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In November 1999, the Finnish government launched an action programme to promote employees' "ability to cope" at work. It aims to find new practical solutions to prevent stress at work, among other measures, with the goal of raising the average age of retirement by two to three years over next decade. The programme has been prepared by various ministries, the social partners, sport organisations and the church, and the social partners will play a major role in its implementation.
In November 1999, in accordance with its programme (FI9904101F), the Finnish government has launched a research and action project to promote "ability to cope" at work, lasting for the duration of the government's term of office. The programme is intended to bring about improvement in the capacity for "survival" at work during all phases of a worker's life and career. The action programme has been prepared in cooperation between different ministries, the social partners, sports organisations and the church. The government's goal is to postpone the average retirement age by two to three years over the coming decade (FI9908114F). It will be possible to allocate support to development schemes from the programme's funds provided that employers, too, contribute some resources. Support will be directed especially to those sectors where, according to working life "barometers", stress is experienced the most. These include healthcare, teaching, the social sector, agriculture and forestry, banking, hotels and restaurants, and transport.
Changes in the operational and working environment
Finnish working life is undergoing profound changes of various kinds. There has been continued vigorous economic growth during the past few years, and employment has increased as a result. At the same time, the availability of labour has increased, because people who dropped out of the labour force during the depression at the beginning of the 1990s have now re-entered the labour market.
During the early 1990s, the employment rate fell by over 10 points from the 70% rate of the 1980s, and during 1993-4 it was below the EU average. By 1998, it had recovered to 64.1%, and it is constantly increasing. The government's goal is to raise the employment rate to nearly 70%. This is seen as a demanding task, especially as the ageing of the population will result in a decrease in the labour force after 2003, while at the same time raising the average age of the workers.
The pace and quantity of work have been intensifying for several years (FI9811182F). According to theMinistry of Labour's 1998 Working life barometer, during 1998, the pace increased most at municipal workplaces and least in industry where, nevertheless, over half of workers saw the trend as applying to them. Attitudes towards work have changed slowly in a positive direction during the course of the 1990s. In 1998, about half of the wage earners surveyed stated that the meaningfulness of their work was decreasing, and half that it was increasing. The proportion of those who find work pointless grows sharply at age 45 .
In many different studies, it has been reported that employees experience stress at work. According to research by the Institute of Occupational Health (Prevalence of burn-out in the Finnish working population, 1997), over half the surveyed workers experienced some sort of stress or "burn-out" symptoms. About one in five experienced exhaustion at work. The programme now being launched is an attempt to find remedies to these problems.
From research to practical implementation
The "ability to cope" at work is defined broadly in the programme: physical and psychological ability and health are included, as well as the functioning of the "working community" and its development, the working environment, working conditions, control of work, maintenance of professional skills, and organisation of working time and work tasks. There is said to be a special need for models showing how the problem areas - such as management or organisation of work - might be tackled. Research-based knowledge as to the causes and consequences of stress is also needed. Research programmes will be started to this end. Good practice and models for the reform of working life will be disseminated to the wider public with the help of videos and guidebooks. Information on the programme will be offered through the agency of occupational welfare inspectors, for example. A special target group of the programme will be entrepreneurs and those in positions of authority. The reasoning behind this is that if this group can understand the importance of these supportive activities, then the resulting well-being will spread to the whole working community.
The main areas of the programme
The programme will focus mainly on measures aimed at the development of working life and working conditions, as well as of working communities and individuals. The programme involves four main levels of activity:
- with the help of information and dissemination of practical solutions and models, the preconditions will be created for solving workplace-specific problems and deficiencies in coping ability. To this end, know-how on the development of working life will be disseminated more effectively in order to enable the relevant good practices to be applied at the workplace;
- with the help of research, it may be possible to find out what factors influence coping ability, and to create new solutions and development models. Further knowledge is needed on the causes and consequences of stress and on illnesses possibly caused by it, on the differences between tiredness and stress and remedies for them, and also on the organisation of work and the connections between the social support, opportunities for influence and leadership that are linked with it;
- by means of practical development programmes at the workplace, real changes and improvement will be brought about in respect not only of the working environment and community but also of the individual prerequisites for ability to cope. The aim is to help workplaces to introduce comprehensive, generally accepted methods for assessment of coping ability, as well as related supportive measures. Also, particular attention will be given to the coping ability of entrepreneurs and management personnel; and
- by developing the legislation, a basis can be created for many measures which have clear links with coping ability and a longer working career.
Schemes to be carried out in cooperation with the social partners
Throughout the 1990s, the social partners have actively engaged in research, surveys and campaigns addressing the theme of coping at work. Each central organisation, or some of its affiliates, has been involved in schemes that touch on this theme. The work of the social partners as mediators of best practice is seen as having central importance. In the current central incomes policy agreement, due to expire in January 2000 (FI9801145F), the organisations agreed on an extensive workplace development programme, in which considerable attention is given to maintaining working ability and capacity. In the national action programme launched in November, the social partners will participate in the following projects.
Development programmes directed at entrepreneurs and management personnel
The coping ability of entrepreneurs and those in positions of managerial authority is seen as important. Supportive measures organised by sectoral or local organisations can be taken into consideration. Individual projects will utilise methods of risk-evaluation and control that have been developed in risk management projects for small and medium-sized enterprises. Furthermore, use will be made of networking and cooperation between entrepreneurs.
Working time research
The number of hours worked influences a worker's health, welfare and coping ability in many ways, as does a succession of fixed-term employment contracts for the same job with lay-offs in between. However, there is no single general view as to how these factors affect employees' health. Research will therefore be carried out in order to increase knowledge concerning working time arrangements and, in particular, concerning the effect of long and irregular working hours on an individual's ability to cope. Also, the combined effect that work and longer periods of free time have on coping ability will be investigated.
Development of employee healthcare
In order to utilise the "synergy" benefits of employee healthcare and the work of occupational welfare officers, projects will be carried out focusing on improvement of employee healthcare - especially in rural areas - and on developing the resources and expertise of occupational welfare officers with regard to maintenance of working capacity, for example.
Coping ability at work will be further promoted through various other working life programmes - such as the workplace development programme (FI9707122F) and the programme for older workers (FI9708125F) - and also through adult training activities. The intention is that legislation, too, will be improved in a way that promotes ability to cope at work.
Commentary
The ability to cope at work has been highlighted in Finland since the end of the economic depression of the early 1990s. Many studies indicate that the feeling of pressure and the symptoms of stress have increased. Even though the theme is well known and widely discussed, concrete measures at workplaces have remained sparse. The real problems are related to the radical increase in the workload at almost every workplace. The stress caused by this cannot be removed by cosmetic measures. The "coping at work" programme aims to find new models that could influence the situation in a more effective way. This burning "qualitative" problem could also have been handled in a new central incomes policy agreement, but this failed to materialise on this occasion (FI9910124N). In the sector-level bargaining round which has replaced a possible central agreement, the major weight is clearly being given to wage issues. Because stress has not been alleviated by the measures so far, higher wages will be demanded to compensate for the problems experienced by workers. The increased tension in the bargaining atmosphere will have its own bearing on the results of the programme. However, the programme is effectively bringing together the different actors, and so the results will also depend to quite a large extent on the will to achieve progress toward the goal. (Juha Hietanen, Ministry of Labour)