High-quality planning ensures that personnel competence matches the needs arising from the strategic goals of HUS and from changes in the sector and in the operating environment.
Personnel competence and wellbeing are necessary for producing the best possible results in care and service and for facilitating pioneership. Identifying critical competencies and competence planning are important development points.
Competence development plans are given tangible and individual form in development discussions. In 2020, 59% of HUS employees had had a development discussion with their supervisor during the past year, and 69% of HUS employees considered that their development discussion had been useful for their work and for getting better at it. In 2020, development discussions focused particularly on values and how they translate into everyday work. Increasing the number of development discussions remains a target in 2021.
The exceptional circumstances caused by the coronavirus pandemic significantly accelerated the adoption of digital skills. This learning was mainly done on the job, for instance in adopting new ways of managing patient engagements or, in many cases, switching to remote work. Maintaining a sense of community and managing remote work have called for a new kind of competence.
Pandemic year challenged competence development
The coronavirus pandemic had an impact on the volume of training provided. In 2020, the volume of supplementary training was 2.1 days per person, as opposed to 3.6 in 2019. From March to the summer, training was almost completely halted except for induction and training for experts in intensive care, sampling and nursing support functions. Training was resumed in the autumn, mostly in the form of remote courses, via videoconferencing and online training.
The Working Life Barometer for 2020 indicated that employees’ experience of having sufficient skills and knowledge for performing their job duties was nearly equal to what it was in the previous year, and the same applied to the potential for professional development. Changes in personnel training structure were slight compared to the previous year.