Support at the workplace and Finnish Customs' environmental footprint

In this chapter, we discuss how we can reduce the ecological and social consequences of our operations – in other words, how to reduce our footprint.

The situation at the eastern border was an important topic for HR at Finnish Customs in 2024. Russia continued its large-scale invasion and occupation of Ukraine, and the offices on the eastern border were closed with the exception of the Vainikkala border crossing point, which was open to freight train traffic.

Our operating environment is constantly changing, which is why we are actively assessing what expertise we already have, how it is being developed and how to acquire any missing expertise. We also support independent studying outside the workplace. The annual central government VM-Baro personnel survey is also utilised by Finnish Customs to promote the well-being of Finnish Customs personnel via a well-being at work plan.

We aim to reduce the environmental impact of our operations by improving our work environments and the sustainability of our procurement. In addition, we always replace official travel with digital solutions when appropriate.

The changes and situation on the eastern border remained important topics for HR at Finnish Customs. Russia continued its large-scale invasion and occupation of Ukraine in 2024. The closure of border crossing points on the Russian border, which began in mid-November 2023, brought freight and passenger traffic to a complete standstill with the exception of freight train traffic in Vainikkala. The closure of the border crossing points remains in force until further notice.

The reduction in work caused by the closure of the eastern border continued to affect the tasks and work arrangements of the people working there. The assignments to other duties were continued during 2024, enabling all Customs employees on the eastern border to continue their work. Personnel from the eastern border have been transferred internally to various Customs functions and assigned to provide administrative assistance to other authorities, such as carrying out border control tasks for the Finnish Border Guard.

Since the coronavirus pandemic, a multi-location model of work has been established at Customs, in which employees can choose the place to do their work that suits them best unless their job requires them to be present at the office. In many duties, remote work has become the primary way of working. Our personnel has provided positive feedback on the multi-location model of work. In 2024, more than a third of all Customs employees worked remotely. This number does not include the amount of remote work done by employees doing period-based work, as our information system does not provide reports with this information. The work of approximately 42% of Customs personnel is period-based. During 2024, those who worked remotely did so for an average of 168 working days, out of a total of 252 normal working days.

Well-being at work supported in various ways

Based on the results of the 2024 VM-Baro job satisfaction survey, well-being at work at Finnish Customs has remained on target and at a good level (3.7) despite the changes in the operating environment, such as the situation at the eastern border and its impact on work tasks and management. At the VM-Baro debriefing sessions, work communities have reviewed their own results, brainstormed areas for improvement and drawn up development plans to promote well-being at work.

Various forms of support were provided to develop well-being at work and address challenges related to working capacity. A briefing session was held for supervisors to discuss the interpretation and presentation of the job satisfaction survey results in the work community as well as the planning and monitoring of development measures. In addition, supervisors receive support from a working capacity expert and the Director of Well-Being at Work in dealing with various challenges related to working capacity, substance abuse problems, conflicts in the work community and psychosocial stress management.

To support the resolution of conflicts in the work community, we trained 20 Customs employees as internal mediators. The aim of the mediation process is to encourage the parties involved in the conflict in the work community to find solutions to resolve the situation.

Comprehensive occupational health services

In 2024, people took 11.6 days of sick leave per person-year, which was almost the same as in 2023. Short periods of absence are not the biggest challenge for Customs; rather, it is the small number of long periods of absence that raise the average absence rate. In the autumn of 2024, separate events for different departments at Customs were organised for the first time in cooperation with occupational health services. At these events, departments had the opportunity to share their latest news, and occupational health services provided an overview of the situation in each department over the past year and a half based on their key figures.

Customs personnel have access to comprehensive occupational health services (including influenza vaccinations provided by the employer) and the Break Pro break exercise app. In addition, Customs personnel had the opportunity to participate in training programmes designed to support working capacity organised by the occupational health services as well as individual rehabilitation by Kela and vocational rehabilitation by Keva.

In response to changes in the operating environment, the continuous, systematic development of the personnel’s expertise is also part of our personnel policy.

Tullin vuosi 2024 (link to be added later)

The expertise of Customs personnel was developed sustainably in 2024 by providing high-quality online training available to all personnel regardless of time and place. Adding more online courses and diversifying the Swedish-language offering supported the personnel in updating the skills required in customs work. A total of 20 new online courses were developed in 2024, with a total of approximately 1,590 members of Customs personnel participating.

Personnel were also offered online courses produced by the Academy of Brain on interaction, work management, learning, development of digital work as well as expert and supervisory work. The Academy of Brain presented Finnish Customs with a Golden Star Award for excellence in collective learning in 2024 – the percentage of our personnel participating in online training increased more than fourfold compared to 2023. In addition, Customs personnel also made extensive use of the offering of the eOppiva shared learning environment for the government sector.

Official travel by Customs personnel increased significantly in 2024. There were 34% more official trips than before the coronavirus pandemic. Travel expenses increased mainly due to personnel from the eastern border being reassigned elsewhere in Finland, which has been the case since December 2023. The assignments result in significant accommodation and daily allowance costs, among other things, but additional funding has been secured for these. Assignments away from the eastern border will continue at least during the spring of 2025.

Finnish Customs takes advantage of remote work and remote technology, which reduces the need to travel for meetings and training. Meetings and training courses are largely virtual. Face-to-face events only take place if there is a specific purpose such as fostering a sense of community or processing security-classified materials.

