Environmental & Social Information • Apr 20, 2023
Environmental & Social Information
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MAKING
LEARNING
AWESOME
29
NORWEGIAN TRANSPARENCY ACT REPORT
Contained within this document is an overview of the impact of Kahoot! ASA's ("Kahoot!" and together with its subsidiaries, the "Group") corporate social responsibility efforts, initiatives, and policies concerning our users, our people, the environment, and the UN Global Compact sustainable development goals ("SDG"). Additionally included herein is our Equality Report, and stated ambitions for the Group's sustained development across those primary focus areas.
The Board of Directors has the overall responsibility for aligning Kahoot!'s strategy with environmental, social and governance ("ESG") considerations, while the day-to-day responsibility lies with the chief executive officer (CEO), supported by executive management.
This Stakeholder Impact Report refers to the financial year of 2022 and covers Kahoot! ASA specifically, unless otherwise noted in this report. The contents of this report complies with the Norwegian Accounting Act section 3-3c, chapter 4 of the Gender Equality and Discriminatory Act (Norwegian: "Aktivitets- og redegjørelsesplikten") and the Norwegian Transparency Act.
Since its launch, Kahoot! has been played by more than 9 billion non-unique participants. Touching millions of lives every year, our reach and impact brings with it a comprehensive share of responsibilities across some of the most critical conversations in global discourse, from data privacy to human rights, climate to equality, and labor to misinformation. During 2022 we introduced a series of additional measures to further improve our routines on these important topics.
Along with our commitment to the The Ten Principles of the UN Global Compact and the realization of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals, the Kahoot! Group will continue to engage, collaborate, and support educators, students, partners, and ambassadors around the world in addressing and progressing the global agenda to innovate solutions, extend access and empower generations of learners.
EILERT HANOA, CEO OF KAHOOT!
Kahoot! was founded on the fundamental idea of making learning awesome for everyone. Our passion for empowering education globally across all learning demographics has been in our DNA since day one.
Though 2022 saw millions of lives and businesses being affected by a macroeconomic slowdown, growing inflation and a volatile geo-political situation, the need for lifelong learning stands strong. Throughout the year, we at Kahoot! continued our efforts to make engaging learning available for everyone, including for those in particularly challenging situations, through special
initiatives such as the Support Ukraine campaign and Kahoot! EDU Support Program — providing free Kahoot! site licenses for schools impacted by the global teacher shortage and war in Ukraine. Another important step in making learning more inclusive during the year was our participation in the LEGO Foundation's first Play for All Accelerator, with a mission to support neurodivergent children around the world through innovation in playful learning.
Kahoot! is a global educational technology ("EdTech") and enterprise software-as-a-service ("SaaS") group that develops a digital learning and engagement platform, additionally encompassing the single sign-on portal, Clever, since 2021. Our primary focus is on developing a comprehensive offering of engaging learning tools for enterprises, the educational sector, as well as for personal users. The Kahoot! platform enables everyone who uses it to unlock their full potential through learning.
The Kahoot! Group's offerings are inherently versatile, enabling multiple use cases in a variety of learning contexts, and thus supporting growth in several different directions simultaneously. Included within the portfolio is a tailored product and content offering directed to all user groups, which has been steadily expanded through organic development, strategic partnerships and non-organic growth throughout 2022.
The Commercial category includes Kahoot!, a leading audience engagement solution used in 97% of Fortune 500 companies, Motimate, a modern complete training solution, and Actimo, an employee communication and engagement app with particular focus on non-desk workers. Kahoot!'s Commercial offerings help corporate customers engage employees and build company culture by delivering easy to use, unique training and communication experiences, across entire organizations.
The Education category includes Kahoot!, the leading learning and engagement tool for teachers and students, and Clever, the market leading single sign-on portal for teachers and students in K-12 US. Over 8 million educators across the world use Kahoot!'s learning tools to make learning awesome for hundreds of millions of students across thousands of schools, campuses, universities and districts.
The Consumer & Experience category includes Kahoot!'s learning platform, awardwinning learning apps like Poio, DragonBox, Drops, and premium learning content from world leading publishers and brands. These offerings enable hundreds of millions of participants, including children, students and families, to connect and learn in an engaging way, either through selfstudy or live sessions for learning, family fun and social settings.
