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Working at UEF

This website includes practical information on working in Finland and UEF for our international staff members. For more information on recruitment and careers at UEF in general, please visit Work at UEF website.

When you have received your UEF username and password from IT services, you can log on to the UEF Intranet called Heimo and find detailed information on most employment relationship matters. In Heimo you can search different topics and services by typing a key word in the search field.

General information on the rights and responsibilities of employees in Finland can be found at Infofinland.fi. Information on general rules and regulations in working can life can be found in suomi.fi online service.  Here's also a short video on Finnish working life. In this video you will learn about your rights, obligations, taxation, pension and trade unions.

We are glad to welcome you to our university as a new employee. One of the first things you should do is to learn about the activities of the university and your own unit. The responsibility for your induction lies with the unit in which you will be working but as a new employee should also take responsibility for learning the roles and finding out about things.

New employee Induction

The University of Eastern Finland is a specialist organisation providing high quality teaching, research and development services. At the outset of their careers, all university employees must therefore familiarise themselves with their duties, immediate operating environment and the entire, extended university community. Familiarisation with the work community, and adaptation to it at the outset of employment and to later changes in the environment, form a focal starting point for high quality activities.

New employee induction is integral to competence development, forming the first development step at the beginning of each employee's career. Regular performance appraisal discussions and joint meetings of the work community create the later basis for continuous development of individual employees, the entire staff, and the work community.

Orientation for the new members of staff

The Orientation for the new members of staff is an excellent opportunity to explore the University of Eastern Finland as well as to learn about the resources and benefits for the staff at the UEF. The Orientation program is a helpful way to start employment on the right informational track.

For more information, please visit UEF intranet at: https://studentuef.sharepoint.com/sites/heimo_en/services/for-a-new-member-of-staff/Pages/home.aspx

The form of employment of the entire university staff is a contractual employment relationship. When a new employee joins the university, a contract of employment is made for the new employee. The making of the contract of employment is subject to, e.g., the following documents: Rector's general instructions relating to the hiring of new employees and Rector's decision to delegate the authority to hire new employees to the University of Eastern Finland.

Working hours for teaching and research staff

The university's teaching and research staff follows the total working time system, which involves 1,600 hours per academic year. Members of the teaching staff make an annual work plan covering their 1,624 hours in cooperation with their supervisor. Read more about the working hours at UEF.

Working hours for other staff

The university's administrative and auxiliary staff (often referred to as "the other staff") follow regular working hours, which shall in average not be more than 7 hours and 15 minutes per day and 36 hours and 15 minutes per week. The university has a flexible working hours system and members of the administrative and auxiliary staff use a time card for the monitoring of their working hours. Read more about the working hours at UEF. 

Salaries are determined according to the salary system of the general collective agreement for universities (see Chapter 6 onwards in appendices). The salary system of the Finnish universities is applied to an employee when the employee's contract of employment is made for a period exceeding six months.

The salary of an employee is composed of a job requirement component and a personal performance component.

The salary system of the Finnish universities comprises two separate evaluation systems: an evaluation system for the teaching and research staff, and an evaluation system for the other staff (administrative and auxiliary staff). In addition, the university has an evaluation system for the teaching staff at the teacher trainings schools. Based on a set of pre-defined criteria, the employer decides which of the systems is applied to an employee.

See further information on salary and evaluation in Heimo (UEF’s intranet).

Payment of Salary

A Payment Information Form must be filled out before the payment of the first salary. The form and the original employee's tax card must be sent to Certia, the Universities' Service Centre.

If you wish the University of Eastern Finland to deduct the trade union membership fee directly from your salary, you should also submit a letter of authority for the collection of trade union membership fee.

For employees whose contract is valid until further notice, the salary is, as a rule, paid on the 15th of each month. For employees who have a fixed-term contract, the salary is paid on the last day of the month. The salary of part-time hourly-paid teachers is paid, against invoice, on the first possible salary payment date.

For the delivery of the electronic payslip, you can choose whether you wish to have your payslip delivered electronically to your Finnish online bank (Verkkopalkka) or as a paper printout to the university. 

