Concepts and Transformation - Volume 9, Issue 3, 2004

In the view of most authors, the long-established standard employment relationship (SER) has little future in the information society as external structural change comes to replace internal structural change. This article shows that, contrary to these beliefs in most industrialised countries, employment relationships have tended to become more stable in recent years, particularly among skilled workers, for the reason that spatial proximity and close social communication is gaining increasing importance in knowledge-based work. The author identifies the following six different causes underlying improvements or deterioration in the SER: (1) Flexibilisation of product markets, (2) rising female employment rates, (3) combination of education/training and work, (4) rising educational levels among the working population, (5) labour market regulation and deregulation, and (6) the employment situation. Changes in the SER are not being driven solely by the computerisation of production but also by other, very different forces which are at least as significant as technological change. The article concludes with an alternative paradigm taking as its starting point a new balance of internal and external mobility. As an alternative to the "Anglo-Saxon" model of the deregulated labour market, the author proposes a revitalisation of internal and occupational labour markets.

This article is based on the evaluation of the Finnish Workplace Development Programme, TYKE-FWPD, by a team led by the author. The programme ran as a national government programme from 1996 to 2003, and has been continued, with modifications, in 2004 through 2009. Until the early 1990s the main focus of working life development in Finland was technological. During the past decade a shift in the emphasis has occurred toward work organization and human resources development. As part of this process, TYKE-FWDP has played an important role. The programme aims at accelerating working life development be means of improvements in learning networks and methods as well as by encouraging cooperation between researchers and research institutes, workplace parties, social partners and governmental agencies and institutions at national and regional levels. The idea is that as change agencies, firms can influence their own future by engaging in a complex learning process, long-term multi-dimensional interaction and networking. Highly developed learning strategies will give companies a competitive edge, and thus directly or indirectly also secure or enhance positive employment development. The evaluation, carried out in 2002–2003, showed that the Programme has been successful on many counts: sustainable results have been achieved at the company and organisational level, learning networks have been enhanced between different institutions related to innovation and workplace development, and the programme enjoys a very high legitimacy among key stakeholders, including the social partners.

The paper surveys the background, aims, and content of the Finnish Government’s new working-life development initiative for the period 2004 to 2009. The aim of the new Finnish Workplace Development Program (TYKES-FWDP) is sustainable productivity growth, where increases in productivity are combined with improvements in the quality of working life. In addition to funding development projects in both companies and public-sector organizations, the program will promote method development, learning networks, and continuing education for researchers on working life. As an innovation policy approach, TYKES-FWDP represents a "broad systemic innovation policy" that focuses equally on all sectors of the economy and on the interaction and combination of technological, organizational, and other kinds of social innovations.