In the autumn of 2024, Finnish workplaces continued to balance between in-office and remote work as organizations seek to find the right ways of working. The shift to remote work, spurred by the corona pandemic, permanently changed attitudes towards workplace presence, but in recent years, more and more companies have adopted hybrid solutions that combine remote and in-office work. 

International companies, such as Amazon and Google, have partly forced their employees to return to in-office work, which has also sparked discussion in Finnish workplaces. Although similar coercion has not been widely adopted in Finland, many organizations follow international trends. Unfortunately, the discussion is becoming very black and white between remote and in-office work, and there is no discussion about the development of hybrid work and how the hybrid work model succeeds and what it requires from work organization.

What does remote work mean? It is flexible paid work based on voluntary and agreed-upon rules, which can be done outside of the actual workplace and requires agreement, trust and leadership to succeed. When agreeing, attention must be paid to the content and nature of the work: those in the same position and doing similar work must be treated equally. According to the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment's 2023 Working Life Barometer, 60% of employees in Finland worked locally, 12% only in remote work and 28% in hybrid work.

The key conclusion of the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health's FIOH (HELP in Finnish) project (hybrid-remote-proximity project) is that there is an opportunity for productivity growth in hybrid work, if it can be grasped. This does not happen automatically but requires interaction and community. In addition to this, a face-to-face encounter is also required. The Finnish Institute of Occupational Health has also published a hybrid work model guide, which can be found at www.ttl.fi/en.

Akava: Remote work policy needs to be put in place 

The success of remote and hybrid work requires joint reflection and agreement at both the workplace and team level. The rules of remote and hybrid work must be discussed with the personnel in the workplace and the best solutions must be built together so that the way and place of working serve both the employer and the employee, the making of work, productivity and safety. Special attention must be paid to working time protection, occupational safety and well-being at work.

The big problem is that the legislation does not recognize the concept of remote work and remote work has not been sufficiently taken into account in working time, occupational safety and accident regulation. The scope of the Occupational Accidents Act in telework is narrower than in attendance, and the application of the Act is very open to interpretation. In terms of accident compensation, it matters a lot whether you hurt yourself at the home office or in the employer's office premises, as the insurance coverage for remote work is not unambiguous.

In order work remotely securely, the scope of the Occupational Accidents Act must be extended to accidents that occur during remote work, in which case the protection would be the same in remote work as in office-work.

Lotta Savinko, Manager, Working Life Affairs at Akava

Photo by: Akava / Liisa Takala. The article is published on ASIA membership magazine 04/2024.

More information

Akava proposes changes to the legislation concerning remote working (in Finnish)
Akava: What kind of country does Finland want to be for highly skilled internationals?
Akava: Common view of labour market confederations on digitalisation in workplaces (29.3.2022)