The same pattern can be seen in many workplaces as the summer holiday season approaches. Calendars fill up, unfinished matters are cleared from desks, and responsibilities are only resolved at the last minute. The thinking is understandable, but if the situation is managed poorly, the consequences quickly become visible in the form of excessive workload, an increased risk of errors and unnecessary bottlenecks. From a company’s perspective, effective holiday planning is not merely a soft employee benefit. It is a practical way to manage work in a more controlled manner.
Workplaces often make the same mistake in the run-up to the summer holidays. The assumption is that everyone should make one final push to complete as much as possible before going on leave. In practice, this means full calendars, delayed arrangements for substitutes, rushed decisions and employees starting their holidays only after their workload has already become excessive.
In most cases, however, the holiday is not the problem. The problem is how the work has been managed during the spring.
For a company, this is not only a question of employee wellbeing. It is also a matter of management, risk management and business continuity. If holidays are not planned in good time, decision-making slows down, responsibilities become unclear and the same key individuals continue to be relied upon even when they should be away from work and recovering.
A holiday cannot fix structural workload problems from the spring
The summer holiday provides an important opportunity for recovery, but the entire management model for the spring should not be built around it. The Finnish Institute of Occupational Health has emphasised that recovery cannot be saved up for a holiday. Employees need opportunities to detach themselves from work, take breaks, rest and get enough sleep throughout the year, not only in July. According to the Institute, the positive effects of a holiday on wellbeing also tend to be relatively short-lived.
It is therefore not particularly sustainable to assume that employees can stretch themselves further during the spring because they will be able to rest in the summer. If the volume of work, allocation of responsibilities, division of duties or decision-making practices are already causing excessive strain before the holiday season, a holiday may provide temporary relief, but it will not remove the underlying cause.
In day-to-day work, excessive strain rarely results solely from having too much work. It is often intensified by changing priorities, unclear responsibilities, constant interruptions and decisions being expected at too low a level within the organisation. When these factors accumulate just before a holiday, employees do not only take a sense of urgency with them. They also carry unfinished matters and uncertainty. As a result, recovery does not begin immediately at the start of the holiday, but only after a delay.
Why is this also a legal issue?
Under the Finnish Occupational Safety and Health Act, an employer’s obligations are not limited to physical hazards. Employers must identify and assess risks and hazards arising from the work, working hours, work arrangements and working environment. This obligation also covers workload factors. If an employee is found to be experiencing a workload that endangers their health, the employer must use the means available to investigate the situation and reduce the risk.
In practice, this means that psychosocial workload also falls within the employer’s area of responsibility.
Time pressure, unclear responsibilities, an unmanageable workload, constant interruptions and inadequate prioritisation are not merely side issues in working life. They may create excessive strain that the employer is required to address. This does not mean that work may never involve demanding periods. What matters is the overall situation. If signs of excessive workload recur, the volume of work is unrealistic or tasks are routinely completed by employees constantly stretching beyond reasonable limits, the situation can no longer be regarded as a temporary peak. The employer must then assess what changes are needed in the allocation of work, resourcing, schedules or management practices.
For this reason, excessive workload before the holiday season should not be addressed solely through discussions about wellbeing. For the company, it is simultaneously an employment law, operational and financial issue.
Annual holidays must be planned in advance
The same principle is reflected in the Finnish Annual Holidays Act. As a general rule, the employer must notify the employee of the timing of their annual holiday no later than one month before the holiday begins. If this is not possible, the notice must be given no later than two weeks before the holiday. The structure of the legislation makes the underlying principle clear. Holidays are intended to be based on advance planning, not last-minute improvisation. Under the Annual Holidays Act, the holiday season runs from 2 May to 30 September.
If responsibilities, substitute arrangements, approval processes or customer-facing practices for the summer are still unresolved immediately before the holiday season, the holiday is usually not the problem. The problem is that the organisation has not prepared for a foreseeable period of absence sufficiently early.
