Timo Åhs works as a paramedic for the capital region’s city of Vantaa. He hurt his back one day on the job.
“It was an occupational accident. We were lifting a large patient when he fell. I threw my back out and got a slipped disc,” he says.
He went through surgery to repair the herniated disc and was granted a sick leave for several months. He was able to return to work more quickly, however, when he was able to secure a less physically-demanding job as a medical officer for the same salary. He worked in the office job for two months as his back healed. He then transitioned back into his former work.
“I negotiated the switch with a union, employer and state representative. We decided on a temporary replacement job because my back just couldn’t take the normal paramedic work,” he explains.
Vantaa pilot saw a drop in sick days
Taking replacement jobs in situations like this has become more common in Finnish working life. In Finland’s heavily regulated labour market, the practice is naturally supported by an official agreement between the employer and union representatives and occupational health providers.
The city of Vantaa, just outside of Helsinki, is promoting the idea of replacement work among its employees. Since the beginning of 2016, workers who are unable to work in their permanent position for health reasons have been encouraged to seek out a replacement.
Since that time, over 200 of the city’s employees have tried the switch, racking up over 3,000 work days in total. The result has been a noticeable decline in the number of sick days, a real financial boost for the city.
Vantaa’s HR director Kirsi-Marja Lievonen says the model can be easily adapted in other places of business, but warns that it does require a fair amount of work on everyone’s part.
“Supervisors need to come up with good alternatives and the workers need to have the right attitude. A sick leave does not necessarily entitle you to a vacation. If you are only partially incapacitated, you can still go to work,” she says.
Finland a sick leave leader
Of the 35 countries with high-income economies in the OECD, Finland is one of the top on the list when it comes to tallying cumulative sick leave and work disability.
“Research shows that the shorter the sick leave, the more motivation to work there is. Really long sick leaves often lead to early pensions,” Lievonen says.
And the work that is left undone in the meantime ends up being a major expense.
“Just over four percent of work absences in the private sector are the result of sick leaves,” says Jari Schugk, chief medical officer at the EK business owners confederation.
“It has been estimated that the annual cost of lost work due to sick leaves and work disability in Finland is in the order of 4 to 5 billion euros,” he says.
Not everyone would benefit
A danger of the experiment is naturally that some workers that are ill would doggedly insist on working when they really should be home recuperating.
“It is, of course, a risk, and hopefully something like that would be a very rare occurrence. The employer and employee should together decide how to proceed if the illness affects their working ability, but some other form of work that won’t impede their healing or endanger their health is a valid option,” says Schugk.
“A person with influenza or some other infectious disease should not be forced to come to work. Sick leave should still be the primary choice when it is the preferred treatment,” he says.
Timo Åhs eventually returned to his paramedic work, and says his experiment with the temporary replacement job was a positive one:
“It was a nice example of the employer reaching out. Thanks to the replacement work, I didn’t have to start collecting benefits from Kela. It’s a good idea in general to get the maximum use from our work force.”