FACTS AND FIGURES
9B N O N - U N I Q U E P A R T I C I P A N T S O N T H E K A H O O T ! P L A T F O R M SINCE 2013
I N V O I C E D R E V E N U E (BILLINGS) FOR 2022
P A R T I C I P A N T S O N T H E K A H O O T ! PLATFORM IN 2022
U S E R - G E N E R A T E D KAHOOTS
PAID SUBSCRIPTIONS
~26M
A C T I V E A C C O U N T S I N 2 0 2 2 O N T H E KAHOOT! PLATFORM
C O U N T R I E S A N D REGIONS
8M+
E D U C A T O R S O N T H E K A H O O T ! PLATFORM IN 2022
Stakeholder impact report 2022 6
Since 2021, the Kahoot! Group has been a proud member of the UN Global Compact, a sustainability network that gathers business leaders across the globe. As an active member, we are committed to working determinedly and systematically in the areas of human rights, labor standards, the environment and anti-corruption, and have initiated a number of measures to ensure that Global Compact's Ten Principles become a part of our day-to-day work, our culture and strategy. As part of this global network of businesses supporting the most vital sustainable business practices, we are reinforcing our commitments as a responsible company and will report out our Communication on Progress on the Ten Principles according to the guidelines of the United Nations Global Compact.
As a growth company, Kahoot! acknowledges both its increasing responsibilities and the opportunity to contribute to positive societal impact in those areas where we can have the most tangibly positive effect.
Based on our internal risk and opportunity assessment, we have identified our main priorities with regards to continuing to ensure sustainable growth through the Kahoot! platform and contribute to a positive impact on the society around us.
Support lifelong learning for everyone
Create an awesome workplace
Support a greener future
At Kahoot!, we believe in the power of knowledge and learning. Through our platforms, we are committed to making learning engaging and inclusive for all learners across the globe.
268M
H O S T E D L E A R N I N G S E S S I O N S I N 2 0 2 2 O N T H E K A H O O T ! PLATFORM
A C T I V E A C C O U N T S O N T H E K A H O O T ! PLATFORM
N O N - U N I Q U E PARTICIPANTS IN 2022 O N T H E K A H O O T ! PLATFORM
17
L A N G U A G E S
A V A I L A B L E O N T H E KAHOOT! PLATFORM
M O N T H L Y A C T I V E S T U D E N T S O N CLEVER PLATFORM
8M+
A C T I V E E D U C A T O R S O N T H E K A H O O T ! PLATFORM
New research, using data from 253 seventhgraders who played DragonBox as a part of technology intervention, shows that among students with higher prior algebraic knowledge, higher in-game progress was related to higher algebraic knowledge after the intervention. Higher in-game progress was also associated with higher end-of-year mathematics achievement, and this association was stronger among students with lower prior mathematics achievement.
Read more about the research here
Education plays a vital role in our lives and is the key to achieving a sustainable future. Quality education can enable people to break from the cycle of poverty, to reduce inequalities and to reach gender equality. It empowers people to live more healthy and sustainable lives. Education is also crucial to fostering tolerance between people and contributes to more peaceful societies
Sustainable Development Goal 4, to ensure inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning, goes hand in hand with Kahoot!'s mission — to make learning awesome.
We are all about lifelong learning. We believe that in life, we learn new skills through curiosity and play. And by combining the two, in a fun and social way, we can unlock the learning potential within all of us, no matter the subject, age or ability. Unleashing this potential
within every learner is what drives us, which is why we are on a mission to make learning awesome. We do this by creating engaging and impactful experiences for our users, and through our vision of building the leading learning platform in the world.
Since its launch in 2013, Kahoot! has hosted hundreds of millions of learning sessions with more than 9 billion participants (non-unique) in more than 200 countries and regions. In 2022 alone, we hosted over 268 million learning sessions on the core Kahoot! platform.
With the Kahoot! Group's diverse suite of learning tools, we are positioned with a unique opportunity to contribute across the education spectrum. The Kahoot! Group contributes to literacy, numeracy, overcoming language barriers, making learning more inclusive, and ensuring that learners acquire knowledge to promote sustainable development.
Kahoot! supports quality education through its core platform, as well as through awardwinning math and learn-to-read apps by DragonBox and Poio, the Drops language learning apps, which make language learning natural with immersive visuals and play, Whiteboard.fi, the interactive whiteboard tool which engages students to participate, share and collaborate in class and virtually, Motimate and Actimo, fun and easy tools for employee learning and engagement, and Clever, the single sign-on platform with over 890 EdTech apps available. Kahoot! is on a mission to make learning awesome by building the world's largest sustainable learning community so that children and adults of any background may learn through engagement.
As part of our mission to make learning awesome, we're committed to keeping Kahoot! free for teachers and students all over the world. We also make our Kahoot! for business plans available for registered nonprofits at a substantial discount. We are equally pleased that anyone in the world can download Drops for free and begin learning a new language.
Teacher shortages and the uncertainties caused by the pandemic impacted the learning journeys of millions of students worldwide.
To help schools overcome teaching staff shortages worldwide, Kahoot! at the beginning of 2022 launched the new Kahoot! EDU Support Program, offering a free 60-day site license for all staff members in any school or district. With access to ready-to-use content created by Kahoot! Verified educators and premium partners, teachers were able to save time creating engaging lessons for in-person or virtual classrooms.
