The relevant legislation stipulates that the employer shall provide this report within a reasonable time.  The employer will release the report towards the end of January 2016. The employer may, however, be able to issue a report on the new service organisation in December.

The report will specify the number of upcoming retirements, the total number of terminations and the manner in which the terminations will be targeted at the teaching and research staff as well as other staff. The allocation of terminations by unit or operation will be decided in more detail later, in the course of spring 2016. The employer’s report will be published on Flamma.

The University’s intention is that the terminations and other adjustment measures will be implemented during 2016. Besides building a new service organisation, the University is in the process of reforming other support services and the entire operational organisation.

“It is hard for us all to live in uncertainty and wait for information about what is to become of your job. We want to base our decisions on careful consideration, and in such a huge organisation it takes its time,” explains Director of Administration Esa Hämäläinen.

The cooperation negotiations, totalling ten sessions, were conducted between 30 September and 30 November 2015. Read the release on the final negotiation session here.

Consultation on retirement plans

All employees older than 61 and those turning 61 during the current year will receive a personal letter inquiring whether they would consider making a decision to retire by the end of 2017. Should they have decided to retire and no recruitments are necessary for their positions, this will reduce the number of terminated employees. An advance decision about retirement is voluntary, but in the case that such a decision is made, it is binding.

The Change Programme entails various reforms and development and change projects. See the Change Programme timeline.

The progress of the cooperation process (updated)

Summary of matters discussed in the cooperation negotiations, 30 September–30 November 2015 (following the order of discussion):

- Review of the proposal for negotiations and agreement on the agenda

- Acknowledgement of the confidentiality of  the negotiations

- Agreement on joint communication procedures

- Agreement on a staff competence survey among non-academic staff and on the use of the survey information

- Discussion on the University’s financial situation and estimated need for cost-cutting

- Presentation by the rector of the present state of preparations for the University’s strategic plan for 2017–2020

- Acknowledgement of the recruitment freeze and its duration as well as its impact on the staff’s workload

- Agreement on requesting the permanently employed teaching and research staff to update their CV information on the TUHAT research information system

- Review of the report on reorganising University administration into University services

- Review of the current state of the various work groups for administrative services

- Discussion on planned measures to support staff wellbeing and coping with change

- Review of staff statistics

- Continued discussion on the University’s financial situation

- Establishment of the various grounds for fees

- Preliminary discussion on the employer’s plans for incorporations

- Specification of negotiation procedures regarding the submission of materials

- Discussion on the financial and production-related grounds, as well as grounds related to the reorganisation of operations of the cooperation procedure

-  Discussion on the non-core operations that the University considers incorporating or outsourcing

-  Discussion on the employer’s plan to centralise laboratory staff and other teaching and research support staff into shared pools or units

-  Continued discussion on the incorporation of non-core University operations

-  Continued discussion on the financial grounds of the cooperation procedure

-  Discussion on potential means to reduce the number of staff cuts

-  Agreement on consulting employees at or near retirement age about their possible plans to retire

-  Discussion on the plan for the University’s administrative reorganisation and its estimated staff impacts

-  Discussion on the University’s plans to incorporate certain functions

-  Discussion on the funding of the University’s national duties and teacher training schools

-  Discussion on the principles of allocating the potential staff reductions

-  Review of ways to alleviate the impacts of staff cuts

-  Discussion on the change security re-employment programme

-  Continued discussion on the report by the work group investigating the reorganisation of administrative services and the status of laboratory staff

Change programme in Flamma

text: Kati Salmivaara
photo: Linda Tammisto