Flexible working culture - Rethinking of work, place, time and life

Programme 2007 - 2013 Central Baltic (FI-SE-EE-LA)

Date of latest update: 2025-07-05

Description

Description (EN):

The development of attractive island communities requires competitiveness and innovation. It also requires the development and recognition of island communities and the archipelago as a whole, in regional, economical, and political terms. Because of the geographic heterogeneity of the islands as well as the regional inequality within the archipelago, flexible work arrangements offer one possibility of shrinking the distances and improving regional dynamics. Flexible work enables many ways of maintaining one’s work capacity and promoting the wellbeing of one’s work community without any sacrifice to the efficiency of one’s work. Well-to-do people are needed in a well functioning society that is based also on social capital. Flexible work arrangements may give the employee the solitude that s/he has been longing for, but it may also strengthen the work community or give rise to entirely new work communities. Flexible work arrangements provide the opportunity to get familiar with a new work environment, create a new kind of interaction, and promote the interaction of work, activity, corporate, and housing cultures. Flexible work arrangements still have to be supported by e.g. good and concrete examples; employers and employees need to be engaged in teleworking issues; occupational health care, mobile services, broadband issues, e-learning potential and e-services need to be developed; the challenges of data security have to be addressed, the impact on regional economy assessed; there is a demand for information, branding, and overall rethinking of the entity composed of work, place, time, and life in general. Project has three main objectives: 1) Archipelago area is going to be a more attractive and dynamic environment 2) Verify the health, wellbeing and motivating benefits generated by new flexible work arrangements 3) Examining the effects of flexible work in regional development and promoting the effects of telework agreement by EU in national level Based on these three objectives, the project has 3 Work Packages + management WP 1: WP 1) Project management and coordination WP 2) Flexible working centre, work experiment and local development actions: Identification and development of premises that would be suitable for teleworking; looking for employees, entrepreneurs, companies and employers to try out flexible work; developing of local service concept WP 3) Flexible work training and measurement of the benefits of it: Flexible work training of management and work community and concrete try-out of flexible working as well as measurement of the benefits generated by new arrangements WP 4) Regional policy, economy and telework agreement by EU: Meeting the challenges of regional policy, economy and development

Achievements (EN):

The project FLEX promoted ways of attracting more recreational residents, employers, employees, entrepreneurs and companies to the islands and the archipelago by means of flexible work. The project also studied the benefits of flexible work arrangements both form the inhabitant's point of view and in the context of regional policies and economic development. The project contributed to the recognition of flexible work as a natural and efficient way of carrying out productive work, and promoted the health and wellbeing benefits generated by flexible work arrangements. In a number of pilot studies the project developed flexible working centres where employers had the possibility to telework for specific time periods. The project also carried out surveys to compare the health status of employees working in their ordinary working environment and employees carrying out telework. Researchers analysed the impacts of flexible work on regional policy, economy and development.

Website: http://projects.centralbaltic.eu/

Thematic information

Labour market and employment Regional planning and development

Partners (7)

Lead Partner: Turun yliopisto

Address: Turun yliopisto, 20014 Turun yliopisto, Finland

Legal status: n/a

TTÜ Kuressaare Kolledž

Name: TTÜ Kuressaare Kolledž

Address: Rootsi 7, 93819 Kuressaare, Estonia

Legal status: n/a

Työterveyslaitos Arbetshälsoinstitutet

Name: Työterveyslaitos Arbetshälsoinstitutet

Address: Topeliuksenkatu 41 a A, 00250 Helsinki, Finland

Legal status: n/a

Novia University of Applied Sciences

Name: Novia University of Applied Sciences

Address: Raseborgvägen 9, 10600 Raseborg, Finland

Legal status: n/a

Åbo Akademi

Name: Åbo Akademi

Address: Fabriksgatan 2, 20500 Raseborg, Finland

Legal status: n/a

Nordregio

Name: Nordregio

Address: SE-11186 Stockholm, Sweden

Legal status: n/a

Företagsam Skärgård

Name: Företagsam Skärgård

Address: Skärgårdskontoret, 22710 Föglö, Finland

Legal status: n/a

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Kuressaare College of Tallinn University of Technology

Flexible working culture - Rethinking of work, place, time and life

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Työterveyslaitos

Flexible working culture - Rethinking of work, place, time and life

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Yrkeshögskolan Novia

Flexible working culture - Rethinking of work, place, time and life

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Åbo Akademi

Flexible working culture - Rethinking of work, place, time and life

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Nordregio - Nordic Centre for Spatial Development

Flexible working culture - Rethinking of work, place, time and life

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Enterprising Archipelago

Flexible working culture - Rethinking of work, place, time and life

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Uneviversity of Turku

Flexible working culture - Rethinking of work, place, time and life

Lead partner

Project partner

Summary

Project name (EN): Flexible working culture - Rethinking of work, place, time and life

Project acronym: FLEX

Project start date: 2010-01-01

Project end date: 2012-04-30

Project status: closed

Total budget/expenditure: EUR 518 336.00

Total EU funding (amount): EUR 392 632.00

Co-financing sources:

Information regarding the data in keep.eu on the programme financing this project

Financing programme

2007 - 2013 Central Baltic (FI-SE-EE-LA)

Last month that data in keep.eu was retrieved from the Programme's website or received from the Programme

2014-09-01

No. of projects in keep.eu / Total no. of projects (% of projects in keep.eu)

122 / 122 (100%)

No. of project partnerships in keep.eu / Total no. of project partnerships (% of project partnerships in keep.eu)

672 / 672 (100%)

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Flexible working culture - Rethinking of work, place, time and life

Description

Thematic information

Partners (7)

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Summary

Information regarding the data in keep.eu on the programme financing this project

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