We know that play can transform learning, teaching and assessment — helping learners to discover and develop their strengths, connect with others, gain confidence and build 21st century skills.
In spring 2022, Kahoot! was selected to take part in the LEGO Foundation's inaugural Play for All Accelerator, a grant and mentorship program designed to spark innovation that celebrates the strengths of neurodivergent children and fosters more inclusive learning through play.
Together with the LEGO Foundation, we are designing new offerings with neurodiversity in mind to ensure that playful learning experiences are flexible, adaptable and inclusive. The approach is vital for learners with special needs, but will benefit all learners.
The Kahoot! Group continues to support SDG 9 (Industry, innovation and infrastructure) by contributing to a positive change in the education industry through the development of a digital infrastructure for learning and engagement.
We also support SDG 11 (Sustainable cities and communities) by scaling up our digital infrastructure with stronger enablement of virtual and hybrid connectedness for teachers, students, families and colleagues throughout the world, contributing to a reduction in the typical levels of travel necessary for millions of educators, learners and professionals globally.
A priority close to our hearts in 2022 was our Support Ukraine campaign. In addition to supporting our Ukrainian colleagues in the Kahoot! Group, we made donations to organizations on the ground and set up a donation page where any of our users can give. We also responded to the critical need to ensure students in the country can continue learning by offering free Kahoot! EDU licenses to teachers and schools in Ukraine. At the same time, we added Ukrainian language support on Kahoot! and released new content to help learners all over the world discover more about the history, people and culture of Ukraine.
CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
Kahoot! aims to foster partnerships with organizations and institutions that share our vision for positive social impact and can offer content we believe is important to our learners, including the youth audience our future game-changers.
In close collaboration with a large number of highly respected partners on the important topics of human rights, children's rights, bullying prevention, cyberbullying & online safety, diversity and inclusion, inspiring women in history, the dangers of drugs and alcohol use and sustainability, we've been able to engage millions of learners and their educators around the world.
Kahoot! is collaborating with the United Nations to reach the youth audience and drive engagement with a series of kahoot games on global issues and challenges such as health, a growing and aging world population, global trends in violence and conflict resolution, and the challenges and opportunities of modern technology and growing inequality.
To help make the topic of climate change more accessible and engaging for learners of all ages, Kahoot! partnered up with Rovio Entertainment, bringing their much-loved Angry Birds flock (and pigs too!) to a new collection of games on Kahoot! Academy. The collection invites users to test their knowledge and learn something new about climate change while flying high with beloved Angry Birds characters, and has proved itself highly engaging.
A lifelong love of nature begins with being curious about the world around us! This is why Kahoot! and World Wildlife Fund's Wild Classroom has partnered up to offer a collection of kahoots that allow students to explore biodiversity in ecosystems around the world, as well as investigate why it's important, where it's at risk and how we can protect it.
Together with Marine Stewardship Council, we invite our users to test their knowledge and learn about ocean conservation, marine species and seafood around the world. The quizzes focus on ocean literacy, supporting students to build their awareness of the important roles our ocean plays in our lives, and how we can look after it.
The employees are at the heart of Kahoot!. We are committed to making our company an awesome place to work for all our employees — the K!rew — and we want to foster an attractive and fulfilling environment offering exciting opportunities and varied careers. We treat our employees with respect and bring our mission to life through a diverse and inclusive workforce.
Average age in the Kahoot! Group: 35
All full time employees and selected contractors participate in the Groups Equity incentive
programme
Number of employee full time equivalents were 462 for the Group
Over 98% of the employees in Kahoot! Group work full-time
Nationalities across the
Average tenure across the Kahoot! Group: 2.5 years
Kahoot! Group: 50+
Distribution of employees by gender for the Group -Women 49% -Men 51%
Governance
Gender distribution in the Kahoot! Board of Directors: - Women 43% - Men 57%
Gender distribution in Kahoot! Group Management: - Women 35% - Men 65%
Sick leave (absenteeism) in Kahoot! ASA: less than 2%
Number of reported accidents at the Workplace: 0
Compliance concerns raised through internal channels: 0
Our mission — to make learning awesome is our guiding star at Kahoot!. This is the core motivation for each of us, and every day we're privileged to witness the countless ways our K!rew together can positively impact the lives of millions of people around the world.
To make that happen, we rely on the skills, commitment and creativity of our employees. We strive to support them in their work by building a warm, welcoming and supportive workplace that enables them to exercise all of their unique talents to the best possible degree.
That enablement takes place in multiple ways from social initiatives that support their mental wellbeing and happiness, financial support for home offices, and progressive labor and hiring policies that ensure a work environment that reflects the progressive, modern societies where we operate.
Underpinning all of this are three vital elements of common understanding and our approach to company culture: our values.
CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
With more than 9 billion non-unique cumulative participants since launch across 200 countries and regions, Kahoot! has a uniquely global reach. With such a diverse audience using our platform and products, we believe it's essential that this is reflected in our organization. The inclusive nature of Kahoot! begins with our hiring practices, our openness to new ideas and making sure all team members can be heard.
The Kahoot! core offering has been playful by nature since day one, and the same playfulness is reflected in our company culture — how we interact and work together, the wide selection of social activities for our employees and our onboarding of new employees using selfie-kahoots.
The pace of innovation never rests. That's why one of our anchoring values is curiosity. We are, in a good way, obsessed with how people engage audiences and empower learning. That inherent curiosity fuels our work across the entire organization. In real terms, it drives us to develop our talents through continuous learning, but it also means that we're always focused on finding solutions together. Because most of the time, the best way to learn is from each other.
By creating a respectful, supportive environment in which our employees feel free to be their best selves, we empower them to make learning awesome.
We believe that our diverse team is crucial to our success and global reach. Without the inclusion of different and varied voices, knowledge, experiences and abilities, we would not be able to create awesome learning experiences for our varied user base.
At Kahoot! we have always taken pride in having a people-oriented company culture, promoting a good work/life balance and flexibility, including respect for working hours, and being mindful about time zones.
Employee health and safety is fundamental not only for our people, but also for building a sustainable organization and driving our market performance. We care for the health and safety of our employees by ensuring routines for internal control and development of the company's psychosocial and physical work environment.
Our efforts include regular physical and virtual social events, financial support for home office set-ups, as well as webinars on mental health and ergonomic bestpractice. We have provided financial support for employee sporting communities and Norwegian language classes, and continue developing our health and safety policies.
As a part of our commitment to being an awesome place to work, Kahoot! invested substantially in our office facilities during 2022, including new and improved offices in Barcelona, Copenhagen, Austin, Krakow and our headquarters in Oslo. We will continue upgrading our facilities around the world in the years to come.
During 2022 there were no reported incidents of non-compliance with our Code of Conduct.
We align our approach to talent acquisition and retention with our business strategy, mission and values, so that our company and our people share the same goals.
As our global reach and offerings have grown, so has our K!rew of talented professionals. Our people are passionate about putting magical learning moments at everyone's fingertips. We take pride in the recruitment and hiring process, which is where a new K!rew member gets their first introduction to the Kahoot! company culture.
Hiring in Kahoot! is done on a global level and remote employees are treated like every other onsite employee. Our approach to hiring has been crucial not only in growing a global team, but in making it thrive. We apply a lean and standardized process for all candidates, while striving for continuous improvement to ensure that all candidates feel empowered to apply, regardless of gender or background.
Integral to the essence of our company culture is the empowering of employees to pursue their own professional development. We are pleased to have a robust internal jobs market while enabling many of our team members to advance into more senior roles, continuing their career progression within Kahoot!. In 2022 we introduced an improved annual performance review process for all employees to appraise our talents, enable them to grow, and identify employees who are at risk of leaving the company.
Kahoot! aims to be a purposeful and awesome place to work and applies the highest standards for working conditions. This includes;
These standards are reflected in international and local laws, as well as our external and internal guidelines and policies
Over the past years, the Kahoot! Group has grown substantially, both organically and through acquisitions, and we now have team members working from all over the world. To build company culture and ensure organizational and strategic alignment across the Group, we hosted our Company Gathering in Oslo in 2022. The event included inspirational speeches, workshops, teambuilding sessions and social activities empowering our people to deliver even more impactful learning together. What's next:
We are committed to conducting our business with honesty, integrity, accountability and transparency. We expect all staff to maintain high ethical standards and comply with our policies, procedures and values. Anyone in Kahoot! has a right to report censurable conditions at the workplace and Kahoot! encourages our staff to voice their concerns when discovering information that may imply serious malpractice or other censurable conditions in our organization.
All the Kahoot! Group companies have implemented a Whistleblowing policy and a channel for employees to voice their concerns.
Kahoot! is dedicated to carrying out its operations in an equitable and accountable way, with the goal of upholding the highest standards in all of our endeavors. We prioritize the well-being of our users by providing a secure setting for learning and safeguarding their privacy and security.
Kahoot! is dedicated to protecting the integrity of our Platform as a safe environment that makes learning awesome for all of our users around the world and values the creativity and free expression of our users and contributors. At the same time, we recognize how important it is for Kahoot! to be a place for facts, safety, privacy and dignity. Therefore, Kahoot! reserves the right to remove or disable access to any user content that breaches our policies, values, or standards. We may suspend users who don't respect our rules. In 2022, we continued to uphold several safety and moderation efforts to help us keep content safe, including but not limited to trained moderators, user flagging and reporting, allow/deny listing on content and/or nicknames, customer service response and a safe nickname generator. Going forward, we will continue to strengthen our efforts in ensuring safe content taking additional steps to further automate processes.
