Personnel training emphasises the sense of community
During the pandemic, most of Fimea employees started working remotely. After the pandemic, many continued to work remotely when Fimea introduced the concept of multi-locational work, and the personnel was given the opportunity to agree with supervisors which work tasks in their team required physical presence at the office. All work at Fimea is still based on cooperation and occasionally requires working at the office, and special attention is paid to maintaining the sense of community.
Multi-locational work has placed more weight on ergonomics, brain ergonomics and practices related to the use of shared tools when one part of the staff works at the office and the other part at home. During the pandemic, people may have forgotten many of the commonly agreed rules, and calendars have started to fill-up with consecutive meetings.
That is why Fimea agreed on practices to promote the personnel’s brain ergonomics, collaboration and well-being. For example, it was agreed that all internal meetings start on the hour and end ten to in order to leave everyone time to get to their next meeting, both physically and mentally. Instructions and tips were prepared for tasks that require concentration, meeting practices and the improvement of communications.
Fimea organised training for supervisors to implement the strategy, strengthen a uniform employer role and increase collaboration and sharing of resources. The training defined principles for supervisor work. According to the supervisors, the best part of the days was talking face-to-face after the pandemic and meeting new colleagues. This allowed supervisors to cooperate in person and promote Fimea’s strategic goal to increase cooperation and encourage the personnel to utilise their skills in different tasks.
Fimea’s conversation culture was improved by discussing the results of the work satisfaction survey. The personnel had a briefing to learn about dialogue and supervisors were trained to lead a discussion about the results of a work satisfaction survey with emphasis on listening, respect and understanding.