The consequences often become visible quickly. Decision-making slows down, important matters become congested at the wrong time, and employees who were supposed to be away from work are contacted during their holidays. At worst, this creates an operating model in which the organisation is nominally on holiday but, in practice, still relies on the same key individuals.
What should employers do before the holiday season?
The first task is to prioritise genuinely. Many organisations talk extensively about prioritisation, while the practical message remains that everything should ideally be completed before the holidays. This is precisely what drives employees into an unreasonable final push.
Management should communicate three matters clearly: what genuinely needs to be completed before the holiday season, what can be postponed until the autumn and what will not be done at all. This often reduces workload more effectively than any general reminder about the importance of recovery, because employees are also given permission to focus on what truly matters.
The second task is to treat holiday planning as a resourcing issue, rather than merely a scheduling exercise. Who will be responsible for customers, contracts, approvals and urgent exceptional situations? Who will make decisions while the responsible person is absent? Who will act as a substitute, and is that arrangement genuinely workable in practice?
The third task is to agree in advance on the rules concerning availability. In which situations may an employee on holiday be contacted, and in which situations should they not be contacted? If this is not resolved beforehand, the organisation may easily shift the consequences of its own inadequate planning onto individual employees and expect them to remain flexible during their holidays.
The fourth task is to take signs of excessive workload seriously before they result in sickness absences, key-person risks or employees considering leaving the organisation. If the workload is not manageable, the problem cannot be solved merely by reminding employees to take breaks or recover. The organisation must examine the volume and allocation of work, schedules, decision-making practices and the actual ability of supervisors to manage the situation.
Ultimately, the management team should ask itself a simple question: has the organisation genuinely decided what needs to be completed before the holidays and what does not? If management does not make this prioritisation, it will in practice be carried out through employees stretching themselves. That is an expensive way to manage an organisation.
A successful summer holiday is built before it begins
From the company’s perspective, the most important lesson is simple. The summer holiday is an employee’s right and an important period of recovery, but it is not a tool for compensating for a structurally excessive workload during the spring.
At its best, managing workload before the holiday season produces results quickly. Employees do not take unfinished chaos with them on holiday. Supervisors are not left alone to compensate for shortcomings in the organisation’s systems. Employees are genuinely less available during their holidays, not only on paper. The autumn begins in a more controlled manner because the work has already been organised more effectively.
A successful summer holiday does not happen by chance. It is built by deciding in good time what is essential, what can be postponed and how employees will be given a genuine opportunity to detach themselves from work. When an organisation succeeds in this, employees are more likely to return from their holidays rested, capable and ready to get back to work. The benefits usually become visible quickly in the smooth running of work, the quality of decision-making and the overall energy of the business.
Satu Edberg
HR- ja toimistopäällikkö
+358 40 531 1542
Imagine a situation in which AI screens hundreds of job applications in a matter of minutes and recommends the best candidates for interview, or optimises a complex shift schedule while taking into account the needs and preferences of thousands of employees. This is no longer distant wishful thinking, but a reality in many organisations. According to research, 52 per cent of Finnish organisations use AI solutions in HR tasks. Although adoption is still fragmented, the potential is enormous: AI can make recruitment, onboarding and offboarding processes more efficient, facilitate the allocation of shifts and tasks, support performance management and produce more advanced people analytics.
However, AI is only as capable as its users. Using intelligent tools effectively requires HR professionals and managers to be trained and to understand the applicable ground rules so that the benefits can be achieved responsibly and sustainably. At the same time, more is required from employers: the use of AI raises legal, ethical and practical questions that cannot be resolved merely by producing an AI strategy document. Legislation is imposing increasing obligations on the use of AI, most recently through the EU AI Act, which sets requirements for both providers and users of AI applications.
