 |
 |
|||||||||||
 |
  |
|||||||||||
 |
 |
|||||||||||
|
European Conference New Forms of Work Organization: An Opportunity for Change in the Company, organized by the Economic and Social Council of Catalonia and supported by the European Commission, 3-4 November 2003, Barcelona Eight Years of Programmatic Workplace Development in FinlandExperiences and Future Outlook of the Finnish Workplace Development ProgrammeTuomo Alasoini
The Programme in a Nutshell The Finnish Workplace Development Programme (FWDP) is the first of its kind in Finland in terms of its conceptual foundation and scale, i.e. it is a national initiative in which the focus is on research-supported development of work organization. The aim of the programme is "to promote performance and the quality of working life (QWL) by furthering innovation-supporting modes of operation and employee skills at Finnish workplace. This objective also includes raising the level of employability and the ability to cope at work and reinforcing workplace development expertise in Finland." FWDP was launched by the Economic Council at the beginning of 1996 as part of the programme of Prime Minister Lipponen’s first administration, and will continue until the end of 2003 under the programme of the second Lipponen Government. A follow-up programme to FWDP will be launched in 2004 with a somewhat modified content and name (see later). FWDP’s main forms of activity are as follows (e.g. Alasoini 2000; Arnkil et al. forthcoming): (1) Supporting project activity at workplaces: The programme’s main form of activity is the provision of expert support to companies, public bodies or other work organizations based on applications submitted to the programme. Expert support is used mainly to fund the use of experts (researchers and consultants) in the projects. Expert support can be granted for three kinds of project: (a) Basic analyses are brief analyses used by workplaces to specify their development needs with an eye to a larger project. (b) Development projects are intended to promote changes in corporate modes of operation with a view to bringing about improvements in productivity and QWL. Development projects must concentrate on one of the following focus areas: promoting learning-supporting forms of work organization, developing human resource management, improving interaction and social relations in work communities and promoting equal opportunities. (c) The funding for network projects is intended for research and experimentation to support the creation and testing of organizational innovations that have potential for job creation. The projects must involve a sufficient number of companies in close and open cooperation. Cooperation between companies can be based on production or other development networks. Most network projects are jointly funded by FWDP and other R&D funding sources such as the National Technology Agency (Tekes), the Finnish Work Environment Fund, the National Productivity Programme, the European Social Fund or different ministries. (2) Disseminating knowledge about workplace development: This includes, for example, publications, seminars and workshops, and information registers (e.g. www pages with information about funded projects, publications, seminar papers, assessments of projects, ‘good practice’ case studies and a register of working-life R&D institutes in Finland). The most important focus groups are workplaces, R&D institutes, consultants, labour market organizations and policy-makers. (3) Strengthening the workplace development infrastructure in Finland: This involves measures that strengthen cooperation between different stakeholders in workplace development. FWDP supports networking between workplaces with its project activity and by organizing seminars where researchers, consultants and practitioners from different projects meet each other. In addition, FWDP aims to cooperate especially closely with other R&D funding institutes and programmes, R&D institutes, labour market organizations, other ministries and their regional organizations (e.g. Employment and Economic Development Centres and Occupational Health and Safety Inspectorates) and international expert organizations. FWDP provides grants for experts who work for projects funded by the programme and who utilize project material in their Doctoral thesis. FWDP is funded by the Finnish Government. The total budget of the programme from 1996 to 2003 is EUR 45 million. The contribution to funding made by the workplaces taking part in the projects is at least EUR 70 million. More than 1,300 workplaces and 135,000 employees in about 700 projects have taken part in the programme. The most common objects of the projects are work processes, the organization of work (incl. teams, groups and cells), interaction and social relations in work communities, human resource management, external networking (incl. partnership), work ability, customer service and work methods. In terms of funding allocations, the largest sectoral groupings are industry and construction (45%), followed by local authorities (30%), which carry the main responsibility for basic education, welfare and health care services in Finland. The leading individual sectors are metal and engineering, and municipal welfare and health care. The share of private service industries has been steadily rising in the course of the programme, accounting now for about 20% of all project funding. The share of SMEs of all funding to company projects has been about 65% in recent years. FWDP is managed and coordinated by the Ministry of Labour in cooperation with the central labour market and entrepreneurs’ organizations, three other ministries and four other major R&D funding bodies in Finland. The management group comprises representatives of 16 organizations. Some Conceptual Foundations of the Programme The conceptual foundations of the programme draw on many different theoretical approaches. The key principles underlying programme and project design can be summarized as follows:
From a public policy point of view, the basic premises of the programme are in line with an approach which can be called a network-facilitating innovation policy (Schienstock & Hämäläinen 2001). In this approach the legitimacy of public policy intervention is not so much market failure as weak performance of the market mechanism in terms of innovation in a much broader sense. This point of departure implies that there is a need to adopt a holistic and systemic view of innovation in public policy which focuses on positive interaction between technological and organizational (and other social) innovations in all sectors of the economy, instead of seeing ‘modernization’ of the economy primarily as the development of new cutting-edge technologies. In this policy framework, work organization development should constitute an integrated and well-established aspect of this new, broadly defined innovation policy. Evaluation of the Programme FWDP management group launched an evaluation study on the programme in 2002. This study was carried out by the Social Development Company (a well-known Finnish consultancy and development agency) in cooperation with the Work Research Centre at the University of Tampere, the Helsinki University of Technology, and a group of Swedish, Norwegian and German experts. The evaluation focused on the following questions: Major questions
