to prevent the spreading of COVID-19 were seen as cancelled appointments in hair salons. In the survey, about 50% of the stylists reported that their flow of customers had either severely diminished or completely dried up. However, customer flow completely drying up was rarer (12%) in hair salons with Four Reasons as their primary wholesaler (20% of other wholesalers’ customers).

Näytä, että kuuntelet.

Nyt tarvitaan lähimmäistä, joka kuuntelee. Four Reasons -kampaamot tukevat kotimaista kriisiauttamista.

Very few salons, only about one in ten by June, survived the COVID-19 crisis without financial losses. Those that survived with lesser financial damage was clearly higher (57%) among the hair salons who used Four Reasons as their primary wholesaler (47% of other wholesalers’ customers). The result can be explained by the extended payment terms we offered to our customers during the COVID-19 crisis, which was clearly less common with the customers of other wholesalers.

In addition, we alleviated the financial distress of our customers by lowering the minimum freight order and providing all of our online trainings for hair stylists free of charge. As part of our free online trainings, we provided sales and marketing training aimed at improving profitability for hair stylists.

To support the sales and digitalization of hair stylists, we launched a new online store service in the spring. It provides hair stylists the opportunity to sell hair products represented by us without committing any of their own capital in their stock. The use of the service requires that the hair stylists be Four Reasons customers but there are no extra costs: we at Four Reasons are responsible for the online store logistics, payment traffic, maintenance and development. Several hundred professional hair stylists started using the service during the first year of operations and at best, hair stylist entrepreneurs made thousands of euros without any additional charges through the service.

MENTAL/EXPERIENCED WELL-BEING

Despite their financial losses, our survey shows that nearly all hair stylists have also found a positive side to the crisis – from the perspective of leisure and work. COVID-19 forced hair stylists working long hours to stop. Almost two in three respondents saw increased free time also as a positive thing.

Almost one in two respondents were concerned about the future of their own hair salon. One in three were worried about diminishing mental well-being or finances and/or the postponement of future investments. One in five predict that their customer volumes will have been reduced in the long run as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Those with the least experience in the hair salon sector had the bleakest views of their future.

Stylists who had used their time in the spring slowed down by the pandemic to develop their business operations by means of digitalization services had a more positive view of the future than the average. Examples included starting product sales through an online store or increasing digital marketing. These were the actions we actively supported through our online store and training services.

The spring was in many hair salons a time of crisis, and we wanted to support it also on a mental level. We produced customer magazine, podcast and website content to support the mental well-being of hair stylists together with different experts, such as MIELI Mental Health Finland. We also provided a media platform for the sector’s internal interaction and peer support. We facilitated the sector’s discussion on social media in the blog of our customer magazine where we provided sector entrepreneurs space to express their views. Over the course of the year, we heard from the Managing Director of the successful Sirpa Mansner chain Nina Olander, Harri Åkerberg, who was awarded in international hair salon sector competitions, and the brand ambassador of our competitor SIM Finland Senni Koskivirta.

ACTION PLAN FOR 2021

To best respond to our customers’ needs and hopes, we are conducting a well-being survey for professional hair stylists, which we will utilize when planning our operations.

We continue our selected line as a partner promoting the financial benefit of hair stylists by offering products and services at a smart price, profitably for all parties. We are always planning new campaigns to promote hair stylists’ sales, and we promote the sales of our products in hair salons by providing sales promotion and marketing materials for hair salons free of charge. We are always growing our brand awareness, and we produce extensive visibility for our campaigns. We also hold on to the fast deliveries appreciated by our customers because they enable minimizing our customers’ capital tied down in stock.

Our network of sales consultants covers the entire country and helps hair stylists with product sales, presentation and portfolio management. For our part, we try to promote hair stylists’ work ability and coping at work by ensuring that they have the necessary tools at their disposal and the expertise to continue in their profession until retirement. In the current situation, the focus of our operations is focused on preventing the spreading of the pandemic in hair salons by ensuring that our personnel wear protective gear in contact with customers and by providing hygiene products for hair stylists to use.

Our training team guides hair stylists in the use of our products with salon trainings and video and webinar trainings that make our use and technique product trainings available to all. We will continue our freeof-charge online trainings and provide hair stylists every other week the opportunity to develop their professional expertise at no charge at all. We listen to our customers’ hopes and needs and continuously develop our training selection based on their feedback. The purpose of our trainings is to support the overall well-being of our customers.

Photo by Viivi & Wagner, Kiiminki

Photo by Starabia, Helsinki Photo by Nella Ahonen,Ylöjärven Hiuskulma

PERSONNEL

At Four Reasons, we’re more than a regular working community. We are more of a family and a band of rebels, a true motley crew. We come noisy, composed, vivacious, funny, analytical, creative, a little odd and very weird. When dozens of top talents from their respective sectors work together and really love what they do, it can be seen in the result.

