The review below is a summary of the Annual Report 2007. The whole publication can be ordered from the Internal Services, Ms. Inkeri Haataja, tel. + 358 30 474 2470, fax. +358 9 2413 804.
Director General's Review
At the beginning of 2008, Finland was confident that its companies, funding institutions and public sector economy were in good form, and that competitiveness was strong. However, this did not stop the global economic decline extending its powerful grip to Finland at the end of the year.
The recession hits us just when we should have maximized the total amount of workplaces and pension reserves, before the baby boomer generation leave work life, the supply of the workforce starts to decline, and the national economy's dependency ratio weakens. Despite the resuscitation efforts of the government, it is estimated that Finland will lose about 100 000 workplaces in 2009 and 2010.
A central question now is how the Finnish work life model will successfully operate in this new economic situation. It is in danger of getting caught in a negative spiral, in which the negative effects of the economy's leading operations moving out of Finland, the reorganization of companies, the weakening social atmosphere of workplaces, the declining rate of employment, and the public economy's growing debt all feed off each other.
Those who look further ahead are already talking the rise of the economy after the recession, and what they see as an ensuing labour shortage. It is essential that functional capacity at workplaces does not become paralyzed and that people are not displaced from work life, despite possibly being temporarily placed outside it. Employers, employees, public authorities, occupational health care and industrial safety organizations need effective operating models now more than ever.
The Finnish Institute of Occupational Health (FIOH), for its part, will try to react quickly to the changes in the environment. This is why we have immediately started to update what we learned from the recession of the early 90s. We are tailoring information packages, services, and training for the different needs of our client groups, which provide advice on how to work their way out of crises at workplaces through joint efforts, what support is needed in the face of multiple lay-offs and redundancies, how to survive at workplaces in which most of the community is disappearing around them, and how to survive if they suddenly lose their jobs. At the same time, FIOH itself must be prepared for tougher times and adapt its operations accordingly.
The recession aside, 2008 was a good year for FIOH. It began with the publication of Jussi Huttunen and Jouko Mäki-Lohiluoma's survey report on the redirection of the resources of offices and institutes under the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health. Based on this, Paula Risikko, the Minister of Health and Social Services came to the conclusion that FIOH's role was clear, and that it may continue as an independent institute, continuing to work on its current strategy. The government wanted to secure our specialist skills in work life areas and related research.
Last summer, a survey carried out by Taloustutkimus, an independent market research house, revealed that Finnish decision-makers value FIOH's expertise. The high quality of our research and product development, social responsibility, and products and services placed us at the top of the league of the public sector series.
The government's report on innovation politics was approved by parliament in the autumn. According to this report, innovation is no longer merely good inventions which may at some time possibly be used by someone, but increasingly a question of solutions to client's needs. The government wants public sector research institutes to become multidisciplinary, high level international players, producing research knowledge which is relevant to society. Many perspectives of the report are mirrored in our own strategy; these are the goals that we have been striving to achieve for the last three years.
Many public sector organizations, which were themselves designing their strategic policies or undergoing restructuring, showed interest in our position as an independent public corporation, our endeavour to produce solutions applicable to work life together with our clients and co-operative partners, as well as our innovation model which combines research, training, specialist advisory services and the dissemination of knowledge.
For some years now, we have been able to raise increasing amounts of R & D funding. The sums received from the Academy of Finland have grown ten-fold since the turn of the decade. This shows that we have remained at the top of our field, as competition for the Academy's funding is fierce. During this time we have also doubled the amount of funding we receive from TEKES, the National Technology Agency which supports innovation activities and co-operation. We have thus succeeded in adapting our research knowledge into solutions which help enterprises.
However, we still have our work cut out for us in the development of occupational health and safety. Occupational accidents began to rise two years ago; in the construction industry in particular, where work processes are being split between different organizations and constantly changing workers. The Finnish Zero Accident Forum has shown that the means to improve this situation exist, but that this requires determination and the right attitude. The number of accidents at workplaces that belong to the Forum has decreased, despite figures for the country on the whole being on the rise. Members take the goal of zero accidents seriously, and learn from each other.
Unfortunately, society's alcohol-related problems are on the rise. To help prevent them, we continued our successful mini-intervention training as part of occupational health services. Based on these mini-interventions, members of occupational health services bring up alcohol-related issues during a patient's ordinary medical appointment. The aim is to focus on alcohol consumption at the earliest possible stage. We also published health-related information on the subject and challenged workplaces to bring these issues out into the open. One project was to encourage workplaces to promote an alcohol-free January.
The National Audit Office reported that occupational health services (OHS) are in need of development; according to the report, OHS has become curative rather than preventive, even though its primary task is to help prevent problems related to work ability, and to promote workers' health. An increasing number of employers offer curative services today; behind all this are primary health care service problems which have been ongoing for some time now. In order to clarify the preventive role of OHS, and to make the task of employers ordering occupational health care services easier, we are creating a comprehensive guide as to what kind of health services different companies should offer their personnel and how. This guide will be available at the beginning of 2009. We also concentrated on increasing the comprehensiveness of occupational health services, the development of small enterprises' OHS in particular.
Globalization, the demands of durable development, new technologies and the ageing population are all changing society, and their effects can be seen in work life today. In 2008, we highlighted the potential health effects and safety issues of nanotechnology, and how the brain copes at work. Large audiences were also interested in the significance of management and organizational social capital.
Change gives rise to threats, but also to opportunities. The task of the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health is to find new operation models, and to critically evaluate present activities. We must be the pioneers of new ideas, be ahead of our time, and thus strengthen the work life and workplaces of our country. All the while, knocking back the threats and grasping onto the opportunities.