What changed when coronavirus forced us to develop Job Market Finland at home?

A large number of workplaces have switched to remote working, people are avoiding physical interaction and meetings, and school children spend their days studying at home with tools that vary from traditional to virtual. How does this exceptional situation present itself in the development of Job Market Finland?

Very little so far, at least in my experience. Even during normal circumstances, we work on Job Market Finland in many locations with many providers. In practice, this means that we all physically sit in different parts of Finland – I now have colleagues in Lahti, Helsinki, Tampere, Jyväskylä, Hämeenlinna, Turku and some other places, too.

In addition, I have colleagues in the different units of the KEHA Centre and various subcontractors and suppliers that are developing Job Market Finland. No matter where we are or who our employer is, we work together as a team, towards a common goal.

Even customers, partners and other stakeholders get an opportunity to make their voices heard in the remote development of Job Market Finland. Together, we decide on the big and small aspects of the direction of development; now, we mainly use online bulletins, a shared online workspace and even traditional phone calls. In fact, we were just collecting comments on the future appearance of job advertisements, and we’ll be able to implement users’ comments and observations nicely during the spring.

Exceptional situation strengthens sense of community

Even in usual times, our work weeks consist of several virtual meetings and independent work at the computer, both remotely and at the office. So the transition to remote work was not a huge change for many of us, and our work has largely continued along our usual routines. However, we have been positively surprised by the fact that our sense of community seems to have grown.

somewhat stronger in this exceptional situation. You have a co-worker who’s a few hundred kilometres away but still there right by you, asking you how you are while you have your morning coffee.

So the development of Job Market Finland is mostly unaffected by this exceptional situation and social isolation, but sadly, we are unable to plan our future work face-to-face as usual. Every ten weeks, we have met up, discussed face-to-face and agreed on the goals for advancing Job Market Finland – what benefits we’ll be able to publish for users next. Even now, we can spend a day planning together, but we’ll do it virtually. Hopefully, the atmosphere will stay equally inspiring. 

Children at home get a glimpse of future working life

Of course, the exceptional situation has also caused slowdowns in our work: sometimes networks are overloaded and connections may break, children studying at home distract us, and scheduling our days is no longer as easy as before.

We share these joys and nuisances of remote work with our working group – from more or less delightfully loud children to snoring office dogs – and ask each other for tips about ergonomics and exercise. Although the most common type of exercise is probably getting up from your desk to go to the fridge and back. Together, we try to share our best ideas on how families are combining people working remotely and looking after children, without losing our tempers. It is important that we understand each other’s everyday life and its challenges.

As a positive comment, a colleague shared how their child remarked that they are using the same tools and working in the same way on their schoolwork as their father sitting right next to them. Maybe this situation will help the employees of the future understand what working life might be like.

Henriikka Kokkola

Development Specialist, KEHA Centre / Job Market Finland