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Why Finland leads the world in flexible work

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Re: Why Finland leads the world in flexible work

#91

Post by ptr »

verttii wrote: post #40
askosh wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an Estonian, also a nordic country. We have a bunch of things we are years ahead of in terms of digital innovations ( https://e-estonia.com/ ), all while having a 1.3m population. What does the USA do better exactly?

Estonia is certainly performing well. But since it's so tiny it's really hard to compare against a giant like USA. Although much of the same problem applies to Nordics. We use Google, Facebook, Youtube, Snapchat, Whatsapp, Apple - all American products. Whereas the Nordic countries produce very few major digital innovations used globally. Also, I didn't know Estonia was a Nordic country.

What's your point? The Nordics have a relatively high contribution of "innovations", higher than other countries that don't work "half the hours".

Examples: Linux, Spotify, Unity, King, the radio base stations that your phone might be connected to, ...

Re: Why Finland leads the world in flexible work

#92

Post by ganzuul »

HNcantBtrustd wrote: post #31
jks wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the fall of Nokia (even though it didn't go completely out of business) had a big impact, especially in some regions. Here is a rough timeline: https://www.quora.com/How-has-the-decline-of-Nokia-affected-...

It doesn't explain what life is like due to losing that industry. We are told of Utopia in Europe, but aren't told these stories.

Currently in Salo there is work underway on a battery factory for EVs, IIRC in the old Nokia facilities.

Finland has a closed nickel mine which could become economical to operate once again since it also produces cobalt, which gets used in these types of batteries.

Re: Why Finland leads the world in flexible work

#93

Post by Someone1234 »

rayiner wrote: post #74
Someone1234 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dispute the "better business results" claim, I don't think that's factually true. But let's assume it is, why then is wealth so much more concentrated[0] in the US? Let's assume that the US did have "better business results" and let's also assume that that is the result of worse working conditions. Why then are the workers, working in worse conditions, not benefiting from it directly? Seems like, if that were true,…

Workers are benefiting from it, at least financially. The median income in the U.S. is more than 20% higher than in Finland, adjusted for cost of living: https://economistsview.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451b33869e20133... . (Note also that the American work-week is only about 7% longer than the Finish work-week.) That difference increases as you go into the upper middle class. But for the bottom 10%, which in the U.S. la…

That figure leaves off the cost of healthcare (both premiums and services) for the US but includes it for Finland. So you aren't comparing like with like.

Finland pays $4,033, and the US $9,892 per capita (2016) for healthcare according to OECD figures. Since 2016 healthcare costs in the US have continued to increase faster than the rate of inflation.

Re: Why Finland leads the world in flexible work

#94

Post by eloisant »

hylaride wrote: post #17
algui91 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, what a shame, I though it was real :-(

It's never as real or good as you think. France's famous 35 hour workweek only really applies to people who clock in hourly wages. Even there, it's merely the number where overtime kicks in. If you're a professional/salaried you work as much as the job requires, just like the US.

Except if you're not at 35 hour per week you have RTT: basically additional PTO, about 2 weeks (10 days).

This adds up to the legal 5 weeks (25 days), for a total of 7 weeks (35 days). It's pretty common to use half a day here and there, basically reducing your work week.

So it's clearly not "just like the US".

Re: Why Finland leads the world in flexible work

#95

Post by eloisant »

HNcantBtrustd wrote: post #15

I can't fathom what life is like in such a small country. If 1 major company goes out of business, does it cause chaos? High unemployment and lower tax revenue sounds like any moment the country could find itself in an economic depression. In my local area this almost happened.

All these countries are well connected to the rest of Europe, so even if one big company goes down there's still business to do with all the neighbors.