The target is to increase the use of public transport for official travel and reduce the use of aeroplanes and cars. The distance flown in 2024 decreased compared to the previous year. Train travel decreased slightly compared to 2023.

Finnish Customs has approximately 277 official cars. Most of them, 216 cars in total, are used for operational activities. Approximately 35 cars are used by the administration and support functions. Diesel cars account for 203 of the vehicles, 13 use petrol, 58 are more environmentally friendly plugin hybrid cars and three are fully electric cars. In addition, Finnish Customs has two special vehicles built on a lorry chassis. Compared to last year, we have increased the number of plugin hybrids and fully electric cars and reduced the number of petrol vehicles.

In 2024, the average emissions of official cars owned by Customs were 124 g/km, the average age was 9.9 years and the average fuel consumption was 4.9 l/100 km.

The number of kilometres driven in official vehicles increased in 2024 due to the reassignment of personnel from the eastern border.

Finnish Customs’ facilities are developed in line with the premises strategy of the central government and Customs to address the changing needs and opportunities in operations. In 2024, Customs improved the efficiency of its use of space and took environmental sustainability into account in its premises projects and activities during the use of premises in cooperation with the property owners. Particular emphasis was placed on accessibility and consideration for special groups at customer service points.

Office space in Kotka was reduced by approximately 33% (2,005 m² to 1,339 m²). In addition, a hearing loop for people with hearing impairments was purchased for the customer service point.

An accessibility project was carried out in Pasila, where accessible toilets were built at the meeting and training centre and a hearing loop was installed at the information point. Accessibility was improved with automatically opening doors at the meeting and training centre and in the office section on the 8th floor.

Batteries were purchased for the dog school to enhance the flexible use of electricity generated by solar panels based on demand response.

An experiment was conducted at Helsinki Airport on taking special groups better into account at Customs’ customer service point. Improvements were made in the following areas, among others:

One service point was equipped so that wheelchair users can use it and their knees fit under the table
Higher chairs were purchased for elderly people in case of waiting or queuing situations
A communicator that amplifies sound many times over was purchased for people with hearing impairments
A hearing loop for people with hearing impairments was purchased for the customer service point
A sound beacon was purchased to guide visually impaired customers to the service point and text in Braille was added to the call button
A magnifying glass with a light and a signature guide were purchased for people with impaired vision The new tactile indicators on the ground guide people more clearly to interact with Finnish Customs
A playroom was built for children in case of situations, in which their parents' customs inspection takes a long time
Clear pictures were created in case of situations such as the seizure of meat and dairy products; they can be used with customers who have difficulty speaking or with whom there is no common language.

In the future, these practices will also be applied at Customs’ other customer service points as far as possible.

Finnish Customs Sustainability Report 2024: Development of the customer experience Airport Customs continued at Helsinki Airport

In 2023, work began on a procurement assessment framework to enhance the sustainability of procurement. The idea of the framework is to bring together topics for consideration and assessment in procurement processes, as well as related guidelines. For example, social and ecological sustainability are broad topics with their own specialised terminology. The purpose of the procurement assessment framework is to help take account of various aspects of different procurements already at the procurement preparation stage by means of questions that are easy to understand.

During 2024, a set of questions on ecological sustainability was added to the assessment framework. The answers to these questions will help identify the ecological sustainability of the solution to be procured and situations in which expertise in ecological sustainability is needed to strengthen the working group on competitive tendering. The assessment framework was also supplemented with guidelines on identifying risks of labour exploitation and examples of how social responsibility has been taken into account in service procurement.

The EcoCompass environmental management system has been used at Finnish Customs since 2022. We use our environmental management system to systematically develop our environmental work in different areas, such as training, purchases and travel.

In 2024, we participated in the Ekosysteemikoulu (Ecosystem School) of the State Treasury with our development topic of sustainability targets and indicators in central government. Following fruitful work in working groups, our work will continue outside the Ekosysteemikoulu project in a network comprising several different agencies, led by the State Treasury. Our goal is to create a Sustainability Compass that would clarify matters related to sustainability themes and their goal-oriented promotion. This also serves the development of the environmental management system.

Environmental survey identified areas for development

The results of the thesis “Environmental attitudes and behaviour in Finnish Customs 2023” were completed in 2024. The survey received a large number of responses, and the main results were presented to Customs personnel at a Tietopaketti (Information Pack) event, in which all Customs employees could participate remotely. Based on the responses, we will be able to target information and communication to areas perceived as lacking and focus on topics that are on the minds of Customs personnel through the environmental programme, for example.

We increased our communications during 2024 by launching low-threshold remote events called Vastuullisuusvartti (Sustainability Moment), which address current sustainability topics. Before Christmas, we also published a Christmas sorting quiz on the intranet, where participants could answer tongue-in-cheek questions related to sorting waste. The quiz was very popular.

Communication also took place via external and internal blogs, internal news and social media.

Training in sustainability

In 2024, we published the online training course “Johdanto vastuullisuuteen – Yhdessä kehitymme kestävästi” (Introduction to Sustainability – Developing Sustainably Together) in Finnish and Swedish, which is recommended for all Customs personnel. The aim of the course is to provide a good overview of the concepts, content and importance of sustainability and sustainable development in terms of a sustainable lifestyle. Another aim is to show how Finnish Customs promotes the Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals of the UN with its own activities in central government and what kind of a role individual Customs employees play in implementing Customs' sustainability efforts and developing a sustainable future.