Organisations as a workplace

In an organisation, employees are in an employment relationship with their employer, so the Employment Contracts Act(you will be directed to another service) forms the basis for managing employment matters. The Supervisor Orientation – Getting to know the key legislation publication describes the rights and obligations of the employer, supervisor and employee laid down in the Employment Contracts Act.

As an employer, an organisation has the same occupational safety obligations as other employers.

Learn about the employer’s key responsibilities and obligations in the Occupational Safety and Health Act(you will be directed to another service).
Read more about the employer’s obligations in the Occupational Healthcare Act(you will be directed to another service).

Special characteristics of organisational work

In addition to general occupational safety and health aspects, there are also special characteristics to the work carried out in organisations. These include, but are not limited to:

Duties related to the same entity can be performed simultaneously by both an employee and e.g. a member of an executive committee (board) or a working group.
There may be ambiguity in the management and supervision of work between committee members and salaried supervisors.
The work may also take place in the evenings and at weekends and involve a lot of travel, which affects the planning of work, working hours and recovery.
The work can involve ethical and emotional workloads.
The work can also be part of a lifestyle, which makes it challenging to draw boundaries between work and life outside of work.

The above-mentioned special characteristics are reflected in workload management, working time issues, working culture and the management and supervision of work. They must also be taken into account in the orientation of supervisors, employees, executive committee members and, if necessary, other operators in the organisation. It is also important that the structures of operations and the roles of operators are clear.

Management and supervision of work

The organisation decides in its rules of association or by decisions of the executive committee who acts as the employer’s representative. In other words, an individual member of the organisation or a member of the organisation’s executive committee does not have the right to manage or supervise work, unless otherwise decided.

Management, allocation and supervision of daily work is usually part of the duties of a person hired for this role (a supervisor). They also take care of employee orientation, guidance and other instruction work, among other things. In a small organisation with, for example, two salaried employees, the management and supervision of work may, in accordance with the decision of the executive committee, be part of the duties of the chairperson, for example.

The executive committee acts as the organisation’s representative and manages and monitors the organisation’s operations at a general level. The Associations Act(you will be directed to another service) and the Foundations Act(you will be directed to another service) (in Finnish) obligate the executive committee to manage the affairs of the organisation appropriately and carefully in accordance with the law, the rules of association and the decisions of the highest decision-making bodies. In the rules of association, other names may be also used for the executive committee, such as the executive board.

It is important that the roles, tasks and responsibilities of the supervisors, employees, persons in the position of trust and any volunteers have been clearly defined. The perspectives of occupational safety and well-being at work must also be taken into account in this.

Working hours

The Occupational Safety and Health Act requires that the employer also identifies and assesses the harms and hazards to the safety and health of employees related to the working hours. The workload from working hours is influenced by factors such as the length of the working days and weeks, the predictability of the working hours, work-related travel and the ability to influence the time tied to working.

In organisational work, the line between work and leisure can easily become blurred. It is possible that the work continues at home after the working day or week by using a smartphone or other information technology to complete any unfinished tasks or prepare for the following week.

Under the Working Hours Act(you will be directed to another service) (in Finnish), the employer has an obligation to keep records of working hours. In addition to this, it is important that the employee also monitors the adequacy of their working hours, the smooth flow of work and their own well-being while also discussing any significant deviations or potential problems with their supervisor in good time. In small organisations with no salaried supervisors, the matter should be discussed with the chairperson of the executive committee, for example.

Learn more about managing the workload related to working hours.

Ethical and emotional strain

In organisational work, ethical and emotional strain can take many forms. The most typical situations are those where

for some reason, the employee is unable to act in accordance with the solution they consider best
the behaviour of a customer or other contact person poses a challenge, which can jeopardise the employee’s feeling of capability or sense of security
the employee does not know or is not sure what would be the right way to act in the situation in question
the employee experiences a conflict between their own and the workplace’s values or a wider conflict of values, for example, with regard to society
the employee feels that they are not valued or that they are excluded in interaction situations.

Learn more about ethical strain at work.