Organising a work try-out at a workplace

Notify the Päijät-Häme Employment Services of your possibility to organise a work try-out in the Job Market Finland e-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 try-out 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 try-out includes work with children or young people.

The Päijät-Häme Employment Services will check the notice before it is published, and request additional information if needed, or inform you if the possibility to arrange a work try-out is denied.

If the advertised work try-out has not led to a work try-out contract within three months, and you, the Päijät-Häme Employment Services has not removed the notice, an automatic email will be sent to the persons listed as responsible for the work try-out. The email will ask you to inform whether the offer of a work try-out 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 try-out notice will be removed automatically.

When a person wants to come to your organisation for a work try-out, you conclude a fixed-term written agreement with the Päijät-Häme Employment Services and the person participating in the work try-out. The agreement must state

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

The Päijät-Häme Employment Services will confirm that the person representing the try-out’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 try-out 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 try-out yourself if you are a private entrepreneur.

The Päijät-Häme Employment Services guides and supervises the try-out, and if your organisation is a company, it assesses whether the work try-out can give your company an advantage that distorts competition between companies and private entrepreneurs. A possible distortion of competition prevents the work try-out.

If, as an employer, you negotiate layoffs or dismissals with your employees, it is possible to organise a work try-out if the conditions are met and it is appropriate to organise it. As an employer, you agree that offering a work try-out does not weaken the rights of employees in an employment relationship in situations where you have dismissed, laid off, or made your employees work part-time.

The municipality has an obligation to offer employment. A work try-out 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 try-out 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.