Guest blogger: Employment does not eliminate the need for guidance
- Blog
Working adults and their experiences with guidance and support at work throughout their career are at the heart of my doctoral thesis. Based on my thesis, guidance is needed in various circumstances, and the need for it does not end when someone finds employment after completing their studies or being unemployed.
Even at work, we reflect on our direction, skills, well-being and future. Working adults need guidance, but may struggle to find it. There are many providers offering guidance services to adults. Overall, however, these services are fragmented, and access to them may be tied to – for example – studying, being a job seeker or another specific circumstance.
In my opinion, this is one of the contradictions in lifelong guidance in Finland. In my doctoral thesis, I conclude that, according to public rhetoric, guidance should be available to people in different circumstances, but in practice, working adults have been marginalised in guidance services.
The employment authority is one potential provider of guidance in this context. In fact, the employment authority’s guidance and career counselling services constitute professional guidance services that are, as a rule, available to all working-age people in accordance with the international treaty obligations of the State of Finland.
However, in my thesis, I highlight an issue with the availability of these services – i.e. a resource allocation problem – and challenges related to their visibility: for those who are currently employed, employment services may not necessarily seem like a place where they could reflect on their work or career.
The guidance and support needs of working adults are multifaceted
The results of the thesis indicate that the guidance needs of working adults are multifaceted and, above all, specific to each individual. Guidance may be needed for everyday work and issues related to the working community, career orientation and advancement, coping at work, considering a career change, better utilisation of skills and potential at work or simply pausing to reflect on what one wants from their work and their life.
The results of my thesis emphasise an adult's active agency. Working persons do not expect an outsider to solve their career issues for them. They seek information, develop their skills and orient themselves. Good guidance is meant to support this process; it provides the time and space for reflection, exploring options and making informed choices.
In my thesis, agency is linked to commitment to work, satisfaction and well-being. Viewing the guidance services of working-age people primarily as a means of moving from unemployment to employment is too narrow a perspective. However, this is how the guidance services of working-age people as well as the requirements set for career planning skills for adults are typically discussed.
What if employment services were genuinely services for working-age people?
The Raahe employment area's strategy mentions career counselling and the desire to provide it to all working-age people in the region. I really like this idea. Career counselling should not wait until a person has become unemployed or lost their direction or until problems have started to pile up. However, reality is harsher than this ideal, as employment authorities focus their resources on meeting the needs to job seekers.
I see a greater opportunity for the employment authorities in this. The career counselling provided by employment services could be resourced in such a way that it would be offered and made known to all working-age people, including those who are already employed. Based on my thesis, guidance services offered to adults are fragmented, and it can be difficult to find suitable and impartial support.
Guidance provided by the workplace is important, but the goals of the employer and the employee are not always the same. This is why impartial guidance outside the work organisation is also needed. Achieving this would require able to envision the diverse benefits flowing into the region in the form of vitality and well-being, when motivated and committed employees are a key part of the quality and productivity of working life.
At the same time, we should find the courage to evaluate the effectiveness of guidance more extensively than we do at present. If only securing employment counts as success, any benefits received by a working person easily become both overlooked and secondary.
In my doctoral thesis, I propose that objectives related to sustained employment and well-being could be highlighted alongside securing employment. The value of guidance may be reflected in the fact that a person finds a new direction in their work, utilises their skills better, develops the career planning skills necessary for their career or finds a more meaningful way to continue working.
My doctoral thesis provides a great deal of information on the guidance of working-age people. My hope is that it will also open windows to new ways of thinking. The findings of the thesis can be utilised by employment services, management and supervisors at workplaces, training organisations and other environments related to adult guidance.
One of the key messages of my thesis is ultimately very simple: the need for guidance does not end when someone finds employment. Guidance can be a resource throughout someone’s career, on the path to satisfaction, career well-being, and fulfillment.
Author: MA (Educ.), educator, study and career counsellor Teea Oja works as a coordinating expert for the Raahe employment area. Oja’s doctoral thesis "Guidance and support in the career path of the working adult” will be examined at the University of Jyväskylä on Saturday, 7 November 2026, at 12 p.m.