Organising a work trial at a workplace

Notify the TE Office or the local government trial of your possibility to organise a work trial in the E-services of TE Services.

Describe the task in question. Provide a clear and detailed description of the work duties available to a person interested in the field or profession, or planning a return to work, as well as the working environment on offer. Include information on transport connections to the work place, as well as the working hours.

As the participant will not have an employment contract, and the objective of the trial is not to gain work experience, you will not be able to impose competence requirements on the possible participant.

In your description, mention the presentation of a criminal record if the work trial includes work with children or young people.

The TE Office or local government trial will check the notice before it is published, and request additional information if needed, or inform you if the possibility to arrange a work trial is denied.

If the advertised work trial has not led to a work trial contract within three months, and you, the TE Office or the local government pilot has not removed the notice, an automatic email will be sent to the persons listed as responsible for the work trial. The email will ask you to inform whether the offer of a work trial is still valid, and whether there are any changes to the information you have previously provided. If you do not reply within 14 days, the work trial notice will be removed automatically.

When a person wants to come to your organisation for a work trial, you conclude a fixed-term written agreement with the TE Office or the local government pilot and the person participating in the work trial. The agreement must state

• the goals of the work trial,
• the time and place of the work trial,
• the trial’s daily and weekly duration and total duration,
• the tasks that the person participating in the work trial performs during it,
• the person responsible for the guidance and supervision of the person participating in the work trial and
• the unemployment benefit's payer to whom you must notify of any absences.

The TE Office or local government pilot will confirm that the person representing the trial’s organiser is authorised to sign the agreement from the Trade Register, the Register of Foundations or the Register of Associations. You must notify the shop steward of the agreement.

You can organise a work trial at your workplace if the organisation you represent is

• a company,
• a municipality,
• an association,
• a foundation or government office, or
• a workshop.

You can also organise a work trial yourself if you are a private entrepreneur.

The TE Office or local government pilot guides and supervises the trial, and if your organisation is a company, it assesses whether the work trial can give your company an advantage that distorts competition between companies and private entrepreneurs. A possible distortion of competition prevents the work trial.

If you, as the employer, are negotiating terms of temporary dismissals or termination of contracts with your employees, the work trial will not take place until it is apparent whether the negotiations will lead to redundancies, temporary dismissals or part-time employment relationships, and what the extent and duration of such dismissals will be. You can organise a work trial if you have offered work to employees whose contract has been terminated, or who are temporarily laid off or working part-time before completing the contract for a work trial.

The municipality has an obligation to offer employment. A work trial can, however, be organised at a workshop of a municipality or a community of municipalities, or a similar training unit, if the person participating in the work trial will try out assignments which the municipality does not give out to its own employees working under an employment contract, and to which the employer’s obligation to offer work does not extend in accordance with the Employment Contracts Act. The same principles apply to a workshop run by a foundation or association, or a similar training unit.