Kauniainen: Changes in the duties of day-care centre managers - A description of an HuIA process

Background

Human Impact Assessment (HuIA) was applied by the Social and Health Committee of Kauniainen in examining changes to be made in the duties of day-care centre managers. Most day-care centre managers held two jobs at the same time, that is, they worked on a full-time basis as kindergarten teachers in addition to their management duties. It had, however, proved difficult to combine these two jobs. When the managers of two day-care centres retired, it became possible to re-organise the existing human resources. The manager positions that became vacant could be transformed into kindergarten teacher positions and the work duties of two managers could be extended to cover the management of two day-care centres.

The HuIA process and participants

The day-care director responsible for the drafting work conducted a HuIA together with the day-care centre managers and a rotating special kindergarten teacher. In August 2006, possible threats, opportunities, strengths and weaknesses related to potential changes were examined with the day care management group using the SWOT method. In October, the management group analysed the impacts of different alternatives on the basis of the SWOT results.

Alternatives and impacts

The appraisal involved two alternatives. In alternative A (currently in use), most day-care centre managers also work with a group of children in addition to their management duties. The number of the managers will remain unchanged (at 8). In alternative B, the duties of two day-care centre managers will be extended by turning them into administrative managers who concentrate on a full-time basis on the management and early childhood education of two day-care centres. The change will take place after two managers are retired and their positions are turned into positions of kindergarten teachers. The number of day-care centre managers will thus be reduced to six.

See the table

The threats, opportunities, weaknesses and strengths identified in the SWOT analysis were taken into account in comparing the alternatives so as to avoid giving undue emphasis to positive or negative impacts and to gain an understanding of the overall impacts of the alternative. This was used as a basis in considering how to avoid potential threats.

Consideration by the Committee

The Social and Health Committee considered the matter on 24 October 2006 and decided to put alternative B into practice. The experiences gained showed that the rapid HuIA facilitated decision-making by the Committee and also the implementation of the process of change that had been agreed upon.