Introducing AI: needs, risks and employee participation
An employer must address several important issues before introducing an AI system into HR management. The first step is to identify the need for which AI is intended to be used and assess the associated risks. Employment and data protection legislation in particular require employers to assess in advance how new technology may affect employees. If, for example, an AI-based tool supporting recruitment is to be introduced, this concerns the very core of processing job applicants’ personal data. The employer must identify and justify why personal data is processed, how and to what extent it is used, and what changes the AI system may require in existing practices or in the information provided to applicants. Data protection legislation requires, among other things, an assessment of risks relating to personal data, including a data protection impact assessment where applicable, before new technology is introduced, regardless of whether the technology uses AI. In practice, the use of AI systems in HR almost automatically means that risks to employees’ privacy must be identified and the necessary safeguards determined in advance. Fully automated decision-making in recruitment, such as screening job applications without any human involvement in the final decision, is generally prohibited under data protection legislation. The recruiter must therefore always retain a meaningful role in the process.
Employers also have cooperation obligations when the organisation’s operations are developed by introducing new technology. Every organisation employing at least 20 people must engage in dialogue with its personnel to safeguard employees’ opportunities to influence matters affecting them. The introduction of AI-based solutions in HR is clearly such a matter and should be discussed with personnel well in advance. Employers with more than 50 employees are also subject to an express, simplified change negotiation obligation when introducing new technology. If AI is expected to reduce the need for labour or materially alter employees’ duties, more extensive change negotiations must be conducted with personnel before implementation. All these cooperation procedures must take place at the appropriate time, meaning before procurement decisions are made, in order to meet the requirements of the Act on Co-operation within Undertakings.
The Occupational Safety and Health Act also applies to the introduction of AI in the workplace. A central principle of the Act is that employers must identify work-related hazards and harmful factors and address them proactively. AI may introduce new dimensions to traditional occupational safety considerations: what kinds of risks and strain may arise from its introduction, and how should they be prevented? Learning to use new technology may, for example, place a psychological burden on employees, while concerns about their rights may cause stress when AI becomes involved in HR processes and managerial work. Employers must assess these risks as well and provide appropriate induction, support and measures to safeguard employee wellbeing during the change.
It is already widely recognised that the use of AI presents challenges for non-discrimination in working life. Under the Non-Discrimination Act, an employer may not treat employees or job applicants differently on discriminatory grounds such as age, gender or another personal characteristic. Because AI learns and draws conclusions from the data provided to it, it may absorb biases hidden in that data. A recruitment algorithm may, for instance, favour applicants on the basis of gender rather than merit. If most people recruited in the past have been of a particular gender, the AI system may interpret this as a “model of success”. Eliminating discriminatory bias from AI is difficult because algorithms are often opaque to users and their decision-making may be difficult to explain. On the basis of the current Government Programme, a research project has been launched in Finland’s public administration to identify and prevent discrimination risks associated with AI.
The EU AI Act will gradually tighten the requirements
The European Union has also entered the field of AI regulation. The EU AI Act entered into force in summer 2024 and introduces new requirements for the use of AI. Since February 2025, organisations have already been required to ensure that their personnel have an adequate level of AI literacy. AI literacy refers to employees’ ability to assess AI-generated outputs critically and to use AI responsibly and appropriately.
Further obligations will follow from August 2026, when the core risk-based requirements of the AI Act begin to apply. The Act distinguishes between four categories: prohibited AI practices, high-risk systems, limited-risk systems and minimal-risk systems. This will be a significant milestone for employers using AI, as many systems acquired to support HR processes are classified as high-risk AI systems under the Act. A high-risk classification also brings more extensive statutory obligations for the employer using the system. Compliance with the AI Act is reinforced by substantial administrative fines, which may amount to millions of euros depending on the size of the company.
Applications used to recognise employees’ emotions are prohibited where they analyse matters such as an employee’s intentions or job satisfaction. The use of biometric identifiers to categorise individuals on the basis of ethnic origin, political opinion, religion or sexual orientation is likewise prohibited. Social scoring based on personal characteristics is also prohibited where it results in detrimental treatment, such as restricting or preventing career progression. Subliminal manipulation and the exploitation of vulnerabilities are not permitted either.
