Remote work | The approach of Finnish companies to remote work has become stricter, and people are wanted at the office several times a week

Life has mostly returned to its former ways after the corona pandemic. The exception is working life: remote working has remained permitted in many companies and organizations, even though nothing prevents you from arriving at the workplace anymore.

During the Corona period, remote work was widely expected to continue even after the pandemic, but recently the world has started to hear a different kind of message. The employees are wanted back at the office.

For example, the technology company Apple has fried Employees who live near its headquarters in California to return to the office at least three days a week. The practice will later spread from California to other Apple offices around the world.

Alphabet, the owner of Google, has also started requiring its employees to come to the office three times a week, but there are also examples of the opposite. Meta and Amazon, for example, prefer an increasingly flexible remote work model.

What is the situation in Finnish companies? Are people encouraged to return to workplaces, or do we still rely on remote connections?

Bank group In OP, autumn starts with hybrid work combining local and remote work, the principles of which were outlined in the company already a year ago. HR Director of OP Hannakaisa Länskisalmi says that the coming autumn will be practically the first time that hybrid work will be fully learned.

So far, many have worked either mostly remotely or experimented with hybrid work, depending on the prevailing corona situation. According to Länsisalmi, the utilization rate of OP’s offices was around 40–50 percent in the spring, and during the summer holiday season it has been even smaller.

“For us, hybrid work means that teams, different work communities and business functions independently plan the coordination of remote and local work,” says Länsisalmi.

The OP requires that part of the work be done in the office – according to Länsisalmi, such work is, for example, tasks related to ideation, planning or demanding problem solving. The teams themselves decide when “anchor meetings” are held at the office, and the rest of the work can be done remotely if desired. However, everyone must physically attend the agreed anchor meetings.

“It is not possible to only work remotely and never meet Teams or colleagues. Many jobs go better when we sit at the same table and do things together.”

Länsisalmi cannot yet estimate, for example, how many anchor meetings the team can have per week or month, because there is no long-term experience with hybrid work yet.

“Then the results speak for themselves. If a team does not achieve its goals, then it also discusses the practices of hybrid work and whether something needs to be changed.”

Länsisalmi says that, based on personnel surveys, OP’s employees have been satisfied with the flexible alternation of remote and local work. OP’s hybrid work orientation affects approximately 12,500 employees in Finland and the Baltics.

“No one says that you get as much energy from a laptop screen as from chatting with a colleague at work.”

Telecommunication company At Elisa, employees have been encouraged to return to work in the office, but in practice the teams themselves can decide their local and remote work rhythm even at Elisa, says the human resources director Merja Ranta-aho. The utilization rate of Elisa’s branches has only been about a third of what it was before the corona pandemic.

“We want people to come to the office at least to some extent. Everyone’s job is to be involved in building and developing the community, and it doesn’t work so well if you’re always just remote,” says Ranta-aho.

Last spring, Elisa’s management encouraged each team to draw up its own remote work practices. Ranta-aho says that the customer service team may meet at the office, for example, on conference days, customer meetings and training sessions. Depending on the team, this can mean, for example, one to three office days per week, but no maximum or minimum number has been set.

“Each team has decided which are the situations in which we have to come to the office.”

According to Ranta-aho, Elisa’s employees appreciate that they have the power to decide how to organize their own work. Most of Elisa’s employees have been satisfied with the hybrid work model.

“There are always those who would like to do remote work only. They don’t always necessarily understand that they are part of the work community and not just the creators of their own work performance.”

Elisa’s hybrid work recommendation applies to approximately 3,000 employees in Finland.

Financial Group In June 2021, Nordea told its employees about the hybrid model, which combines both local and remote work, depending on the job. HR director for Finland Johanna Bergström according to this, they did return to wider remote work as the corona situation worsened, but people started moving back to the office in the spring and winter of the general telecommuting recommendation after completion.

Not even a single employee at Nordea can work remotely anymore, says Bergström.

“Let’s say that employees are encouraged to be present more than remotely. We believe in close work, community and that people feel better when they come to the office. But in some situations remote work is just fine,” he says.