Further information in the UEF intranet (log in required)

Deductions from your salary

In addition to the tax, the employer is also required to withhold social security contributions from your gross salary at the time of salary payment unless you have the A1 Certificate of a posted employee.

Compulsory social security contributions payable by the employee in 2020 are as follows:

  • Employee's pension insurance contribution: 7.15% or 8.6585% for employees of age 53-62 and 7.15 for employees of age 63-67.
  • Employee's unemployment insurance contribution: 1.25%
  •  Employee´s health insurance contribution (incl. medical  care contribution and daily allowance
    contribution) is 1.86%.

Further information:

As a general rule, you are covered by the Finnish statutory and obligatory pension insurance system when working in Finland. You and your employer pay pension contributions. Your employer will automatically withhold your share of the contribution from your wages. You do not have to take any action. See the pension accrual rates here.

If you simultaneously have another employer in EU/EEA country or in Switzerland, please contact HR Services at the UEF.

Finnish pension system in brief

The statutory pension security in Finland consists of earnings-related pension and residence-based national pension. Earnings-related pension security is financed mainly through employer and employee contributions. National pensions and guarantee pensions are meant for those pensioners who have no earnings-related pension or whose pension is very small.

There is no fixed retirement age in the earnings-related pension scheme. You can apply for an earnings-related pension at any time between the ages of 63-68. Within the national pension scheme, the old-age retirement age is 65 years. The amount of earnings-related pension depends on how long you have been working and what your salary has been.

Further information:

Pensions for persons working at the UEF

In accordance with Section 11 of the Act on the Implementation of the Universities Act (559/2009), persons in the employ of the universities who were born before the first of January 1980 shall be governed by the State Pensions Act (1259/2006, "VaEL"). Other persons in the employ of the universities shall be governed by the Employees Pensions Act (395/2006, "TyEL"). The Finnish Centre for Pensions (ETK) serves as the joint statutory co-operation body of the earnings-related pension field.

If you are receiving a grant or a scholarship from Finland, the Farmers' Social Insurance Institution (Mela) handles your statutory earnings-related pension and occupational accident insurance.

For more information:

In line with the university's practice, supervisors conduct annual performance appraisal discussions with employees on a regular basis. Units may decide whether discussions are conducted separately or in connection with salary discussions.

For the employee, the performance appraisal discussion offers the possibility to influence one's work and matters common to the work community. The employee plays the key role in the discussion. The supervisor ensures that the work community's objectives and tasks are concretised and introduced at the personal level: everyone knows which part of the whole he/she is implementing. At the performance appraisal discussion, performance is analysed and one's own actions observed, and feedback is given by both parties. The discussion strengthens best practices and enables open and confidential handling of matters, which helps even latent abilities to be revealed. This influences the development of both an individual and the work community as a whole.

For further information, see Heimo.

Work-related journeys refer to journeys undertaken at the request of the supervisor to a location outside the workplace in order to carry out work-related duties. Travelling from home to the workplace and back does not constitute a work-related journey. The employee's place of employment is defined in the employment contract.

For work-related journeys, a travel plan approved by your supervisor needs to be made before your departure. After the work-related journey, the travel plan is turned into a travel claim. The travel claim should be made within two months of the work-related journey.

For further information on search for travelling in Heimo.

Annual holiday regulations depend on whether you belong to the staff category of "research and teaching staff" or "other staff".

Research and teaching staff

Teachers' and researchers' annual working time 1621 hours covers the academic year from August 1 to July 31 next year. 1621 hours are specifically working hours; holidays are in addition to this. Teachers' and researchers' holidays need not be written in the work plan or in the unit's holiday lists. It is of course polite to arrange holiday times with your manager.

Although the holiday periods are not written in the work plan or recorded in the personnel system, it is important that also the researchers and teachers allocate their holidays in SoleTM. Hours allocated in SoleTM are used in cost accounting on University level. When employees do not allocate their holidays, the total of recorded indirect working hours in the university is too low, and consequently the personnel overhead is too low.  This cuts down the funding applied for in the full-cost model.

