TAMK annual review 2024: Personnel review

2024 was a typically active year for TAMK’s personnel. We succeeded in reaching our goals for education and projects as well as service and support functions. In the autumn, our incoming new president caused palpable anticipation among our personnel.

Personnel competence and well-being in focus

We continued the HR programme 2024–2026 launched at the end of the previous year with the theme ‘Me toiminnan uudistajina’ (We as reformers). It is essential to secure the personnel competence and well-being required by TAMK's strategy and development programmes. We improved competencies, work arrangements, supervisory work and occupational safety during the year. We encouraged our personnel to work in teams, collaboratively. Where necessary, we provided support for supervisors and teams by clarifying work roles, rules and common practices with the help of team training and coaching, for instance. Approximately one fifth of our personnel took part in the trainings. The feedback was positive:

We utilised coaching as continuation of team training. We engaged in in-depth dialogue regarding our goals and team roles and improved our information sharing and collective interactions. Highly recommended to everyone! Teams that have been together for a long time certainly benefit from having someone outside the team look at their activities every now and then. On the other hand, it is likely that new or reorganised teams need help in getting organised and highlighting issues that are found challenging. This was an important opportunity to stop and think about shared issues and practices amidst the everyday hustle and bustle.
Coaching feedback

We aired out and revised TAMK’s organisational culture by arranging open discussions on topical issues. Our system of good governance and ethical principles was a wide-ranging theme. The principles have been created to provide a proper depiction of our mutual ambition for a higher education institution community which functions well and in accordance with our values, and to guide all community members to act accordingly. The theme covers typical Corporate Governance policies regarding e.g. decision-making and agreement procedures while also pertaining to management, equality and non-discrimination.

We also refined TAMK’s values with our personnel. Participants gave feedback not only on how our values match our operations in practice but also on areas needing improvement, such as taking personnel opinion more actively into consideration and engaging the personnel in decision-making.

Personnel was provided support in investigations of various student cases. Harassment cases and various learning disabilities provided challenges throughout the year. These situations were solved as necessary, all the while improving our processes to prevent such issues in the future. Our personnel also got to enjoy many successes both in their own work and in our work community, with students graduating and showing active engagement in their studies and internships!

We refined our social responsibility and sustainability efforts, implementing a division into ecological, social and financial responsibility. We carried out our accessibility plan related to students, personnel and our operations, conducting activities such as facility planning and study and internship support efforts.

On the employer side, one significant change was the collective agreement for universities of applied sciences made between Finnish Education Employers (FEE), the Trade Union of Education (OAJ) and the Federation of Professional and Managerial Staff (YTN). It entered into force in April 2024 for its first two-year spell. In areas of collaboration, occupational safety and operational development, we continued good cooperation and active dialogue with personnel representatives.