Language requirements in working life too restrictive – they should be assessed by role

Finland is home to a large number of international professionals who study, work and live in the country. Their expertise, language skills and networks can increase and improve innovation, internationalisation and growth in workplaces. Yet some of this potential remains underutilised.

According to the memorandum Language Proficiency Expectations at Work – Solutions for Assessing and Developing Language Awareness in Organisations (in Finnish), produced for Sitra by Owal Group Oy, one contributing factor may be language requirements that do not fully reflect the actual needs of the job.

In many roles, strong Finnish or Swedish language skills are essential, for example because of customer-facing work, patient safety, statutory responsibilities or regulatory requirements. At the same time, there may be roles within the same sector where work can begin in English or with developing skills in one of Finland’s national languages.

The question is not whether Finland’s national languages should be abandoned. Rather, it is about identifying the roles in which they are genuinely needed and the situations in which language skills can be developed alongside work.

“The most effective solution is a language-aware workplace where language use is discussed and agreed upon. The answer may justifiably be Finnish, English or multilingualism. Multilingualism can, for example, mean parallel language use, where English is used alongside Finnish,” says Director Risto Karinen from Owal Group Oy.

Workplace practices should support developing language skills

In many expert and technology-oriented roles, developing skills in Finnish or Swedish can provide a pathway into employment and career progression. This requires, however, that language requirements are defined carefully and that workplaces actively support language learning. The assessment framework presented in the memorandum can help employers in this process.

Assessing language requirements in recruitment may involve distinguishing between roles where strong Finnish or Swedish skills are essential and roles where a basic level of language proficiency is sufficient, or where work can initially be carried out in English.

Employers may also benefit from considering whether language skills could be developed during employment. In practice, this may involve learning on the job, language training or multilingual workplace practices.

“Greater internationalisation in working life does not require reducing the importance of Finland’s national languages. The key is to identify the language skills that are genuinely needed in different roles and how workplaces can make better use of the expertise that already exists in Finland,” says Anna Grant, a senior lead at Sitra.