The Department of Economic Affairs and Employment has today released further results from the 2020 Working Life Barometer. The report also contains information on workplace discrimination, bullying and violence in Finland in 2020. This information is based on employee observations of these phenomena.
In this blog post, I’ll explore what the report says about the dark side of Finnish workplaces.
work life barometer
The Department has been publishing these annual working life barometers for thirty years. I used the 2020 Barometer results in a previous blog. I also reported results from previous years in some of my earlier blogs.
Current Rain or ShineOman WhatsApp Number List The table is based on the ministry’s August and September last year A survey commissioned in March. The barometer focuses on employees’ perspectives and how they view working life in Finland.
The barometer results represent working life in Finland. The findings are widely used in Finnish research, political decision-making and the drafting of employment-related laws.
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Investigating discrimination, bullying and violence in Finnish workplaces
The Work Life Barometer survey asks employees to assess the presence of discrimination, bullying and violence in the workplace.
The survey did not ask about their own experiences with these phenomena. Instead, they were asked whether they had observed them. Another survey tool, the Working Conditions Survey, examines Finnish employees' personal experiences with these issues.
The survey focused on discrimination based on age (old and young), gender, racial/ethnic background, health status and employment type. The types of employment here refer to permanent and fixed-term employment contracts, full-time and part-time employment contracts.
The Finnish Institute of Occupational Health defines workplace bullying as repeated, persistent, systematic negative treatment. It can include invalidating, subjugating, and humiliating others.
was significantly more common than discrimination against men (2%). These percentages have remained virtually unchanged over the past 20 years.
Most commonly, employees reported observing discrimination based on the type of employment relationship. 11% of employees said they had observed discrimination against employees on fixed-term employment contracts. 6% reported observing discrimination based on the part-time nature of the employment contract.
The Working Life Barometer has been tracking health-based discrimination since 2015. Subsequently, 9% of employees said they observed this in the workplace. In 2020, 8% said they had done so.
In 2000, the Work Life Barometer first asked about observations of discrimination based on race or national origin. Then, 27% of employees said they have colleagues with foreign backgrounds. Last year, that number rose to 49.
In 2020, 4% of employees in workplaces with employees of foreign background observed discrimination based on this criterion. The ratio actually hasn't changed much. In a report released in 2001, 6% of employees observed this type of discrimination.
Workplace bullying in Finland 2020
Questions about workplace bullying have been on the Barometer since 2012. The results of 2020 were discouraging, although the changes were positive.
In 2020, 53% of employees observed bullying in the workplace at least occasionally. In 2012, 59% of employees owned one.
Women (62%) experience occasional bullying in the workplace more frequently than men (44%).
Most often, employees (35%) observed coworkers bullying other employees often or sometimes. But they also frequently or occasionally see bullying from customers (34%) or managers (22%).
Over the past decade, the proportion of employees who have observed coworkers bullying others on a regular basis is approximately 3%.
Physical violence in the workplace in Finland 2020
The Work Life Barometer focuses on violence perpetrated by clients (or threats thereof).
In 2020, 21% of employees observed someone experiencing violence or the threat of it at least once in the past 12 months. Additionally, 9% of employees said they themselves had been a victim or threat of violence at least once in the past 12 months.
Significantly more women (31%) than men (11%) witnessed workplace violence. The same goes for being a victim of violence or its threats. 14% of women have experienced at least one act of violence. Among men, only 4% reported experiencing it.
Violence and threats of violence are more common in municipalities than anywhere else. 49% of municipal employees observed acts of violence. 21% have experienced it personally.
In government, 18% observed violence. 5% of people have experienced it personally. In the private services sector, the figures were 17% and 7% respectively.
According to the Working Conditions Survey, the threat of violence has increased over the years, especially for women. The differences between the genders are mainly caused by gender segregation in the Finnish labor market.