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Social Insurance Institution of Finland, or Kela, employees don’t often meet face-to-face, as even members of the same team may work in different cities, says Sannamari Ollikkala, Communications Manager.
”Kela is a multi-location working community with more than 8.000 people working in different parts of Finland. Even members of the same team and their supervisors can be in different locations. The teams use Skype for their meetings, which has been commonplace for years – the pandemic era didn’t change the teams’ activities in that respect at all.
On the intranet, each team has its own workspace, which is used extensively. Teams is not yet available to all Kela employees, and our policy also prohibits the processing of confidential data in cloud services, such as Teams.
As a general rule, all Kela employees can work remotely from home if they wish. The members of the teams meet each other on a rotating basis, which is possible at Kela offices.
Kela’s entire communication channel is the intranet because it reaches every one of our employees. On the intranet, information, comments and discussions are lively, using your own name and photo. On the discussion board, you can talk about anything related to Kela and Kela’s work. You can share good practices, look for expertise, inform or raise concerns – and, of course, exchange ideas.
You can also share photos of cats and dogs, or even of Kela’s celebrations, if everyone in the photo agrees. Posts like these are meant to boost your spirits during the working day. Conversations should always be respectful of others and no inappropriate language is allowed.
Management will also be invited to the intranet for a discussion. Some people are comfortable doing this but some you may have to nudge a bit to talk and answer questions. The aim would be to further increase the interaction between staff and management on the intranet.
Years ago, we received feedback from staff about the Helsinki-centricity of the intranet: the interviewees were very often from Helsinki and the photos were taken from Kela’s headquarters on Nordenskiöldinkatu, even though there are a huge number of Kela employees all over Finland. We created an assistant network of employees with communication skills. Now we have intranet photos and updates from places like Lappeenranta, Oulu and Turku.”
Schools are shared workplaces with employees from several employers. People at Havukoski School are constantly thinking about how to develop safety and ensure that messages are transferred effectively even in dangerous situations.
Improving occupational safety at a shared workplace requires cooperation, clear operating models and continuous monitoring.
Improving safety requires continuous risk assessment and effective communication. Monitoring by occupational safety and health authorities has revealed significant shortcomings in occupational safety and health at shared workplaces.
At the Meyer Turku shipyard, approximately 80 per cent of the production of cruise ships is subcontracted. Matti Tuimala, Safety Manager at the shipyard, explains how safety is ensured at the huge shared workplace.
