JHL (06.02.2013 - Heikki Jokinen) From the beginning of February the JHL organisation will operate along three divisional or sectional lines: a division for safeguarding interests, a division for organisational and member services and a division dedicated to joint services. The renewed organisation is based on the union strategy "JHL 2017", adopted last June at the Union Council meeting.
The section for safeguarding interests has been split into different areas. Two of these are based on the various professional fields in the union; one will work with legal issues and the other is to focus on developing the quality of working life. The union president Jarkko Eloranta heads this section.
The organisational and member services section will take care of member services, organisational matters, communication, marketing, and influencing public decision makers. The director of this unit is Päivi Niemi-Laine. The joint services division will be responsible for union economy, education, personnel services, IT, real estate and holiday services. The director of joint services is Teija Asara-Laaksonen.
JHL is also reforming its broad educational service. At the end of last year it sold off the Raseborg Institute, the union’s 140-bed educational institute in the town of Raseborg, some 80 kilometres from Helsinki.
The institute will continue to work at Raseborg until the summer of 2013 when it will relocate to the JHL central office building in the centre of Helsinki. During the spring and summer some 2,000 square metres of the building will be renovated to accommodate the new educational centre, which will be called the JHL Institute.
"Our headquarters will combine union educational training and the know-how of the union office", says JHL president Jarkko Eloranta. All Raseborg Institute’s 25 employees have been invited to work in Helsinki.
According to Eloranta the Raseborg Institute has been fulfilling the needs of the union well. "New needs and goals demand, however, new kind of ideas. According to surveys done among our members easy access is – next to the content - the most important motivating factor when it comes to participation in educational training." In Helsinki it is also easier to get external experts to lecture.
JHL organise hundreds of courses every year. The 11 JHL regional offices run about half of these.