The Director General of the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri), Ilkka Haahtela, apologised to Migri employees for his behaviour through the organisation's intranet in March. The apology came in the wake of a series of public statements that damaged employee trust in his leadership.
"I have made mistakes in showing appreciation and I apologise for that. Feedback shows that mistrust of staff appreciation has arisen, especially in dealing with issues in the media," Haahtela wrote.
Job satisfaction remains at a low at the Finnish Immigration Service, with employees' ratings of management and leadership below the average for government agencies, according to internal surveys obtained by Yle.
Yle viewed Migri's staff well-being surveys for the end of 2023 and the current year as well as the agency's new staff survey.
Morale nose dived last autumn
Migri's public image has been tarnished by negative press in recent years. These have included the treatment of a nurse from Mongolia, Migri's questionable policies on the 'best interests' of children and granting a residence permit to a suspected terrorist.
According to Migri's employee well-being surveys, many of the staff have felt that Haahtela has not defended his subordinates in public, criticising them instead.
Haahtela told Yle that he acknowledges the criticism. In the case of the Mongolian nurse, for example, Haahtela criticised his employees in public, but later found out that mistakes were due to the agency's confusing instructions.
"With this experience, I would have said that there are a lot of structures in Migri that allow mistakes to be made," Haahtela told Yle.
Last November, almost two out of three employees who responded to a well-being survey said they were dissatisfied with their job at Migri. About one in ten were satisfied and the rest were neutral about their job.
According to Haahtela, last year was a difficult one at Migri, with the Director General claiming there were general symptoms of malaise.
"Staff were scared and there was a lot of negative feedback," Haahtela said.
Since then, the situation has improved slightly. In February 2024, just under half of respondents were still dissatisfied with their job at Migri, which employs more than 1,300 people. The surveys have had around 300-500 respondents.
Reforms make work difficult
Haahtela said that the job satisfaction figures were a reflection of big changes the organisation had to make in a short period of time, which can be frustrating for employees and increase workload.
"I can understand the criticism and uncertainty about where we are heading. We have been through quite a lot, but now we are on the home straight of the reforms," Haahtela said.
He also said that Migri has had shortcomings not only in the guidelines on residence permits, but also in supporting workers, leadership and job management. The organisation claims that reforms, including ongoing collective bargaining negotiations, are being implemented in an attempt to improve the situation.
Under Haahtela, a second internal auditor has been hired and the agency has carried out external reviews of its own operations.
Haahtela said he believed that the various investigations and fear of the possible consequences of mistakes may have created mistrust among staff.
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