In the terminology of the AI Act, an employer will typically be the deployer of a system where it acquires a ready-made AI solution for HR purposes. However, an organisation may modify a general-purpose AI system for its own purposes, in which case the employer may become a provider under the Act. The distinction between the roles of deployer and provider is important: providers are subject to significantly broader legal obligations, including continuous quality assurance, technical documentation, system certification and detailed regulatory reporting, compared with a deployer. Employers should therefore generally prefer ready-made applications designed for HR use and use them strictly in accordance with the provider’s instructions and intended purpose.
Higher risks and greater responsibilities
What types of AI use are considered high-risk in an HR context? Automated decision-making and profiling based on personal characteristics are always high-risk. Under the AI Act, high-risk systems include those that affect access to employment, employment terms, career progression or decisions concerning performance at work. Examples include AI systems used in recruitment, decisions concerning employment conditions and career development, or the termination of employment. The same category includes systems that allocate work tasks on the basis of a person’s behaviour, personality or other personal characteristics, as well as systems used to monitor and assess employee performance during employment. These are all situations in which AI directly affects individuals and their treatment in working life. They are precisely the kinds of sensitive situations in which risks must be identified.
The dividing line is not always entirely clear. Some of the uses described above may be considered low-risk if they do not cause significant harm or pose risks to employees’ health, safety or fundamental rights and do not materially influence decisions concerning them. For example, a system that screens job applications and recommends the most suitable candidates to a recruiter would clearly appear to be a high-risk application. By contrast, an AI tool that merely classifies and transfers applications between systems without influencing whether applicants progress in the recruitment process, or that identifies anomalies in decision-making without intervening in the decision itself, would fall into the minimal-risk category. Interactive AI tools, such as virtual assistants used in HR matters, fall into the limited-risk category. In such cases, the employer must inform users that they are interacting with AI.
When an employer introduces a high-risk AI system, the AI Act requires it to fulfil several obligations. First, it must ensure that the system is used appropriately and in accordance with its instructions and intended purpose. Second, the organisation must appoint a responsible person or team to oversee the system’s operation. Those responsible for oversight must have sufficient competence, training, authority and resources to perform the task. The employer must also pay particular attention to data governance and ensure that the data entered by the organisation is relevant to the intended purpose and sufficiently representative so that the system does not produce misleading results. In addition, the user organisation must respond to risks arising during use and report any errors or biased decision-making to the system provider and the competent authority where required, and cooperate with supervisory authorities where necessary.
Transparency is another key element of the Act: employees must be informed when an AI system is introduced, and where they are subject to AI-based decisions, they have the right to receive an explanation of a decision affecting them. Last but not least, the employer must retain the AI system’s automatically generated logs for at least six months where those logs are under its control. The logs may contain information on how the system reached particular outputs or decisions. Retaining and tracing this information is essential when investigating possible disputes at a later stage.
As noted above, existing legislation already requires employers to follow similar principles in many respects. Employees may, for example, be informed appropriately through cooperation procedures, while data protection legislation already requires personal data to be processed appropriately. The EU AI Act nevertheless adds new and concrete AI-specific obligations: when using high-risk AI systems, organisations must, among other things, retain logs and ensure continuous and adequate human oversight throughout the system’s lifecycle.
Users and data at the heart of an AI strategy
Although legislation provides the framework for responsible AI use, its ultimate success depends on people. A company may create an ambitious AI strategy, but if employees lack the ability, willingness or confidence to use the system, the expected benefits may not be realised. User trust is crucial, and in decisions affecting personnel it is critical. Research indicates that concerns about employees’ rights or the purpose for which a system is used directly affect whether employees accept AI as part of their everyday work. Trust is similarly weakened by concerns that employees’ ability to influence matters may be reduced and by doubts regarding the system’s actual capabilities.
