Equality

Finnish Environment Institute (Syke) aims to be an organization where it is good for everyone to work and nobody is discriminated on the basis of gender, origin, religion, sexual orientation or any other reason. Employees are our most important resource and we want it to show in our operations and everyday work. To build a sustainable society, we need different kinds of people, views and skills. Merely in this way can we produce research and expert services from insightful perspectives.

Only the essential is looked for in recruitment

Excellent skills in Finnish are required for recruiting if it is not necessary for working for performing the work task successfully. We encourage women to apply for management positions, demanding expert and research positions and project management positions. Job advertisements are made in such a way that they do not favor or discriminate applicants on the basis of gender and that jobseekers representing different groups become interested to work for Finnish Environment Institute. Whenever possible, job interviewers of different genders are used in job interviews.

Fairness of pay level is reviewed yearly

Syke's pay system applies to all persons hired by Syke for employee relationship lasting longer than six months, except public servants representing the employer. The purpose of the system is to encourage, support and reward high-level competence, promote gender equality and improve Syke's competitiveness and image as an employer. Pay levels are reviewed yearly and the pay of the employee is revised if there have been changes in the tasks or if the performance has improved. Examinations have shown that the pay of men and women differ very little in Syke then they work at the same task level.

Work and personnel – job satisfaction in Finnish Environment Institute is on a high level

Employees are encouraged to participate in the planning, developing and making decisions in operations. For example, during the spring 2021 the staff was given a chance to affect the ideation of the new organizational strategy. We keep on developing the working environment of the Finnish Environment Institute more and more accessible. The personnel working in different locations are taken into account into the operations of the organization. We pay attention to linguistic and cultural equality and look for ways to adapt the working circumstances according to the Web Accessibility Directive. The goal is to distribute work tasks equally. Relevant information is translated into English. The situation of temporary workers is considered twice per year.

Position of grant reseachers has been improved in Syke

The agreement principles of grant researchers were renewed lately. From the beginning of year 2020 grant researchers will have 20 % part time employment agreement. Earlier they didn’t have an employment relationship with with Syke at all. With the improvement they will get the same benefits as other employees, eg. occupational health service. This model increases equality among different kinds of workers. Syke’s model has been an example for other science organizations.

Reconciling professional and private life

Syke has a positive attitude towards parental leaves and flexible working time. The goal is that reconciliation of professional and family life does not affect one’s career.

Observations of inappropriate behavior and harassment will be investigated

Good work atmosphere consists of appropriate behaviour, acceptance of diversity and taking others into account. Any kind of inappropriate behavior and harassment is not tolerated. Situations of inappropriate behavior and harassment are always investigated and, if necessary, the supervisor is involved in the discussions at an early stage. According to year 2020’s VMBaro personnel survey Syke’s personnel is treated fairly and equally on the average.

The Baltic Gender project created practices to promote gender equality

Syke participated in the Baltic Gender project in 2016-2020 among four other Baltic countries. The project was funded by EU Horizon 2020. According to the statistics of EU among there are as many men and women who defend their doctoral thesis but after that women don’t advance in their career. Especially marine science and technology is traditionally a male-dominated field. The objective of the project was to create good practices to promote gender equality and to support the participating organizations to develop and implement their equality plans.

As part of the project, Syke organized several workshops and training sessions and wrote blog posts. Syke also developed the digital GenderWave tool. The tool is an interactive PDF document that helps reseachers take into account gender related aspects when planning research questions and methodological choices, for example. The tool can be used in different fields of science.

Implementation of equality under continuous monitoring in Syke

We are developing ways to investigate how equality is implemented in Syke. We also train our staff to increase awareness of gender and equality issues.