This week in our blog we’ll discuss skills recognition and learning at work in Finland. We’ll base this discussion on the latest Working Life Barometer.
The Working Life Barometer uses survey data to describe the quality of working life of wage and salary earners in Finland. The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment has conducted this survey annually since 1992. This current release is based on a survey conducted in the fall of 2023.
The recently released Working Life Barometer covers such topics as continuous learning at work; working hours, remote work and compensation; discrimination, bullying, and violence at work; strain at work and working ability; wellbeing at work; and unionization.
Out of these, we’ll focus only on the results discussing skills recognition and learning at work in Finland.
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Why focus on skills recognition and learning at work in Finland?
As we mentioned above, the Working Life Barometer touches upon many interesting topics. So why have we decided to focus on skills recognition and learning at work in Finland when we could easily have picked any of the others as well?
Well, that’s because long-term labor shortage continues to be an issue in Finland. This is true although we are experiencing somewhat of a recession and the number of open positions has decreased significantly from last year.
We have discussed labor shortage issues many times in our blogs. We have, for example, looked at the evidence for long-term labor shortages and discussed why labor shortage is an issue in Finland. We’ve also discussed some short-term labor shortage issues as well.
In these blogs, we have touched upon employers’ reasons for these shortages. We have, however, also dedicated a whole blog post on employers’ recruitment problems. We spent most of that blog discussing the explanations employers give for these problems. Chief among those named is the lack of competence by candidates.
Job seekers, however, think that employers don’t recognize their qualifications. They might have, for example, acquired their degrees so long ago that those degree titles no longer exist. Therefore they are unknown to recruiters. Job seekers also feel that foreign degrees are not recognized.
So, skills, or rather the lack thereof, feature prominently in recruitment problems and labor shortage discussions. Therefore it’s interesting to check out how skills recognition and learning function (or don’t) in Finnish workplaces. After all, skills are not stagnant. It’s not as if you’ve once acquired certain skills you can never acquire more. They can be improved and developed. And employers have a role to play in this.
Culture that encourages learning
The Working Life Barometer includes several questions that elucidate the workplace culture around continuous learning and skills development. Responses to these questions reveal that in the long run possibilities to improve skills and develop new ideas have increased. However, there hasn’t been much improvement in this since 2017.
The majority of wage and salary earners in Finland feel that their workplace provides learning opportunities. They also feel their workplace encourages them to try out new things. In 2023, 84 % of employees agreed completely or somewhat with the statement “My workplace provides opportunities for learning new things all the time”. 72 % agreed with the statement “Employees are encouraged to try out new things” completely or at least somewhat.
There were, however, marked differences in how different socio-economic groups responded to these statements. Upper-level employees (senior officials and managers) more often felt their workplaces encourage learning than manual workers. The same is true for trying out new things.
There were also differences between sectors. Those working for the government felt more often that their workplace provides opportunities for learning than those working elsewhere. However, those who work in private services feel more than others that their workplace encourages them to try out new things.
An important aspect of a work culture that supports learning is how actively the employer influences learning and skills development. In 2023, 25 % of employees said their workplace actively influences it. 48 % said their workplace influences it somewhat actively. 24 % said the workplace doesn’t take any active role in promoting learning and skills development.
The report concludes that although the culture surrounding learning and skills development has been quite good at Finnish workplaces, it hasn’t gotten stronger over the past 5 years.
Training participation and studying
The Working Life Barometer also includes information on participation in training offered by employers, independent studying, and learning on the job.
The report points out that since the height of the Corona pandemic, the participation in training offered by employers has decreased. For the past three years, less than 40 % of employees have participated in trainings. This figure is noteworthy because there were times when this participation rate was over 50 %. This current rate is the lowest it has been since this rate started to feature in the Barometer in 2001.
Participation rates are highest among upper-level employees (47 %) and in the government sector (47 %). The participation rate of manual laborers is only 27 %. Participation rates tend to be higher in larger organizations (over 200 employees) but even there participation rates have slowly decreased for the past three years.
Five years ago skills development and learning at work in Finland started to be tracked also by questions related to mentoring and independent study. In 2023, 25 % of employees improved their skills by being mentored or taught by older, more experienced workers. 49 % said they were studying independently.
Skills recognition and career guidance
In 2023, the Working Life Barometer included new questions tracking skills recognition and career guidance.
In 2023, 59 % of employees said their employer tracks their skills and knowledge regularly for example in annual performance reviews or workplace-wide skills mapping. Women responders reported slightly higher percentages (62 %) than men (56 %). As did older workers (above 55 years of age, 64 %) compared to younger workers (54 % of 18-34 year-olds).
Again, upper-level employees reported the existence of such mapping more often than manual workers (66 % vs. 44 %). Those working in the public sector responded favorably to this question more often than those working in the private sector. 78 % of government employees reported that their employer regularly tracks their skills. 69 % of municipal employees said the same. For industry workers, this percentage was 53 %, and for private sector services employees 55 %.
31 % of employees reported that their employer had offered support in career development. 8 % reported that they had sought career development advice privately. It seems that upper-level employees receive career guidance and career development-related help from their employers more often than others. 38 % of them reported that they had received such help.
Conclusions
The findings in the Working Life Barometer support those in the MEDOW-report published as a part of the Work2023 program. That report concluded that there are significant differences in the opportunities for continuous learning and skills development offered to upper and lower-level employees. Upper-level employees are more likely to be surrounded by a work culture that supports learning and skills development. They are also more likely to participate in formal training programs.
The importance of formal training programs or courses has, however, decreased while peer-to-peer learning, performance reviews, and participation in the development of processes, products, and services have become more important in skills development at Finnish workplaces.
Overall, the work culture in most Finnish workplaces seems to be supportive of skills development and learning. Employers also seem interested in keeping tabs on employee skills. However, the decreasing interest in offering training courses, seldom offering career guidance, and generally not actively being involved in employee skills development indicates that the concern employers have about labor and skills shortages hasn’t translated into actively and purposefully managing skills development at the workplace.
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