2M-IT Made Frontline Leadership One of Its Strengths with the Help of the SLII® Model

2M-IT provides ICT solutions and related support for social welfare and healthcare across 17 wellbeing services counties, with a team of approximately 930 experts. The company was formed in 2018 through the merger of two companies, and based on the results of an employee survey at the time, frontline leadership was selected as an area for development. It was also seen as an important factor in the success of the new organization.

“Good and effective frontline leadership is essential for ensuring a positive employee experience, supporting expert work, and enabling the successful operations of the entire company,” say 2M-IT’s CEO Jari Nevalainen and HR Director Sari Rasi.

Since 2019, the company has systematically developed frontline leadership together with Educo Valmennustalo and trained managers at all levels to use Blanchard’s SLII® model in their day-to-day leadership. The use of the model has also been expanded by training experts to apply it from the perspective of self leadership. This has helped bring important SLII® leadership skills to the wider personnel and create a shared language of leadership.

“The SLII® model has been an excellent fit as a leadership model for an expert organization. It is important that our personnel know how to expect leadership that fits the situation, and that managers understand that an expert may need very different kinds of support and leadership in different situations,” says HR Director Sari Rasi.

“One of the best forms of support in expert work is good leadership from one’s own immediate manager. However, this requires effective tools, and SLII® has given us those tools. I have been pleased with the results it has brought,” continues CEO Jari Nevalainen.

Throughout the collaboration, SLII® has been part of a broader training program, for which Educo has also been responsible. Since 2019, all managers have completed this training program. There is also follow-up training that deepens frontline leadership competence, focusing on topics such as remote leadership.

“As a partner, Educo has followed and observed the development of our frontline leadership and brought forward valuable suggestions for improvement. They have been genuinely interested in supporting our frontline leadership journey. One example of this is our monthly steering group meetings, where we receive organizational-level support for leadership development and monitor results,” says HR Director Sari Rasi.

Significant Results with the SLII® Leadership Model

At the organizational level, the results of using the SLII® model have been clearly visible in the improved quality of frontline leadership. In practical frontline leadership, this has been reflected, among other things, in an increased number and improved quality of one-to-one discussions.

“In the results of our employee surveys, frontline leadership and managerial work have received clearly better feedback since we launched systematic frontline leadership training on a large scale for all our managers,” says HR Director Sari Rasi.

In autumn 2025, an organization-wide impact assessment was carried out at 2M-IT, involving the entire personnel. The assessment showed that systematic leadership training for managers, and to some extent also for other personnel, delivers significant results. The implementation of the SLII® model throughout the organization has been a key and decisive factor in this.

Improved Frontline Leadership

For 73% of managers, practical frontline leadership had measurably improved. For 27% of them, it had improved significantly or very significantly. The change in concrete leadership behavior is also confirmed by employees: as many as 79% had noticed an improvement in their own manager’s leadership, and 50% of them had noticed a significant or very significant improvement.

Better Results

Of the managers, 72% recognize that their team’s results have improved. On average, the improvement in results is estimated at 24%. Among employees, 42% say they have improved their own performance thanks to better leadership. The improvement in performance is estimated at 36%. Employee productivity was calculated to have improved by 5.7%, and this is also visible in KPI metrics.

Increased Commitment

Of the managers, 90% feel that, thanks to the training, they are more committed and motivated in their role as a manager, and 83% feel more committed to the organization.

Among employees, 74% feel that better frontline leadership has increased their commitment to their work, and 72% to their workplace. Overall, better frontline leadership has significantly increased the level of commitment among 2M-IT’s personnel. Of the entire personnel, 82% feel more committed to their work than before, and 78% feel more committed to their workplace.

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