According to Bergström, different teams have the influence to decide the extent to which remote and close work is done. Teams are encouraged, for example, to have joint office days, but their number and timing may vary depending on the work assignment.

“When the instruction is to prefer close work, then we hope that you will come to the office every week.”

According to Bergström, Nordea believes that people want to be together in the same space. For example, the transmission of tacit information, new innovation and teaching new employees about the company’s culture is less successful in a remote connection, according to him.

“On the other hand, the wider transition to remote work opened up opportunities. For example, you can take small children to daycare during working hours, and you don’t necessarily have to travel to meetings. Work is flexible.”

Nordea’s telecommuting decision affects approximately 6,400 employees in Finland.

On the commercial side Finland’s largest media organization, Sanoma Media Finland, aims to combine the “best aspects” of remote and close work in the fall, says the CEO Pia Kalsta. The hybrid model began to be applied in October 2021.

“The recommendation is to work in the office every week. On average, it’s two or three days,” says Kalsta.

Teams are allowed to influence their own work practices, but it is not possible to work completely remotely. According to Kalsta, remote work brings flexibility to employees’ everyday life and enables work tasks that require concentration, but in close work, learning from others, the transmission of tacit information and teamwork are emphasized.

“I believe that the combined model is an advantage for both the employer and the employee,” says Kalsta.

Although Sanoma Media Finland’s products have appeared normally during the corona period, according to Kalsta, the continuation of remote work could affect creative work in the longer term. At worst, the result could be, for example, the quality of the contents suffering, which in turn could affect the company’s success.

“Brainstorming and ideation with a colleague is not done remotely as much as in person. In the long term, remote work would weaken our competitiveness, as the deterioration of quality would be visible to customers.”

More than 2,000 employees work at Sanoma Media Finland.

Managers from all companies remind us that companies also have a lot of tasks that could not be done remotely even during the corona virus era.

Telecommuting does not treat everyone equally. Although younger workers may have better technological skills than older workers, according to studies, they suffer the most from remote work, says the research professor at the Institute of Occupational Health Tuomo Alasoini.

“Younger people have experienced more uncertainty, a decrease in well-being at work and a lack of community. Young people don’t necessarily have networks or the trust of their supervisors and co-workers yet,” says Alasoini.

In turn, the feeling of being an outsider experienced by younger people can have a negative effect on the sense of community in the entire workplace.

However, according to Alasoin, the combination of remote and local work, which is now preferred by many companies, has proven to be a good solution in the light of research. In the hybrid model, for example, job satisfaction is better than in other models and the “work suction” is stronger.

According to Alasoin, the strengths of hybrid work are that it is possible to get face-to-face support from co-workers and supervisors if needed. In addition, there are more learning opportunities in remote work, when the employee has to create new practices to combine work and free time.

However, Alasoini reminds that the success of hybrid work is greatly influenced by how the employer has organized it. The more the employee can influence his own working hours and practices, the better he will presumably be.

For example, in the case of Apple, hybrid work can primarily serve the interests of the company, not the individual. Alasoini thinks that the idea behind the three office days may be that the company is more successful in innovating new technology when the employees are in the same space – whether they like it or not. In video calls, ideas may not come out, but it may be easier to leave the microphone unopened.

Is remote work a passing craze that will gradually be brought back to the office? According to a survey by the Institute of Occupational Health, about a third of companies planned to allow remote work at most occasionally after the corona period. Slightly more than half wanted to let teams and employees decide for themselves where they work. Only one percent of the companies said they would switch to remote work entirely.

Alasoini believes that in the future there will be somewhat more of a return to traditional close work from hybrid work, but there will not be a complete return to the past.

“Practices after the pandemic are closer to the practices of the corona era than the time before it.”

HS is part of Sanoma Media Finlandia, part of the Sanoma Group.

Correction August 22, 2022 at 7:30 a.m.: Added information to the story that Sanoma Media Finland is Finland’s largest media organization that operates on the commercial side. The article originally stated that Sanoma Media Finland was the largest media organization in Finland.