Re: Why Finland leads the world in flexible work

#96

Post by AdrianB1 »

maeln wrote: post #20
szemet wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many countries every member of the parliament push the button decided by their party[1] - so one representative per party would be sufficient: it would be much cheaper salary wise - also they could gather in a small meeting room somewhere ;) And those countries would stay as much "democratic" as now, just without the Potemkin village of the parliament... [1] edit: by "party" I mean not the representatives, or all…

A higher number of representative per citizen ten to counter this effect. When an election as a small number of people who vote, their vote as more individual power, which mean, the people who end up being elected has more responsibility toward the voter, since each of them can significantly impact his chance of being re-elected. Election with a big voter pool tend, on the other end, to blur the individual for the be…

We have more representatives in the Parliament than France for a quarter of the population, everybody is voting what the party leader decides. Hard facts, not anecdotal evidence.

Re: Why Finland leads the world in flexible work

#97

Post by cc81 »

sharadov wrote: post #72
marvin wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think, at all that Amazon, Facebook, Google, Tesla, SpaceX, Microsoft, Apple, Netflix, +++ could have happened in Scandinavia. Even our small success stories are sold to foreign investors before they have time to grow big. It's harder to determine the cause, though. Contrary to popular opinion, I believe that work ethic, level of dedication, drive and regulatory climate wrt. employee protections, consumer pro…

The Scandinavian countries are all in essence "nanny states", great to live in if you are not too ambitious or entrepreneurial. Also because of low-population density and abundant natural resources, their experiments with regard to social-welfare have worked. Unfortunately, that model cannot be replicated in the rest of the world, let alone highly populous countries.

Sweden has a lot of entrepreneurs for being a pretty small country and has historically been pretty friendly to companies.

Re: Why Finland leads the world in flexible work

#98

Post by AdrianB1 »

It is fairly easy to pick up a success, make a story around it and generalize. But in the same time Finland is at the top of European countries on the depression. Is there any relation between flexible work and depression? No idea, just throwing random "leads the world" facts.

Re: Why Finland leads the world in flexible work

#99

Post by eloisant »

nextlevelwizard wrote: post #65
verttii wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's of both. Nokia was heavily constrained by the Finnish labor laws and working culture.

Listening to people who worked at Nokia before shut down there was a lot of wasted time and effort on products that lead nowhere. They missed the boat with the smart phones. It took too long for Nokia to come out with a smart phone line and it was plagued with hardware design flaws. Then they gambled on the OS and rest is history. Had Nokia jumped on board of the smart phone grace right off the bat and supported Goog…

It's hard to predict an alternate future, but by the time the adopted Windows they were already in a bad position.

To put it simply, they missed the transition to smartphones, just like Blackberry. They were in control of their OS, it makes sense they didn't want to give it away before it became clear that they couldn't do it.

They had Symbian, which was old and crappy, and Maemo then Meego which apparently, they didn't push enough. The real winning move would have been to bet everything on Meego, bring in the partners they have with Symbian before Android took the market. They didn't do it because they were clinging to the dying Symbian.

Honestly, if they had adopted Android right away I'm not sure they would have been able to compete against HTC/LG/Samsung and other Asian companies.

Re: Why Finland leads the world in flexible work

#100

Post by AdrianB1 »

mxuribe wrote: post #25

> Since then, discussions about the benefits of flexible working have intensified around the world, with a boom in large global companies embracing the concept... I sure hope companies operating in U.S. adopt this behavior more and more. It always seems like in the U.S. we work harder and not necessarily smarter; certainly not healthier. I'm envious of the health-related foundations that other countries at least try…

I am working in an American company for 17.5 years, most from home (12 years) with occasional visits to the local branch office (Europe) and sometimes to the headquarter in US. I work on different time zones as needed and it gives me some flexibility, but longer hours to make up for it.

It works for me, but for each case where it worked I have another 5 where it was so and so and probably 10 where it was bad for the employee. This is because people tend to work longer hours, lose connection with the team (they are not in the office at the same time), it is harder to find someone when you need them because they work different hours that change a lot. Flexible working has advantages, but it also has disadvantages and trust is not part of the equation most of the time, presence, interactivity and coordination, human connections that are created face to face, these are much more important.

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