Espoo to introduce staff incentive bonus in some day-care centres
In the City of Espoo’s Finnish-language early childhood education, a staff incentive bonus will be introduced in day-care centres selected according to certain criteria. From 1 August 2022 onwards, an incentive bonus of €160/month will be paid in addition to the job-specific pay. The bonus is temporary and will be paid until 31 July 2023.
The incentive bonus will be paid to all appropriately qualified early childhood education teachers, special education teachers, social pedagogues and childcarers in the selected day-care centres. The bonus will also be paid to day-care centre directors, language and culture teachers, all-round early childhood special education teachers and substitute childcarers who work at least 50% of the working hours in day-care centres that meet the selection criteria. Employees qualified as childcarers who are temporarily employed as early childhood education teachers or social pedagogues in early childhood education in the selected day-care centres are also entitled to the bonus.
The temporary bonus will be paid to an estimated 300 early childhood education employees.
Starting early childhood education early on supports the entire study path
“There is currently a massive shortage of early childhood education workers in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area, and unfortunately Espoo is no exception. We want to be an attractive employer and use various means to increase the interest of early childhood education professionals in working in Espoo,” says the City of Espoo’s Director of Growth and Learning Harri Rinta-aho.
The newly introduced incentive bonus is targeted at day-care centres that have been struggling to fill their vacancies. The aim is to support such day-care centres in areas selected on socio-economic grounds.
“This is what is known as positive action, which aims to specifically target resources where the need for support is greater than usual. We have had good experience of this with schools,” says Rinta-aho.
Starting early childhood education early on supports smooth study paths and transitions, closing the gap in learning performance between children at school.
Espoo is investing heavily in the availability of early childhood education workforce
The City of Espoo aims to develop the attractiveness of early childhood education as an employer in the long term.
The incentive bonus now being introduced is part of the development work launched in autumn 2021 to attract more employees to early childhood education.
The City supports continuing education for early childhood education staff and actively builds training and career paths, such as from childcarer to early childhood education teacher, among other things. A wide range of measures are in place, including recruitment through labour market training, apprenticeship cooperation with Seure and a mentoring programme for new employees. Promoting and supporting well-being at work is also a key measure.
“Our goal is to put Espoo at the forefront of learning and education. The message behind all our development measures is that the skills and expertise of early childhood education professionals in Espoo are valued,” says Rinta-aho.