Lack of time must not hinder supporting work ability in daily work at the workplace – the new guide has been designed especially for the needs of small workplaces

A lot of good information on how to support employees’ work ability is already available. In small companies, however, the employers are often busy and do not have time to look for instructions and familiarise themselves with them. These two issues were revealed in the studies carried out in our project on the digital guide to work ability for workplaces.

We understood that we had a problem: we had to draw up a new guide for supporting work ability at workplaces, but one of our target groups did not have time to read even the current instructions.

However, the guide we have drawn up is significantly different from previous instructions. It is a concise summary of different sources of information, instructions and services. The guide does not replace previous instructions, but helps the reader gain an overall picture of the matter and offers a wide range of sources in which more in-depth information can be found.

The guide provides concrete instructions for preventing problems with work ability in advance

Based on the customer insight we have gained, employees would like to have concrete instructions for supporting their employees with coping at work and for preventing problems with work ability in advance.

The importance of prevention was also emphasised in the interviews of work ability specialists. Every euro invested in supporting the work ability of employees is usually multiplied and returned with time. If everything is in order at the workplace, work can support employees even when they face setbacks in their life.

Practical instructions for the daily operation of the workplace

We have taken these wishes into account in the guide. In addition to providing information in clear language on how to support employees’ work ability, the guide also contains instructions that are easy to apply to daily work at the workplace and tips for available services.

The message we would like to convey to the reader is that supporting work ability often does not mean anything complicated. Instead, even small changes may have a big impact.

We will also bring information about services to the guide from the Finnish Service Catalogue (FSC)Opens in a new window. The FSC is like a container full of information from which content can be gathered to an online service, for example. Using the FSC in the guide is has clear benefits: for example, it enables the reader to get up-to-date information about the work ability services offered by different actors. The FSC also makes it possible for us to easily add new services to the guide.

The guide provides a compact overall picture of how work ability can be supported

We draw up the guide by using the awarded Suomi.fi content cooperation model. This means that we use the methods of design in our work. The guide is based on researched customer insight. The team drawing up the guide is a network whose members represent the authorities, organisations and expert organisations.

The network helps us to provide the reader with a broad overall picture of how work ability can be supported. In this case, broadness does not mean that we are trying to drown the reader in information. On the contrary, we are simplifying the most important things for busy readers and guide them to find additional information. This ensures that the entrepreneur does not need to use their valuable time to find information.

The guide Opens in a new window.was published in Suomi.fi Web Service in May 2024.

Read more about the Digital guide to work ability for employers project Opens in a new window.