Our Editorial Guidelines, Terms and Conditions and Acceptable Use Policy regulates the content and use of Kahoot!. All users shall know and comply with these standards. For more, read our safety guide for content on Kahoot!
The verification process for content creators, including educators and other learning providers, supports the discovery of quality content for our users. Kahoot! verifies creators by subjecting their profiles and content to multiple assessments for accuracy and quality. Verified creators' content is then designated with a distinctive blue checkmark, which enables users to easily identify high-quality content on Kahoot!.
For more information, see Kahoot! Academy
CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
At Kahoot!, we hold our users' privacy and data protection in high regard. It is our commitment to ensure that all our users, be it corporate users, educators, students or users at home, are provided with compliant and high-standard privacy and security protection. We maintain transparency in our data processing, and all of the privacy policies of the Group companies are available on their respective websites. We have stringent requirements for our subcontractors to ensure compliance with our data security standards. In 2022, Kahoot! had no breaches of customer data.
In 2022, we continued to strengthen our privacy and security standards through attainment of ISO 27001 certification, obtaining a SOC 2 report that adheres to the security standards of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, and successfully completing annual recertification.
Kahoot! remains committed to comply with relevant privacy laws, including but not limited to the General Data Protection Regulation ("GDPR"), the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act ("FERPA") and the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act ("COPPA") where applicable. Read more about our privacy and data security standards in the Kahoot! Trust Center
In 2022, we have further strengthened our efforts to ensure the safety and security of our users. This entails implementing several security controls throughout the development process, including secure development with automated and manual code testing, penetration testing, and testing the security of the code when it is live. These measures have enabled us to identify and address potential security issues at various stages of development, resulting in improved error detection and enhanced security for the company and our users.
We have further enhanced our engineers training and development, by providing tailored security training based on findings on our platform. By addressing potential issues proactively, we have been able to eliminate a significant number of vulnerabilities and improve our security posture.
Kahoot! does not collect, retain, use or share students' personal information, except as necessary for authorized school purposes, at the direction of our school and school district customers. Without limitation, this means that:
• We do not sell students' personal information.
Read more in our Student Privacy Policy
Maintaining a high standard of business ethics and preventing corruption and bribery is a top priority for Kahoot! Group. We are committed to conducting our operations with integrity and transparency, and to upholding the laws and regulations in all jurisdictions where we operate.
Kahoot! Group maintains a strict stance against any acts of bribery or corruption. We are committed to conducting all business activities in a professional, fair, and ethical manner, regardless of the jurisdiction. We believe in promoting healthy competition and rejecting all forms of corruption.
Kahoot! Group fully acknowledges that corrupt practices pose a threat to the entire industry, and we do not tolerate any offering, giving, asking for, accepting, or receiving of bribes in any way.
Please see our Anti-Corruption Policy for further details. The Anti-Corruption Policy applies to all companies within Kahoot! Group, all employees and representatives of the Kahoot! Group, as well as Kahoot! Group's agents and subcontractors.
Kahoot! supports and respects internationally proclaimed human rights. We expect ethical behavior in every aspect of the Group companies' processes and professional relationships. Violation or noncompliance of legal rules, written ethical guidelines or ethical norms are handled in accordance with Group procedure and may involve liability under labor, criminal and tort law. This applies to any person that is employed by, delivers work or services to or is otherwise engaged with the Kahoot! Group.
Kahoot! follows up human rights issues through risk assessments and audit programs.
For more information, see separate section on Norwegian Transparency Act Report on page 29.
SDG contributions:
At Kahoot!, we recognize the need to address climate change and its potential impacts on our business, as well as the wider world. We are committed to taking responsibility for our environmental impact and promoting innovative learning solutions to support a greener future.
We are committed to doing our part to reduce our environmental footprint and promote environmentally friendly practices. Our focus is on developing and diffusing technologies that enable virtual and hybrid
connectedness for educators, learners and professionals worldwide, reducing the need for unnecessary travel. We also believe in the power of education to drive positive change and have developed effective tools that help promote awareness and knowledge of environmental topics in engaging ways. We are dedicated to using our platform to make a positive impact on the environment through our products and services.
Stakeholder impact report 2022 22
Our digital footprint
As a provider of digital services, Kahoot! recognizes our responsibility to review and reduce our digital footprint and carbon emissions through sustainable practices and renewable energy sources in order to minimize the environmental impact of our operations. To reduce our environmental footprint, we are committed to utilizing energy-efficient technologies and partnering with cloudbased external data center providers that prioritize renewable energy sources, more about our hosting providers.
During 2022, Kahoot! has successfully embedded environmental considerations in assessment and decision-making processes, with a focus on energy usage, travel, recycling and working environment. We have also continued our partnerships and upheld content to raise awareness of climate change among our global audience. Kahoot! will continue to work towards reducing our environmental impact while supporting positive change through our products and services and prioritize environmental aspects related to procurement of office supplies, waste management, energy consumption
and recycling.
This equality report complies with Kahoot! ASA's requirements to report on its activities pursuant to chapter 4 of the Gender Equality and Discriminatory Act (Norwegian: "Aktivitets- og redegjørelsesplikten"). The following includes details of Kahoot! ASA's current gender equality status on a set of different parameters, an assessment of potential risks of discrimination or obstacles to equality, in addition to an assessment of what has been done so far and what is planned in the future to improve diversity, equality and inclusion. The reporting includes figures and assessment for employees in Kahoot! ASA only, and not its employees in the subsidiaries, unless otherwise stated.
For the purposes of reporting, employees have been allocated to management levels from 1 to 5 (1 being CEO, and employees reporting to the CEO) based on their level of responsibility, experience and competence. These levels have been agreed by management and the employee representative in the Board of Directors as the most appropriate way to report statistics in this report to ensure that we are identifying equal pay for equal job value.
Level 1 represents the CEO and persons reporting directly to the CEO that are employed in Kahoot! ASA. The people in the Kahoot! Group leadership team that are not employed by the parent company are not part of the data set.
Gender balance is shown as the percentage of women and men per level. Of 104 employees in Kahoot! ASA, 36% are women and 64% are men. For the Kahoot! Group, the distribution of gender is 49% women and 51% men. The Kahoot! Group leadership team has a gender balance of 35% women and 65% men.
| Level 1 | 27% 3 | 73% 8 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Level 2 | 27% 4 | 73% 11 | |
| Level 3 | 25% 5 | 75% 15 | |
| Level 4 | 26% 9 | 74% 25 | |
| Level 5 | 67% 16 | 33% 8 | |
| Women Men |
Salary is shown as women's salary compared to men's salary at each level to assess equal pay for equal value of work. Certain levels where there are fewer than five persons of each gender at that particular level will not be reported due to privacy issues. This is relevant to Kahoot! ASA as Level 1 and Level 2 have fewer than five persons of each gender, and the rest of the levels have five or more persons for each gender. These differences in salary are described in more general terms in the statement below. The figures include base salary as stated in the employees' contract and actual paid-out bonus, where applicable. For level 1 and 2, the average salary for women was lower than for men.
All employees are included in the Company's share option program. For the new starters included in the program during 2022, women and men are granted an equal number of options based on objective criteria such as level and position.
Seven women who had the right to parental leave took a combined total of 93 weeks of such leave in 2022. Fourteen men who had the right to parental leave took a combined total of 114 weeks of such leave in 2022.
The average number of weeks women and men were on parental leave
As of 31 December 2022, there was one part-time employee at Kahoot! ASA, and no involuntary part-time employees.
The company makes consistent and determined efforts to promote equality and diversity while preventing any form of discrimination or harassment. The following initiatives highlight Kahoot!'s commitment:
Equal pay for the same work is a main criteria in both the recruitment and salary adjustment processes - Kahoot! performs regular due diligence to make sure these procedures are performed in line with our guidelines.
Kahoot! follows a standardized recruitment process, with a structured interview and follow-up procedure equal to all candidates.
• The Kahoot! Group has a diverse composition of team members with backgrounds from over 50 nationalities working across the globe. Our working language is English which enables global hiring and thereby continuing to contribute to diversity and inclusion.
The Kahoot! Group aims to become an attractive employer in the global talent market and ensure the most suitable people for the right tasks and roles to serve the diversity of the global market, and multiple audiences. Like the wider technology industry, balanced gender equality across all functions is a focus area. Kahoot! recognizes that an inclusive environment is crucial for attracting and retaining top talent and for encouraging everyone to perform at their best. The company also acknowledges the significance of having diverse teams in creating and delivering products that are relevant, inclusive, and engaging to a diverse user base. With over 50 nationalities represented among its team members, Kahoot! values cultural diversity as an essential factor.
Read more about our efforts to create an awesome workplace from page 13-18 in this report.
Potential risk: Ability to attract top talent across all departments.
Attracting and retaining top talent is critical for the success of any organization, and remains a key focus area throughout the Kahoot! Group. By focusing on attracting top talent irrespective of genders, cultures, ages and backgrounds, Kahoot! can tap into a wider pool of highly skilled and talented individuals who can help drive innovation, creativity, and growth.
Potential risk: Work-life balance in a high performing environment with ambitious targets
As a company, we set ambitious targets for our employees to drive performance and motivation. However, we recognize the importance of maintaining worklife balance and the potential risks associated with an imbalance. To address this, we prioritize employee well-being by offering flexible schedules, remote work options, and social activities. By promoting a healthy work-life balance, we aim to foster a positive and productive workplace culture, increase employee satisfaction, and retain valuable talent.
Potential risk: Salary gap between genders
The salary gap between genders is likely caused by an overrepresentation of men in senior positions such as Level 1, as well as line personnel (operational work) as opposed to enablers (support work). Equal pay for the same position is a main criteria in both the recruitment and salary adjustment processes and Kahoot! performs regular due diligence to make sure these procedures are performed in line with our guidelines. We will continue to work towards attracting top talent, irrespective of gender, across all functions, and ensure that they receive equal pay for equal work.
We have systems and routines for notifying censurable conditions. Censurable conditions are understood as conditions in breach of laws and regulations, internal guidelines and/ or ethics, or a common understanding of what is acceptable. This includes, but is not limited to, threats to life or health, corruption, unacceptable physical or psychological working environment (such as harassment), or breaches of the law. A notification can always be given anonymously and is protected from retaliation by law. Please see our comment on our Whistleblowing policy included on page 18.
We are basing the working environment of Kahoot! ASA on a foundation of inclusiveness, which is one of our core values. As it relates to the way of working, the general sentiment among our employees is that they prefer a combination of physical presence at the office and options to work remotely. As a result, we have formalized a Work From Home Policy. This provides flexibility for the employees and their managers to decide their optimal way of working on a continuous basis. The company recommends being at the office to continue to develop the inclusive corporate culture. By providing our team members with the flexibility of options to work remotely, we are ensuring that no one is disadvantaged or excluded from the opportunity to contribute to our team. We also prioritize inclusiveness in our office buildings, which are designed to be accessible and welcoming to individuals of all abilities. Our commitment to inclusiveness is further reinforced through social events and collaborative activities, which help to build
stronger relationships and foster a sense of belonging among all team members.
Other work environment measures including performing regular pulse survey checks to employees to gather continuous feedback regarding their engagement, job satisfaction, and overall well-being and continue to improve our onboarding and offboarding processes through training of all people managers.
As of 31 December 2022, there are 36% women and 64% men out of 104 employees in Kahoot! ASA. This represents a slight shift in gender balance from the previous reporting period, up from 33% women and 67% men. In the Kahoot! Group, which represents a more complete overview of the state of the organization, the gender balance is 49% women and 51% men, which stands out well compared to the overall tech industry. Level 1 (CEO and personnel reporting to the CEO) were as of 31 December 2022 73% men, which is in line with the overall gender balance in Kahoot! ASA for levels 2-4, and the overall gender balance in the tech industry. The reason for this is that a considerable number of tech employee roles are represented in these levels, and the majority of our tech personnel are men. For level 5, the gender balance is 67% women and 33% men. Kahoot! Group has established leadership structures including a broader involvement of leaders, and will continue to ensure gender balance across all functions and levels.
Women earn approximately 80% of men's salary across all levels of Kahoot! ASA.
There is a salary gap of approximately 15% on average between men and women at level 1-3, where women earn on average less than men. The cause of this discrepancy can be attributed to a greater difference in seniority, experience, and tenure within these levels. For level 4 and 5, we saw a shift from 2021 to 2022, from women earning on average 92% of men's average salary on level 5 in 2021, to men earning on average 97% of women's average salary in 2022. Equally, level 4 has shifted from women earning on average 3% less than men, to men earning on average 2% less than women. This shows that there is no structural discrimination of gender when it comes to salary, and we continue our focus on equal pay for equal work throughout the organization.
The focus of our own efforts, as well as what we are legally required (and allowed) to measure and report, have been focused on gender. We are encouraged by the current status to continue our initiatives and diversity efforts. Going forward, we will continue to ensure diversity on a variety of dimensions, being nationality, age, gender, experience, or culture.
Kahoot! ASA and its affiliated companies (The Kahoot! Group/The Group) are subject to the Norwegian Transparency Act.
The Transparency Act shall promote enterprises' respect for fundamental human rights and decent working conditions in connection with the production of goods and the provision of services. Further, the Transparency Act aims to ensure the general public access to information regarding how the enterprises address adverse impacts on fundamental human rights and decent working conditions.
By way of due diligence in accordance with the OECD guidelines for multinational enterprises, the Group identifies risks for adverse impact, implements measures, monitors and communicates with stakeholders to ensure respect for human rights and decent working conditions.
See page 6 for a description of the Kahoot! business model.
Guidelines and procedures for handling actual and potential adverse impacts on fundamental human rights and decent working conditions
In The Kahoot! Group we believe that technology should be used as a force for good in society, to promote engaging learning experiences that empower people across demographics and geographics.
We care for our own people, the K!rew, for people in our value chain, and for our users. Our approach to advancing human rights incorporates international laws, principles, and norms, further supported by our own policies, guidelines and standards to ensure responsible operations.