Employers should therefore invest in introducing AI as openly and transparently as possible and in providing comprehensive information to personnel. Integrating AI into HR functions is always a process of change that requires traditional change management and learning. New technology may initially place a burden on both its users and those affected by its decisions, depending on the individual’s role and readiness. Management should therefore listen to employees, provide the necessary support and, above all, communicate clearly about the change. Subsequent disagreements and potential legal proceedings are also best prevented by investing in competence and AI literacy.
Usability is central to a successful AI investment. A phenomenon known as “shadow AI” has emerged: where employer-provided tools are perceived as difficult or inefficient, employees may begin to use external AI solutions instead of the organisation’s approved tools. This may cause the benefits of the investment to be lost while creating concrete data protection and cybersecurity risks as data is processed through uncontrolled channels. In addition to ensuring adequate AI literacy, organisations must therefore provide proper user training so that everyone knows how to use the new systems. Clear internal guidance is also needed on how external AI tools, such as general-purpose chatbots and other services, may be used at work. This helps protect personal data, trade secrets and other confidential information.
A central principle of the AI era is that an AI system is only as reliable as the data it uses. In addition to considering big data, organisations must pay close attention to their own HR data. If the data is incomplete or inaccurate, the AI system will inevitably draw incorrect or imprecise conclusions. At worst, an employer may unintentionally discriminate against an employee or job applicant where historical data contains structural bias. The EU AI Act therefore expressly requires the quality and reliability of data to be ensured in high-risk HR systems. In practice, this means that HR data must be collected, updated and cleaned continuously so that AI-based decisions are based on information that is as representative, accurate and relevant as possible. This is not an entirely new principle, as Finnish employers have for more than twenty years been required under the Act on the Protection of Privacy in Working Life to process only employee data that is necessary for the employment relationship.
Conclusion
The enormous potential of AI will undoubtedly be used more extensively to support HR functions in the coming years. Although its use is not free from legal or ethical challenges, AI can at its best make work more meaningful and HR and managerial processes more equal, personalised and efficient. However, AI must be introduced and used systematically so that organisations can realise its full potential while safeguarding employees’ rights. Ultimately, people remain at the heart of all of this: the users who turn strategy into reality in their daily work. Organisations that genuinely invest in their personnel’s technical and ethical competence, as well as in user-friendly tools, will be well positioned in the age of AI.
A person wearing a white shirt stands against a brick wall. Their expression is neutral, the background is brown and red, and the image has a distinctive atmosphere.
Kaisa Salo
Counsel
+35840 168 1418
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The Act on Co-operation within Undertakings will change from 1 July 2025. As a result of the amendments, the co-operation obligations of employer organisations with 20–49 employees will be restricted quite significantly compared with the current situation. The obligations of larger employers with at least 50 employees will also be eased, as the minimum negotiation periods will be reduced by half.
What does the change to the Act’s general scope of application mean?
From 1 July 2025, the Act on Co-operation within Undertakings will apply in full to companies, organisations and branches that regularly employ at least 50 employees. By contrast, the obligations of employers with 20–49 employees to conduct change negotiations and engage in dialogue will be considerably more limited. The provisions concerning employee representation and sanctions will continue to apply to all employers with at least 20 employees. The Act will continue not to apply in any respect to employer organisations with fewer than 20 employees.
What will change for employers with at least 50 employees?
A significant change is that the statutory minimum negotiation periods will be reduced by half. Accordingly, if an employer is planning workforce reduction measures affecting fewer than 10 employees or material changes to employment terms on financial and production-related grounds, the minimum negotiation period will be seven days from the beginning of July. If, for example, an employer is planning to lay off at least 10 employees indefinitely, the negotiation period will in future be three weeks. The shorter seven-day negotiation period will apply to temporary lay-offs lasting no more than 90 days. It will also remain possible for collective agreements to provide for negotiation periods that differ from those laid down by law.