Supplementary questions
The evaluation group conducted a workplace survey targeted at managers, supervisors and employees in companies and public-sector organizations that had carried out a programme-funded project (Rissanen et al. 2003). The sample was selected so that an average of 2.5 years had elapsed from the end of these projects. A total of 419 (39%) questionnaires from 91 (87%) projects were returned. 74% of the respondents assessed the significance and impact of their project as ‘positive’, while 17% assessed them as ‘highly positive’. Project effectiveness was depicted through 19 variables reflecting changes in the target organization. The greatest contribution of the projects was in ‘general development activeness’ (76% assessed ‘fairly’ of ‘highly positive’ impact) and ‘cooperation among personnel and teamwork’ (75%). More than 60% of the respondents assessed positive impact also in ‘work productivity’, ‘product and/or service quality’, ‘quality of operations’, ‘ability to respond to customer needs flexibly’, ‘opportunity to use competence and skills at work’ and ‘opportunity to improve competence and skills’. The workplace survey was supplemented by 14 case studies with a view to examining features characteristic of successful projects. A stakeholder survey consisting of 416 (38%) respondents was carried out also (Arnkil et al. forthcoming). According to the survey results, 78% of the respondents shared the view that the mission of the programme is ‘highly’ or ‘fairly relevant’ with respect to the current challenges of Finnish working life and Finnish workplaces. 92% considered that programme-funded projects have been meaningful and productive for the development of hosting workplaces. A great majority of the respondents also considered that the programme has enhanced significantly the production and dissemination of knowledge and competence on working-life development (83%) and the strengthening of structures of working-life development (72%) in Finland. The overall impression of the evaluation study on FWDP, based on the surveys, case studies and comparisons with other Finnish and European workplace development programmes, was positive. The study characterizes the programme as a ‘small giant’ in its own environment. According to the final report of the evaluation study (Arnkil et al. forthcoming):
On the other hand, the evaluation group also raised a number of weaknesses characteristic of programme and project design. These included, for instance, the issue whether an individual workplace or company is an appropriate unit of development operations with a view to bringing about lasting and generative project impacts, undeveloped links to and dialogue with regional-level agencies in programme and project activities, the modest role played by scientific and research input in a majority of the projects, and the lack of institutionalised procedures for programme and policy learning. The evaluation group also posed a question whether the profile of workplaces involved in the projects corresponds with the basic aims of the programme. Future Outlook of the Programme The Ministry of Labour, together with the social partners, is now planning a continuation of FWDP as an ‘umbrella programme’ covering also the activities of two other programmes (the National Productivity Programme and the Well-Being at Work Programme) which will terminate by the end of 2003. The new programme, officially entitled as ‘The Programme for the Development of Productivity and Quality of Working Life’ (the Finnish acronym for the programme is TYKES), is incorporated in Prime Minister Vanhanen’s governmental programme. TYKES is intended to last for six years and its target budget for the whole programme period is EUR 87 million. This would permit funding of 1000 development projects and the participation of 250,000 employees (10% of employed persons in Finland) in these projects. The goals of the new programme can be conceptually divided into the following four levels of analysis: (1) At public policy level the programme aims to bring about sustainable productivity growth in Finland, i.e. productivity growth which is based on simultaneous regeneration (instead of consuming) of employees’ individual and collective resources at the workplace. Regeneration of employee resources means improved opportunities for occupational and personal development at work, work ability and well-being at work, and enhanced cooperation and trust between management and employees. (2) At programme level the aim is to help build up a network of expertise in work organization development which will create national competitive advantage. This means that Finland has high-level theoretical and practical knowledge in this area and that there prevails a close, solid cooperation between different ‘innovative centres’ (e.g. R&D units, consultants, labour market organizations, government officials, workplaces) which helps promote their expertise further as well as sustainable productivity development. (3) The generative level aim is to disseminate new work, organizational and management practices and development methods, models and tools tried out in programme-funded activities to become sources of learning and inspiration (generative ideas) for other workplaces and stakeholder groups. This does not mean that other workplaces could in most cases adapt them as such, but rather that they would give rise to new ideas and boost development activity. Success in transferring new solutions as generative ideas from one context to another requires both effective channels for disseminating information and forms of intensive interaction and close cooperation between different actors. (4) At workplace level the aim is to help workplaces develop a mode of operation, which improves their ability to solve developmental problems and define their developmental needs, in a collaborative way between management and employees and by utilizing different networks of expertise in a skilful way. Basically, by funding development projects the programme aims to second-order learning, i.e. helping workplaces learn to learn. The projects would then have longer-lasting effects at workplaces than in cases in which the focus is merely on ‘fire-fighting’ upcoming individual problems. There are a number of new aspects in the design of the new programme compared to that of FWDP. The following list can also be read as a response on the part of the programme management group to some of the problems and weaknesses indicated by the evaluation group:
References
|
|||||||||||
   
|
 |
|
 |
|||||||||
![[Publications]](../gfx/navi_01_pub.gif){kind=small}
![[Articles]](../gfx/navi_02_art_o.gif){kind=small}
![[Homepage]](../gfx/navi_03_home.gif){kind=small}
