Talent attraction
Innovating how Finland and Sweden work with talent attraction
08-10-2019
The 4th of October was a day when Finland and Sweden met to exchange experiences how to attract and retain talent.
It was quite an afternoon with experience exchange on Talent Attraction Management took place between the Finnish Government, Finnish regions and their TalentBoost programme, and the Swedish government and Stockholm Business Region. (Read more about the Talent Boost Cookbook Finland )
It is striking how similar the attraction and retention challenges are in the two Nordic countries. These stood out as the most topical ones:
1. How to support companies in their international recruitment – especially the smaller ones – and streamline administrative and bureaucratic processes? International House Helsinki, founded in 2018 year, and the International House Stockholm, launching in 2020, will play integral roles here.
2. Spouse recruitment – how to make sure accompanying partners find jobs? Finland has programmes in cities that work with this. Turku has even done a talent recruitment campaign like many places have – join the lottery to win a trip to the city for a week to meet your potential new employer. The difference with Turku Talent Call was that spouses and families were in the programme, too.
3. Retention of international students: In both countries many students want to stay after they finish their studies – but only a few percentages find opportunities to do so.
What Sweden and other countries can learn from Finland is not only the much talked about sisu, but readiness to act on words. The Finnish government has given a clear mandate to the ministries and Business Finland to both coordinate the work of Finnish cities, regions and to market Finland to talent globally, a mandate that is still lacking in Sweden – and great many other countries. We know from first hand discussions with governments, industry representatives how long overdue such a government initiative in many countries is. Finland acted and created the Talent Boost programme.
We thank Team Finland and Team Sweden for having been such great co-operation partners!
More information
Contact Marcus Andersson for more info
A snapshot article on what is Talent Attraction Management?
Download the Talent Boost Cookbook Finland to explore examples from Finnish cities.
News on the talent work we’ve done