Study title

Practices of Working Life 2012: Employees

Alternative Title

MEADOW 2012: Employees: Finnish Data

Dataset ID Number

FSD2954

Persistent identifier

urn:nbn:fi:fsd:T-FSD2954

Data Type

Quantitative

Authors

• University of Tampere. Work Research Center (WRC)

Other Identification/Acknowledgements

• Potila, Anna-Kaarina (Statistics Finland. Interview and Survey Services)

Abstract

The survey studied organisational practices, organisational change, job characteristics, workplace relations and well-being at work in Finland from the employee perspective. The contents of the survey were influenced by the MEADOW (Measuring the Dynamics of Organisations and Work) tool created to collect data on change at work and in organisations at the European level, both from employers and employees. Another influence were the national MEADOW surveys in Sweden, Norway and Denmark. This dataset forms the Finnish employee-level MEADOW survey. However, the Finnish survey also includes some national questions. Data were collected from employees of the private and public sector organisations that had participated in the employer survey. Both employer (FSD2955) and employee (FSD2954) surveys have been archived and the data can be combined using the organisation number variable.

First, the respondents were asked whether they still worked at the organisation in question and what their job was. Job characteristics were charted with questions on work contract, working hours, use of foreign languages at work, supervisory or management responsibilities, presence and nature of group or team work, team member influence. The respondents were asked to evaluate their workplace regarding a number of aspects, for instance, enthusiasm, competence, employee well-being, management, utilisation of staff ideas. Assistance received from supervisor, co-workers or clients in difficult or overload situations, targets set for the job, achieving these targets, and working to tight deadlines or at speed were charted. Further questions investigated how often the respondents worked at home, or worked or were contacted outside normal office hours.

Changes in work organisation were studied with questions on what kind of changes had been done in the organisation in the past two years, including changes in task division, organisational structure, working methods or systems, whether these changes had had impact on the respondent's work tasks, job security, career, meaningfulness of job, workload or pay. The necessity of these changes and R's satisfaction with involvement in the change process were charted. Possibility to participate in decision-making regarding own duties, and performance appraisal and its consequences were studied as well as own image of and pride in the work. Other topics included level of educational achievement or prior work experience required for the job, requirements regarding learning new things, helping others with advice, participation in improving own work or developing new products or services, participation in training or education paid by the employer, and sufficiency of training regarding work duties.

Working time questions investigated working time arrangements, shift work, own influence over shifts, and unpaid and paid overtime. Employment security was charted by asking about likelihood of losing the job. Satisfaction with working time arrangements, job security and pay as well as what kind of changes had happened in staff numbers in the past two years were studied. Finally, employee well-being was investigated with questions on positive feelings about work, overall job satisfaction, feelings of stress, days of absence, and self-perceived work capability.

Background variable included R's gender, age, household composition, highest level of education attained, number of years in paid work after full-time study, pay type and level, and occupation.

Keywords

arrangement of working time; autonomy at work; businesses; employees; employment contracts; flexible working time; innovation; job characteristics; job security; occupational life; occupational training; organizations; private sector; public sector; wages; well-being at work; workers participation; working conditions

Topic Classification

• Social sciences (Fields of Science Classification)
• Working conditions (CESSDA Topic Classification)

Series

Individual datasets

Distributor

Finnish Social Science Data Archive

Access

The dataset is (B) available for research, teaching and study.

Data Collector

• Statistics Finland. Interview and Survey Services

Data Producers

• Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation

Time Period Covered

2012

Collection Dates

2012-09-19 – 2012-12-19

Nation

Finland

Geographical Coverage

Finland

Analysis/Observation Unit Type

Individual

Universe

Employees of private companies and public sector organisations that had participated in the employer-level survey (FSD2955) and employ at least 10 persons (excluding agriculture and forestry organisations). Only the employees who had been working in the organisation for at least 6 months were included.

Time Method

Cross-section

Sampling Procedure

Probability: Simple random

Employees were randomly selected from the workforce of the organisations that had responded to the FSD2955 Practices of Working Live 2012 employers survey. Register information on the employees working in these organisations in 2010 was used as a sampling frame.

Altogether, 6,365 employees were randomly selected into the sample and 1,711 responded. At least one reponse was obtained for 91% of the organisations that had participated in the employer survey. There were 696 responses from big organisation employees and 1,015 from small organisation employees.The aim was to get two employee responses from big organisations (N=391) and one from smaller organisations (N=1117). Once the desired number of responses had been obtained from an organisation, the other employees drawn to the sample were not contacted. The biggest cause for non-participation was that the register information on employees was not up-to-date.

Users of the data should take into account that the data are not representative of the employees of these organisations but of organisations themselves on which the data provide information from the employee viewpoint. There are only 1-2 responses per organisation. As the year 2010 register information was used as the sampling frame, in practice the interviewees had worked in their organisation for at least 1,5 years at the time of the survey.

The sampling procedure for the employer survey is explained in FSD2955.

Collection Mode

Telephone interview

Research Instrument

Structured questionnaire

Response Rate

48.5

Data File Language

Downloaded data package may contain different language versions of the same files.