We are proud of the acknowledgement we have received in our employee satisfaction survey for many years in a row: we are among Finland’s most inspiring workplaces. The PeoplePower index measured in the survey depicts employee engagement, leadership and performance that together depict personnel commitment to their work and place of work. The AAA results we reached in the survey are validated day in, day out in our daily work and encounters.

GOALS AND INDICATORS

Our goal is to be the most inspiring workplace in the Finnish beauty industry

Indicator: the PeoplePower index measured with the annual employee satisfaction survey, which measures employee commitment, leadership and performance

ANNUAL REPORT 2020

The PeoplePower index measured with an employee satisfaction survey measures employee commitment, leadership and performance in the entire organization and on the level of different departments and units. The latest employee satisfaction survey in Transmeri Group was conducted in 2019. Then, 63.6% of Miraculos personnel responded to the survey, and we reached the best AAA level in the measurement, improving our result from the previous year. We exceeded the benchmark in every section of the survey, and the result landed us an acknowledgement as one of Finland’s most inspiring workplaces. In 2020, we continued developing our work community based on the results of the employee satisfaction survey.

PERFORMANCE

When measured in performance, we did exceptionally well in the employee satisfaction survey: we reached a statistically significant difference when compared to the benchmark in almost all sections. We scored best in work arrangements and the efficiency of departments’ operations, continuous development and implementing new ways of working, competitive salary level and appropriate tools. The personnel also experienced our decision making as efficient, with minimal red tape in the business. As a development target, unclarity related to who makes the decisions on what was raised.

During the exceptional year of COVID-19, we focused especially on safeguarding the health of our employees. During the outbreak of the epidemic, we tried to anticipate our precautions and cancelled our training tour that had started in the spring and other training events, for example. We moved from the office to remote work and put in place common safety and hygiene practices for those in office and field work. We provided face masks and hand sanitizers for our personnel’s constant use free of charge. The accessibility of the Group’s occupational healthcare was further improved with remote appointments.

The pandemic wreaking uncertainty and insecurity increased the mental load of our work. On the level of the entire Group and the company, we engaged in activities to support coping at work. The occupational healthcare of the group companies was expanded to cover occupational psychologist’s services, group managers received peer support for remote management and shared remote online exercise classes were offered to employees. Departments organized remote coffee hours and discussed new communication and interaction methods for the department’s internal communications.

LEADERSHIP

According to the employee satisfaction survey, our personnel rank our business’s leadership culture very high. Compared to other com-

panies, our personnel feel more strongly that the strategy and outlook have been communicated well and changes implemented in an excellent manner. The personnel also feel that they are heard when decisions are being made that affect them and that work performance is compensated fairly and equally. When considering immediate supervisors, employees think that giving feedback on work and acknowledgement on a job well done, as well as the orientation of new duties, has been organized particularly well.

As physical distance increased, we felt it was important to pay more attention to maintaining and improving our personnel’s opportunities to participate and interact. Departments launched new remote meeting practices. We also launched a company-wide initiative box with the idea of promoting personnel to actively share their development ideas.

COMMITMENT

A high level of employee commitment can be seen in the employee satisfaction survey as an excellent employer image. According to the survey, our personnel feel that the company has developed in the right direction. Employees know the company’s values and goals and feel they are worth striving towards. Employees feel that they are treated fairly and equally and that their professional development is supported. Development targets raised in the survey included the flow of information between departments and the high stress level of the work.

In 2020, we continued to work on our internationalization strategy in close collaboration between different departments. The strategy and the development projects were communicated to the personnel as the work progressed. We also invested in the development of the company’s internal processes and inter-departmental flow of information.

ACTION PLAN FOR 2021

The year 2021 is shadowed by the global uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and concerns over our health and future. But for Four Reasons, this is a year of significant development investments and building our future. We won’t hit the brakes, on the contrary: we’ll put the pedal to the metal.

The COVID-19 pandemic is creating a serious health threat in the entire society, which we will take into account by keeping up with the safety and hygiene practices we implemented last year together with our expanded occupational healthcare services. We are looking after our personnel’s coping at work by paying special attention to departments’ internal interaction and immediate managerial work.

The significance of leadership and managerial work is emphasized even further under exceptional circumstances. We want to invest in an excellent managerial work and provide those in managerial roles the opportunity to attend a training program aiming at the completion of the specialist vocational qualification in business management. We will also continue the peer support groups for managers organized by HR.

In addition to managers, all employees have the opportunity to further educate themselves. The Transmeri Group Academy provides a diverse training selection, and the personnel have their say in the courses available. In addition to joint trainings, we support individual training needs that are charted in the performance reviews with managers.

In 2021, we will determinately further the company’s development projects aiming at the future. The most significant of these are implementing our new brand strategy, system development projects aimed at digitizing our processes and improving our distributor cooperation. These development projects help us to provide the best service for our customers in the future and to create preconditions for growing our business outside the Finnish borders.