We take care of our employees and the environment
The number of annual work units in the Finnish Tax Administration increased by 113 AWUs to a total of 5,126 (2021: 5,013). AWUs increased especially as a result of our significant investments in reducing the backlog of reviewed tax decisions using temporary personnel. Additional personnel resources were also required for the preparation of the positive credit register.
We will strengthen our expertise through the proactive recruitment and training of specialists to prepare for the expected retirements. In other words, new specialists will be recruited before our current employees retire. With this arrangement, we want to ensure that we have skilled professionals in even more demanding positions.
During 2023 and 2024, we will recruit some 130 individuals with a university level degree in training programmes focused on different themes in accordance with the needs indicated in the strategic personnel plan. As part of this training, we will also allocate resources to congested customer-initiated tasks. This will enable us to complete customer-initiated tasks in accordance with our goals.
The wellbeing of employees is important to us
In the job satisfaction survey (VMBaro), we achieved a new record-high score of 3.77 (2021: 3.70). A slight positive development can be seen in all areas of the survey.
With regard to sick leave, short absences showed a general increase due to COVID-19 and an increase in other infections following the pandemic.
We require that all personnel are treated equally and without any discrimination in everything we do. We update our equality and non-discrimination plan with our personnel every two years. Through communication, we increase our personnel’s awareness and knowledge of the plan’s goals and monitoring. In addition, the themes of equality and non-discrimination are included in the induction provided for new employees.
We build security together
We develop the reliability and continuity of the Finnish Tax Administration’s services proactively and by addressing the perspective of security.
The security snapshot supports our decision making in which we use internal and external data flows as comprehensively as possible. To react more effectively to any security incidents, we have expanded the services of our information and data security control rooms into 24/7 services.
We have also invested in risk management at the level of units and the Finnish Tax Administration as a whole. We have built a shared risk register to better identify risks and improve our resilience.
Each employee plays a significant role in building security in our operating environment. Based on our survey, our personnel’s experience of our security management was nearly excellent (8.8 out of 10).
We held more than 130 training, briefing and practice events with more than 3,000 participants to develop our personnel’s security skills. A total of 86% of our personnel participated in our ongoing phishing training.
The carbon footprint remained at the previous year’s level
We have calculated our carbon dioxide emissions since 2010 when we joined the WWF Green Office system. The purpose of the Green Office system is to address environmental perspectives in daily activities, communicate them, and calculate and report the carbon footprint annually.
Between 2017 and 2025, the Finnish Tax Administration is committed to reducing:
- electricity consumption by 7.5%
- paper consumption by 30%
- business travel by 32%
- waste volumes by 18%
The Finnish Tax Administration’s carbon footprint in 2022 was 3,999 tCO2 (2021: 3,929 tCO2), which consisted of CO2 emissions from energy, paper, waste and business travel. Even though emissions increased slightly after the exceptional coronavirus pandemic, the trend has been downward in the long term.
The decreased use of facilities as a result of the pandemic and increases in remote working was reflected in a lower consumption of electricity and heat. The national Down a Degree campaign helped reduce electricity and heat consumption.
Our paper consumption decreased during the year. The number of letters mailed decreased by roughly 750,000 and the volume of printing paper decreased by 4%. However, employees worked more at the office than in 2021 which was reflected in an increase in the waste volume (+31%).
Business travel increased considerably after the slow coronavirus year, significantly increasing our CO2 emissions. Air travel increased by 3,700 and train travel by 8,600 trips. The State Travel Regulations guide us to use trains in place of short flights.
Key points in 2022
- 260,250 kilometres driven using company cars
- 4,523 flights
- 162,730 sheets of printing paper
- 745,000 fewer letters mailed than in the previous year
- 2,313 AWUs of remote working (we worked 45% from home)
Case: Jointly used customer service and work facilities becoming more common in the public sector
Customer visits to the locations of the Finnish Tax Administration and other authorities alike are decreasing at the same pace as digital services and people’s digital skills are increasing. However, the opportunity to visit locations in person must be guaranteed for everyone who are unable or do not know how to use digital service channels.
We are involved in the central government’s service and facility network reform, the goal of which is to provide in-person services in the public sector’s joint customer service locations and make the central government’s facility network more compact. By providing the services of different authorities in joint facilities, we can better maintain the service network and expand the range of services provided in each location.
In addition, workspaces will be built in joint customer service facilities for the personnel of the organisations participating in the reform. Remote working has reduced working at the office, and in this way we can use offices more effectively.
During 2022, the deployment of the first joint customer service and office facilities under the service and facility network reform was prepared in Lahti and Lappeenranta. A more extensive transition to the central government’s joint work environments will take place in stages by 2030.
In addition, the Tax Administration’s facilities were modified into joint work environments in several locations after our partner organisations (including the Digital and Population Data Services Agency, the National Land Survey of Finland and the Social Insurance Institution of Finland) moved into our facilities.