The data files of this dataset are available in the following languages: English and Finnish.

FSD translates quantitative data into English on request, free of charge. More information on ordering data translation.

Number of Cases and Variables

122 variables and 1711 cases.

Data Version

3.0

Related Datasets

FSD2955 Practices of Working Life 2012: Employers

Completeness of Data and Restrictions

The variables connected to questions 2b (job title) and 2c (job tasks) have been removed from the data.

Weighting

The data contain a weight variable matching the sample to the distributions of the target population, that is, private companies and public organisations employing at least 10 persons. The weight matches the responses to the basic population of the organisations.

Citation Requirement

The data and its creators shall be cited in all publications and presentations for which the data have been used. The bibliographic citation may be in the form suggested by the archive or in the form required by the publication.

Bibliographical Citation

University of Tampere: Practices of Working Life 2012: Employees [dataset]. Version 3.0 (2018-07-18). Finnish Social Science Data Archive [distributor]. https://urn.fi/urn:nbn:fi:fsd:T-FSD2954

Deposit Requirement

Notify FSD of all publications where you have used the data by sending the citation information to user-services.fsd@tuni.fi.

Disclaimer

The original data creators and the archive bear no responsibility for any results or interpretations arising from the reuse of the data.

Related Materials

Aho, Simo & Minkkinen, Jaana & Mäkiaho, Ari (2013). Organisaatioiden ja työn dynamiikka työntekijöiden näkökulmasta. MEADOW-tutkimuksen II väliraportti. Helsinki: Tekesin katsaus; 300.

Related Publications

Aho, Simo & Mäkiaho, Ari (2013). Organisaatioiden ja työn dynamiikka työnantajien näkökulmasta. MEADOW-tutkimuksen I väliraportti. Helsinki: Tekesin katsaus; 299.

Aho, Simo & Minkkinen, Jaana & Mäkiaho, Ari (2013). Organisaatioiden ja työn dynamiikka työntekijöiden näkökulmasta. MEADOW-tutkimuksen II väliraportti. Helsinki: Tekesin katsaus; 300.

Aho, Simo & Minkkinen, Jaana & Mäkiaho, Ari (2014). Organisointikäytännöt, innovatiivisuus ja työhyvinvointi. Työnantaja- ja työntekijähaastatteluja yhdistävään MEADOW-aineistoon perustuva tutkimus. Helsinki: Tekesin katsaus; 310.

Alasoini, Tuomo & Aho, Simo & Minkkinen, Jaana & Mäkiaho, Ari (2013). Organisaatioiden ja työn dynamiikka Suomessa - MEADOW-tutkimuksen välituloksia. Työpoliittinen aikakauskirja 57(4), 39 - 52.

Voipio, Anssi (2015). Do high-involvement management practices enhance employees' innovative behavior? Helsinki: Aalto University School of Business. Department of Economics. Kansantaloustieteen pro gradu -tutkielma.

Aho, Susanna (2015). Henkilöstöjohtamisen ja työkuorman hallinnan yhteys organisaatiositoutumiseen suomalaisilla palkansaajilla. Turku: Turun yliopisto. Sosiologian pro gradu -tutkielma. http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe2015120422150

Grönroos, Tanja (2015). Viekö työ mennessään? Korvatun ja korvauksettoman ylityön yhteys työn imuun. Turku: Turun yliopisto. Sosiaalitieteiden laitos. Sosiaalipolitiikan kandidaatintutkielma.

Lindström, Sara & Janhonen, Minna (2015). Kasvuyritys työpaikkana. Kasvuyritysten ketterä henkilöstöjohtaminen - toimintamalleja pk-yrityksille (KetteräHR). Helsinki: Työterveyslaitos.

Lindström, Sara & Janhonen, Minna (2015). Naisten ja miesten käsityksiä henkilöstöjohtamisesta, työhyvinvoinnista ja työn muutoksista kasvu- ja muissa yrityksissä. Helsinki: Työterveyslaitos.

Rantanen Flores, Mirva (2017). Aineeton pääoma suomalaisissa työorganisaatioissa. Resursseja vai eriarvoisuutta? Tampere: Tampereen yliopisto. Yhteiskuntatutkimus. Sosiaalipsykologian kandidaatintutkielma.

Ogbonnaya, C. & Messersmith, J. (2018) Employee performance, well-being, and differential effects of human resource management subdimensions: mutual gains or conflicting outcomes? Human Resource Management Journal. doi:10.1111/1748-8583.12203

Saari, Suvi (2022). Työntekijän aseman yhteys näkemyksiin työhyvinvoinnista ja oikeudenmukaisesta johtamisesta. Tampere: Tampereen yliopisto. Yhteiskuntatutkimuksen kandidaatintutkielma.

Sarapisto, Roosa (2023). Autonomian yhteys työtyytyväisyyteen esihenkilö- ja työntekijäasemassa työskentelevillä. Tampere: Tampereen yliopisto. Yhteiskuntatutkimuksen kandidaatintutkielma.