Regulations on annual holidays, excluding the regulations pertaining to holiday bonus, are not applied to persons who are subject to the working time regulations for the teaching and research staff (annual workload of 1,621 hours) or to the regulations for the teaching staff at teacher training schools.

Other staff (administrative and auxiliary staff)

The annual holiday is defined on the basis of the leave-earning year, which is a 12-month period ending at the end of March before the upcoming leave-taking period. A completed leave-earning month shall be a calendar month during which the employee has been at work for a minimum of 14 days. The leave-taking period begins on 1 June and ends on 30 September.

The length of an employee's annual holiday is determined according to the number of months or years that the employee has worked for the UEF.

For more detailed information on annual holiday procedures, exchanging holiday bonuses for time off and saved leaves and please see general information on holidays in Heimo.

You can find detailed information on different types of absences as well as all the necessary forms in Heimo (UEF's intranet).

The latest UEF news and public events can be found on the main page of the university. Internal communication such as current internal issues, events, message boards and blogs are available in UEF Heimo.  You can also find information on staff training, vacancies and grants in Heimo.

The telephone numbers and email addresses of the university's staff can be found in a UEF Connect Search Service.

For more information on matters relating to media and communications, please contact the UEF Communications and Media Relations Unit.

See also UEF presentation materials on the University of Eastern Finland in Heimo.

Usernames and passwords

Up-to-date and well-functioning computers and technical equipment enable smooth studying and working at the University of Eastern Finland.  At the University of Eastern Finland, a user account is created automatically to all new members of staff at the beginning of the employment.  New members of staff can activate their user account with Finnish online banking codes. If you don't have a Finnish social security code and online banking codes, you can activate your user account with a one-time code that you can get from the IT Service Desk.

Information security

All users of the university's information systems are responsible for complying with the university's information security policy. Further information on information security can found on the website of the IT Centre.

Further information:

Sykettä Sport and Wellness Services

  • A wide selection of sports services at affordable prices.

Lunch for employees

  • Healthy and affordable lunchtime meals in the campus restaurants.

Comprehensive occupational health care services

  • More than the statutory preventive occupational health care and medical services
  • Work-life balance
  • Flexible working hours and multi-location work.

Software for home computers

Staff benefits

  • Discounts and benefits in local stores

The prohibition to engage in competing activity is based on the Employment Contracts Act (Chapter 3, Section 3). Due to the change in the legal status of the Finnish universities, the secondary occupations of the staff are evaluated from the viewpoint of competing activity. If an employee intends to attend to his or her secondary occupation on working time, the employee needs to obtain the university's permission (secondary occupation permission). By notifying the employer of a secondary occupation, the employee can ensure that his or her secondary occupation does not involve competing activity which thus would be in violation of the obligations of the Employment Contracts Act (Chapter 3, Section 3).

Further inforamation:

Almost three-quarters of employees belong to a trade union in Finland. There are three main trade union confederations: SAK, STTK and AKAVA. All three confederations have a number of occupationally or/and industry affiliated unions.  One of the most important duties of the confederations is to negotiate collective agreements (covering for example salaries, annual leaves and working times) for their members.

Union members can get legal advice, insurance benefits and assistance in questions related to salary and labour market and working life. When you join a trade union, you usually automatically get a membership of an unemployment fund.  If you have been a member of a trade union for 10 months during your employment and get unemployed, members of the unemployment funds can get earnings-related daily unemployment allowance which is higher than the basic unemployment allowance. NB! Please check the conditions for entitlement to unemployment allowance as a foreign citizen from your trade union.

You can join a trade union by filling in an application form online at the trade unions' website or by contacting a union representative at the UEF. Trade union members pay a membership fee to the union. You can find the fees at the union's website.

Akava - Confederation of Unions for Professional and Managerial Staff in Finland

  • Akava affiliated unions
  • Union representative at the UEF: Antero Puhakka (Public Sector Negotiating Commission, JUKO), antero.puhakka@uef.fi

STTK –Finnish Confederation for Professionals

SAK- Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions