Home » Novapolis: focus on the modern workday experience

Novapolis: focus on the modern workday experience

17.9.2025

Novapolis serves as a hub of expertise, development, and internationalisation in the Kuopio region, bringing people and businesses together. Its premises house both public and private organisations as well as educational institutions.

Behind Novapolis, which provides office space for hundreds of companies and more than 15,000 professionals, stands the KPY Group, whose roots go back to the late 19th century when a group of Kuopio businessmen founded a telephone company together. At present, KPY’s business activities consist of the Momentum strategy, which invests in growth-oriented companies, and the Nova strategy, focused on infrastructure ownership.

In 2015, KPY acquired a stake in Technopolis Kuopio, a provider of commercial premises. When Technopolis was delisted from the stock exchange in 2019, KPY purchased its entire share capital. This gave rise to Novapolis. It is a place for professionals, with operations focused on the modern workday experience.

– We want to offer our customers’ employees easy accessibility to the premises, pleasant workspaces, a sense of community, as well as various services and events, says the company’s CEO, Kyösti Karhunen.

Apart from the major annual event, Sessions, Novapolis organises afternoon clubs with changing themes, which gather actors from different fields together to try out a wide variety of things at a low threshold. There are cooking classes, painting, crafts, and even axe throwing.

Success is built on small actions

In addition to its Kuopio site, Novapolis also has rental premises in Siilinjärvi. The company has no current plans to expand further, but according to Karhunen, in the long term the company is willing to grow, and the concept has proven to be a working one.

– KPY has a strong value base, it also wants to create vitality in the Kuopio region. We are not here just to do business but to contribute to this area, Karhunen says.

He believes that Novapolis’s success is built on small actions. Of course, behind its success there are also major factors and bold decisions, but everyday success is based on doing things well, something for which Novapolis’s dedicated staff deserve credit.

Promoting a sense of community

One challenge for Novapolis has been the rise of remote work following the coronavirus pandemic. However, Karhunen does not believe it to be a permanent situation. It has become evident that remote work is not the ideal operating model for companies – it has eroded the sense of community.

– Around the world, people have already woken up to the problem, and many companies now require employees to work on-site rather than remotely.

One flexible alternative to remote work is the CoWork spaces offered by Novapolis, where people can work as needed, whether for an hour, a day, or, for example, on a weekly basis. In CoWork spaces, the work community is formed by the other users of the facilities.

Competence must be developed

Karhunen names competence development as one of the most important factors in a company’s success. Although companies have faced difficult times recently and have had to cut costs, cutting back on development is the wrong place to save.

– We may have somewhat forgotten how to develop competence so we don’t fall behind others. The world around us is constantly evolving, Karhunen reminds us.

Karhunen is also concerned that tacit knowledge is no longer being transferred from older employees to younger ones as it once was, now that employees are often left to work alone at home. The same applies to building professional networks early in one’s career.

– We must remember that young people are the ones who will shape our future, Karhunen adds.

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Novapolis plays an active role in the networks of the Kuopio region and in their development. According to the company’s CEO, Kyösti Karhunen, there is so much competence in Kuopio, and Savilahti in particular, that one can speak of a truly unique whole. However, he believes that the people of Kuopio should be bolder in talking about their expertise and in being proud of themselves.

– We have absolutely incredible experts here, but we tend to keep that expertise under wraps. In my opinion, that is the greatest pity for the region. The modesty that comes so naturally to Savonians is no longer the greatest virtue in today’s world. We need to dare to say “I know how to do this”.

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Text: Minna Akiola
Photos: Novapolis