Our Code of Conduct establishes appropriate standards of behavior in key areas for all our employees.
Supporting and respecting internationally proclaimed human rights is an absolute for The Kahoot! Group, and we do not accept any exemptions to this for whatever reason. We expect ethical behavior in every aspect of the Group companies' processes and professional relationships. Violation or non-compliance of legal rules, written ethical guidelines or ethical norms are handled in accordance with Group procedure and may involve liability under labor, criminal and tort law. This applies to any person that is employed by, delivers work or services to or is otherwise engaged with The Group.
Kahoot! follows up human rights issues through risk assessments and audit programs.
Kahoot! aims to be a purposeful and awesome place to work and applies the highest standards for working conditions. This includes;
personal characteristics not related to their merit or inherent requirements of the job.
These standards are reflected in international and local laws, as well as our external and internal guidelines and policies.
We are committed to conducting our business with honesty, integrity, accountability and transparency. We expect all staff to maintain high ethical standards and comply with our policies, procedures and values. Anyone in Kahoot! has a right to report censurable conditions at the workplace and Kahoot! encourages our staff to voice their concerns when discovering information that may imply serious malpractice or other censurable conditions in our organization.
All the Kahoot! Group companies have implemented a Whistleblowing policy and a channel for employees to voice their concerns.
The Kahoot Group has adopted a risk-based approach to the prevention of human rights violations and corruption in our business and value chain. In doing so, we have considered the following external factors:
The risk assessment is reviewed on an ongoing basis in light of any changes to our business.
Based on Kahoot!'s most recent risk assessment, Kahoot! is of the opinion that no occurrences of actual adverse impacts have been identified in the reporting year.
Through the risk assessment, we have identified the following risks, set forth below along with our mitigation measures.
See Equality Report on page 23 for a review of gender equality status per 31 December 2022 and how we have been working on gender equality and non-discrimination in Kahoot! ASA.
The employees are at the heart of the Kahoot! Group. We are committed to making our company an awesome place to work for all our employees and we strive to foster an attractive and fulfilling environment offering exciting opportunities and varied careers. We treat our employees with respect and bring our mission to life through a diverse and inclusive workforce.
We conduct quarterly pulse surveys to measure employee satisfaction which form a part of our risk assessments relating to our own business operations.
We maintain Our Whistleblower Channel available to all employees globally for reporting non-compliance concerns.
No adverse impacts or significant risks of same related to our work environment were identified in 2022.
From time to time, The Group buys services from independent contractors based in other countries, including Sri Lanka and the Philippines, which have been defined as higher risk countries in our risk analysis.
During 2022, the Group conducted an audit of independent contractor salaries and working conditions, including a salary benchmark. The audit concluded that the salaries were at market levels in the relevant regions. For all other independent contractors engaged by the Group, there have not been identified any actual adverse impacts or risks. All independent contractors have flexible agreements when performing services for Kahoot!.
As a SaaS company, the Kahoot! Group is exposed to risks relating to GDPR and privacy issues. The Group remains committed to comply with relevant privacy laws, including but not limited to the General Data Protection Regulation ("GDPR"), the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act ("FERPA") and the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act ("COPPA") where applicable.
In 2022, we continued to strengthen our privacy and security standards through attainment of ISO 27001 certification, obtaining a SOC 2 report that adheres to the security standards of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, and successfully completing relevant recertification processes.
During the year, we implemented several security controls throughout the development process, including secure development with automated and manual code testing, penetration testing, and testing the security of the code when it is live. These measures have enabled us to identify and address potential security issues at various stages of development, resulting in better error detection and enhanced security for our company and our users.
We have further enhanced our engineers training and development in the security field, by providing specific security training based on findings on our platform. By addressing potential issues proactively, we have been able to eliminate a significant number of vulnerabilities and improve our product's security.
The Kahoot! Group is dedicated to protecting the integrity of our platforms as safe environments that make learning awesome and values the creativity and free expression of our users and contributors. At the same time, we recognize how important it is for Kahoot! to be a place for facts, safety, privacy and dignity. Therefore, Kahoot! reserves the right to remove or disable access to any user content that breaches our policies, values, or standards. We may suspend users who don't respect our rules. In 2022, we continued to uphold several safety and moderation efforts to help us keep content safe, such as trained moderators, user flagging and reporting, allow/deny listing on content and/or nicknames, customer service response, and a safe nickname generator.
Our Acceptable Use Policy, Whistleblower Channel and Kahoot!'s "Safety guide for content" guide us in this work.
The Kahoot! Group will:
Kahoot! ASA will follow up on the status of the actions above in the next reporting period.
Fridtjof Nansens plass 7 0160 OSLO Norway
www.kahoot.com
Stakeholder impact report 2022
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