ISLET­TER HIGH­LIGHT: Jere Reinikainen, Univ. of Helsinki

THROUGH ISLET BINOC­U­LARS: JERE REINIKAINEN, HEAD OF HR FINAN­CIAL SYS­TEMS AND REPORTING

In what kind of orga­ni­za­tion do you work and what is your role there?

I work at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Helsin­ki, Fin­land’s largest and old­est uni­ver­si­ty of sci­ence. Since 1640, it has been involved in cre­at­ing a fair and equi­table soci­ety, which is con­sid­ered by many as the best in the world. Today, the mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ty is solv­ing prob­lems that affect us all, also inter­na­tion­al­ly. The sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ty of 40,000 stu­dents and work­ers is cre­at­ing solu­tions that shape the future of our plan­et and Humankind.

The uni­ver­si­ty oper­ates on four cam­pus­es, but there are offices from Kenya to Lake Kilpisjärvi. Inter­na­tion­al­i­ty plays a major role in all uni­ver­si­ty activ­i­ties. My role is with­in the finance and HR indus­try and in both finan­cial and HR sys­tems and report­ing. My team cur­rent­ly includes 10 full-time peo­ple and in addi­tion we use a lot of partners.

To which direc­tion is your field developing?

The uni­ver­si­ty world is under­go­ing a major trans­for­ma­tion both in Fin­land and abroad. The val­ue of research and edu­ca­tion is per­ma­nent, although changes in trends can occur from time to time. In Fin­land, some kind of clos­er coop­er­a­tion and con­cen­tra­tion between uni­ver­si­ties will prob­a­bly take place in the future. There are more than 17,000 uni­ver­si­ties world­wide and more will come. The Uni­ver­si­ty of Helsin­ki is ranked glob­al­ly in a range of 50 – 100 between all uni­ver­si­ties. The dif­fer­ent rank­ings are a bit like the stock mar­ket price of the uni­ver­si­ty world, mean­ing they show the com­par­i­son and devel­op­ment between universities

It is inter­est­ing to see how uni­ver­si­ties will retain their aca­d­e­m­ic free­dom in the future that eco­nom­ic fac­tors do not begin to con­trol what is being stud­ied. Big play­ers like Google have set up their own train­ing pro­grams to train and hire top pro­fes­sion­als. With dig­i­tal­iza­tion, knowl­edge and cours­es become more acces­si­ble. The con­cern is that mon­ey gets too much con­trol over what is being stud­ied. The uni­ver­si­ty has a sol­id his­to­ry of research­ing where the econ­o­my is not even the top factor.

What is your organization’s key mes­sage to its stake­hold­ers and customers?

The Uni­ver­si­ty of Helsin­ki is a top mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary and inter­na­tion­al uni­ver­si­ty. Open­ness and glob­al­iza­tion are at the heart. The goal is to change atti­tudes and soci­ety for the bet­ter in the world. The best solu­tions to glob­al chal­lenges come from coop­er­a­tion. We invite alum­ni, foun­da­tions, com­mu­ni­ties and com­pa­nies to join us in build­ing a bet­ter future through edu­ca­tion and research.

How does your orga­ni­za­tion retain top tal­ents and what makes your orga­ni­za­tion a great place to work?

We have been able to cre­ate a good, pos­i­tive atmos­phere. The Uni­ver­si­ty of Helsin­ki has a lot of long careers and a lot of inter­est­ing things that the staff can get involved with. The Uni­ver­si­ty is a very ver­sa­tile player.
We do not com­pete with salaries, but Fin­land and Helsin­ki are the strengths of the fierce com­pe­ti­tion in the world of acad­e­mia, espe­cial­ly the oppor­tu­ni­ties for qual­i­ty of life and the orga­niz­ing con­di­tions out­side work.

What is the best part of your work?

We are work­ing hard on sys­tems and report­ing at the moment. We are not jerky but con­stant­ly doing a lot of new things and devel­op­ing the old. My role is quite inde­pen­dent and there is strong sup­port from my employ­er for doing things. Although you work hard and do a lot, it is impor­tant to keep your well-being in bal­ance. We strive to be pio­neers in the devel­op­ment and use of digitalization.

How would you describe the part­ner­ship with ISLET?

We have a desire to uti­lize sup­pli­ers / part­ners exten­sive­ly, both in imple­men­ta­tion, spar­ring, and review. The part­ner­ship with ISLET is straight­for­ward, open, and devel­op­men­tal and imag­i­na­tive. This is a great way to work togeth­er and you can learn a lot both ways. It is gen­uine part­ner­ship and open to work­ing togeth­er. Islet­ter is a flam­boy­ant and knowl­edge­able per­son who tru­ly wants to devel­op solu­tions. It’s been a plea­sure work­ing pro­fes­sion­al­ly with the Islet­ter. Every time you bring a new idea to the table, you get the feel­ing that you know what you’re talk­ing about.

Own mot­to

I was involved in the EK cam­paign where I came up with the mot­to on the fly “Fam­i­ly is always fam­i­ly”. This comes from the fact that I feel our way of work­ing is one where com­mu­ni­ty and the role of our team are some­how behind this mot­to. Anoth­er thing that is linked to this mot­to in terms of my own work is that I can real­ly glance over the whole thing in terms of the bal­ance between leisure and work.

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