There are many ways to broaden the competence of your employees. As an employer, you can offer your employees various courses or training and coaching sessions. You can also support employees' own studies. Job rotation also offers an opportunity to develop the expertise of your staff. It means that the employee is transferred to work on other tasks within the organisation for a fixed period. In addition to learning new tasks, the employee's knowledge of the organisation's activities is expanded.

For your organization to succeed, it is essential that you encourage your employees to learn new things. Encouraging your employees to have discussions together and share their experiences improves their sense of belonging there and they can learn from each other as well. As an employer, you can create an atmosphere that encourages everyone to learn new things.

Joint purchase training

You can get help with improving your staff’s expertise from the TE Services. Joint purchase training enables you to train your current or new employees in cooperation with TE Services. TE Services provide help in organising training, and as an employer, you participate in funding the training and student admissions. New or current entrepreneurs as well as temporary agency workers working in the company can also participate in the training.

Read more about joint purchase training on the ELY Centre’s website.

Are people feeling well in your work community? The values and operating environment of the organisation and its management affect the wellbeing of the work community and individual employees.

As an employer, it is your responsibility to take care of occupational safety. To ensure employee wellbeing at your workplace, anticipate potential problems, set clear goals, and build trust. Also make sure that management works, and that you treat employees equally. When you manage them fairly, openly, and with encouragement, you improve the wellbeing of your work community, and your employees can succeed better in their work.

What can you do as an employer?

• Be flexible whenever possible.   
• Make clear agreements with your employees on objectives and roles.  
• Provide your employees opportunities for developing their expertise, and encourage them to learn new things.
• Make sure that your work community follows the instructions and that it is easy and safe for your employees to report faults and deficiencies.
• Treat each of your employees equally.

You can ask the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for advice and instructions on matters related to health, safety, and terms of employment in the workplace. In addition to this, you must notify occupational health and safety of certain dangerous jobs, confirmed occupational diseases and serious work accidents.

Maintaining work ability at the workplace

Taking care of your employees' working ability is a prerequisite for ensuring wellbeing in your work community. There are different methods and practices for maintaining working ability. As an employer, you also have an obligation to take assigned measures.

From working life to family leave and back

‘From working life to family leave and back – family leave guide for employers’ contains information that you can use as an employer to facilitate the reconciliation of work and family in your work community and to promote the wellbeing of the entire work community.

The guide summarizes the key issues regarding family leave, the law regarding which was renewed on August 1, 2022. It tells you what you should consider before the employee's family leave, during it, and when the employee returns to work from the leave.

When you are looking for special skills for your organisation, finding the right employee can be difficult. Take your time to think about what kind of skills are necessary for success at work and what skills you can be flexible about if necessary. Make a job posting carefully to ensure the best possible recruitment. Be prepared to not find a suitable employee in an instant. Instead of ready-made expertise, you can emphasise a readiness to learn and acquire new skills in the recruitment.

The following tips may be useful when recruiting people with special skills:

• Keep the list of requirements at an appropriate length. Too long a list can drive away good applicants. In a large group of candidates, you are most likely to find a skilled and committed employee.
• Ensure that the recruitment process is a smooth and pleasant experience for the candidates. A lengthy process can deter good applicants. Currently, in some sectors, there is a labour shortage, which has made the recruitment process speedier in general.
• Also see the potential in younger job seekers. You may find an employee among them who is willing to develop their professional skills.

You can search for a specialist in a particular field when you log in to Job Market Finland. You can create a job posting or browse the profiles published by job seekers by using different search criteria.

If you cannot find a suitable employee, you can, for example, train a specialist to meet the needs of your organisation, commission work from an entrepreneur, or look for a suitable person abroad.

Your employees will certainly have different views on how to do their work. If different opinions cannot be discussed in the work community, disagreements may arise. Listen to and consider your employees' thoughts to help you improve your organization's performance. Try to make your work community a place where everyone can have a natural and constructive discussion.

Conflicts may also be based on discrimination or other inappropriateness. Create an atmosphere in the work community so that your employees can easily report bullying at the workplace, for example. As an employer, you must intervene in discrimination or bullying.

• Encourage your employees to be open and tell you if they encounter discrimination, bullying, or violence at the workplace.
• When resolving conflicts, listen to all parties.
• Try to find a solution that is acceptable to everyone together with your work community.
• Find out where the conflict arose. Consider what changes you can make to prevent the problem from recurring.
• Together with your work community, establish an operating model for conflict situations, if one does not already exist.

The Centre for Occupational Safety offers comprehensive guidelines for dealing with conflicts in a work community. You should familiarise yourself with them so that you know how to act in difficult situations.

If you notice that your employee’s work ability has deteriorated or the amount of their sickness absence exceeds the sickness absence limit (more than 90 days), it is your responsibility to raise the matter with your employee. Your employee may also raise the matter if they cannot perform their current tasks in the same way as before.

Early support discussions, occupational health discussions and assessment of work ability

You can have an early support conversation with your employee to find solutions to support their work ability. It is a good idea to continue discussing the situation in the occupational health discussions carried out as part of occupational health care.

The Occupational Health Discussion – Solutions for Work learning programme at the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health has sections for employees, supervisors and occupational health care providers which provide support for conducting occupational health discussions. Please also refer to the Occupational Health Discussion Guide of the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, which contains instructions for preparing for an occupational health discussion, information on livelihoods, and examples of work adaptation.

In addition to occupational health discussions, you can refer your employee for an assessment of work ability if they experience difficulties in their work performance that you cannot resolve by your own means at the workplace. This involves assessing their ability to perform their current tasks, the development of their functional and work abilities, and their capacity to function in working life. Your occupational health physician is often the best expert for assessing work ability, as they have information about the conditions in the workplace.

Plan the adjustments

Agree with your employee on the necessary job changes and adjustments. You should also make a written agreement on them. In addition, agree when the situation will be re-evaluated together with the employee and occupational health care provider.

There is diversity in every work community, so treat your staff equally. Make diversity an asset and a competitive advantage for your organisation. Fair and equal treatment affects your employees' motivation and well-being at work.

Remember equality in all situations. You must treat everyone equally when you recruit, provide orientation, distribute tasks, and promote or terminate employees.

Ensure that your employees treat each other with respect as well. If conflicts arise, intervene as early as possible. Discuss equality and possible discrimination with your work community. Make sure that your entire work community is aware of the prohibited grounds for discrimination under the Equality Act and the Non-Discrimination Act. In one-to-one development discussions, you have a good opportunity to find out if there are any equality-related problems in the work community.

If you have at least 30 employees, you must draw up an equality plan at least once every two years with representatives appointed by the staff. They must have a genuine opportunity to influence the content of the plan. Among other things, the equality plan should address recruitment, pay, performance assessment, influencing opportunities, and well-being at work. A plan alone is not enough; as an employer, you must ensure that the issues presented in the equality plan become part of the work community's practices. Also remember to update the plan and make sure that your employees familiarise themselves with it.

One way you as an employer can tell your staff that their contribution is important is to remember them on different important days. For example, birthdays, Christmas or important milestones of service are good opportunities to commemorate an employee with a gift.

Offer gifts or benefits equally to all employees, regardless of their position or performance. A gift can be an object, an entry ticket, a service or an individualised gift card.

Make sure to find out how gifts and employee benefits should be considered in taxation.