It should be noted that the minimum requirements for change negotiations will not otherwise change. Employers must continue to address the grounds for the proposed measures, the intended plans, their effects, alternatives and measures supporting employment in the same way as under the current legislation. Although the shorter negotiation obligation may seem like a relief, careful advance planning will become even more important to ensure that all statutory requirements can be met within half the previous time. If an employer intends to conduct negotiations on an organisational change that would materially alter the employment terms of eight employees in different personnel groups, each with its own representative, the employer may be facing a very busy week if it wishes to complete the negotiations within the statutory minimum period.
What will change for employers with 20–49 employees?
A significant easing is that smaller employers will no longer automatically be required to initiate a change negotiation process in order to implement planned organisational changes or workforce reduction measures. First, temporary lay-offs lasting no more than 90 days will be completely excluded from the scope of change negotiations for smaller employers. The obligation to conduct change negotiations will nevertheless continue to apply where planned workforce reduction measures or material changes to employment terms on financial and production-related grounds affect at least 20 employees within a period of 90 calendar days.
The 90-day period referred to above may cause difficulties in some situations. For example, if indefinite lay-offs are initially considered for 16 employees, change negotiations do not need to be conducted before the measures are implemented. However, if the assessment later proves incorrect and a further five employees must be laid off within 90 days, the employer must initiate change negotiations concerning the new lay-off needs because the total number of affected employees exceeds 20. Companies with fewer than 50 employees will always apply the seven-day negotiation period.
Employers with 20–49 employees will also no longer be required to conduct change negotiations concerning so-called minor changes to the organisation or arrangement of work that fall within the employer’s managerial prerogative. However, the information and consultation obligations relating to transfers of undertakings, mergers and demergers must continue to be complied with in the same way as under the current legislation.
The obligation to engage in dialogue with personnel will remain. However, workplaces with 20–49 employees will in future have greater freedom to design their own workplace-specific dialogue practices, including the matters to be discussed and the timing of the dialogue. This is an excellent opportunity to build co-operation practices tailored to the needs of each workplace community. Despite this flexibility, the dialogue must still cover at least those matters required under other legislation, such as the principles governing the collection of personal data. Employers should seek to agree on the dialogue practices with personnel, but the employer will ultimately decide how the process is arranged. The practices must be documented and communicated to personnel, for example on the workplace intranet.
What does the new period reserved for assessing employment services mean?
The new provision may affect the timing of employment termination measures following change negotiations and should be taken into account carefully, as a breach may also result in an obligation for the employer to pay compensation.
If the employer has issued a negotiation proposal indicating that at least 10 employees may be dismissed, the employment of a dismissed employee may not end before 30 days have passed since the negotiation proposal was submitted to the employment authority. The purpose of the provision is to ensure that the employment authority has sufficient time to identify, together with the employer, employment services that support re-employment before the employment contract ends. The notice period and the 30-day period may run concurrently, and the period will be calculated in calendar days from the submission of the negotiation proposal. In practice, a short negotiation period combined with a short notice period could result in the employment relationship ending before the 30-day period has elapsed. This must therefore be taken into account when scheduling termination measures. For smaller employers, the obligation will arise only in relatively limited circumstances, as they will generally be required to issue a negotiation proposal only where workforce reduction measures affect at least 20 employees.
Conclusion
Despite the increased flexibility, the legislative amendments will introduce a considerable number of new issues and questions of interpretation that employers must take into account. Timely and careful planning of the processes will become even more important, even though the negotiation periods will be significantly shorter. The new thresholds will require particular vigilance from employers with 20–49 employees when assessing the effects of planned measures on personnel.
Please contact us if you are planning personnel changes and the amendments to the Act on Co-operation within Undertakings are making your head spin. We are happy to help.
Kaisa Salo
Counsel
040 168 1418
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