A file photo of two people holding banknotes. Helsingin Sanomat has written about current and former employees of the City of Helsinki who have had to look into discrepancies in their payslips and wages for as long as 18 months. (Vesa Moilanen – Lehtikuva)
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THE CITY OF HELSINKI on Wednesday estimated that its much-discussed payroll problems have been largely, if not completely, overcome.
“From our perspective, the payroll problems no longer exist. Erroneous wages make up 1.36 per cent [of paid wages], which is a very good result with our volumes. We send out around 60,000 payslips a month,” Anniina Kitula, the director of financial management services at Helsinki, stated to Helsingin Sanomat on Tuesday.
Around 800 payslips a month thus continue to contain errors.
Kitula also estimated that the customer service is working well: the wait time for customer service calls is 6–8 minutes and the call-back rate is 70 per cent.
“There are still cases where we unfortunately have to recover excessive wages. That’s also in the best interests of municipal residents. We’re spending taxpayers’ money,” she commented to the newspaper.
She added that the department will extend the repayment period from two to four weeks and continue to allow employees to request flexibility for repayment for up to four months.
Helsingin Sanomat has in the past months written about a number of current and former municipal employees who have received claims for the recovery of thousands of euros in allegedly excessive wages.
Some of them have provided transaction details indicating that they never received the wages, while many others have reported that determining the grounds of the recovery claims has proven very painstaking. An unemployed practical nurse, for example, told that the city has failed to look into their case despite a number of phone calls and unanswered call-back requests.
Johanna Laisaari (SDP), the deputy mayor of education at the City of Helsinki, stated to Helsingin Sanomat on Wednesday that the payroll woes are not yet over. “We still have trails to look into.”
The priority, she added, should be to clear up cases where employees have had problems with erroneous wages for a long time and to provide more support to employees looking into the grounds of their repayment demands.
“To say that the payroll mess is over is saying too much,” echoed Daniel Sazonov (NCP), the deputy mayor of social services and health in Helsinki.
He underscored to the newspaper that although payroll errors are inevitable in an organisation as large as the city, the city should be able investigate errors immediately after they have occurred and avoid major mistakes, such as the failure to pay wages entirely.
“You can’t say that the payroll mess is over until the city’s reputation as an employer has been restored.”
Deputy Mayor Anni Sinnemäki (Greens) revealed that the city has tried to learn its lesson from the problems and drafted new rules for managing transitions in order to prevent similar crises in the future.
“In future, changes will happen and new systems will be acquired,” she said.
The Finnish capital has dealt with payroll problems since the spring of 2022, with poor management and lack of preparation for the transition to a new payroll system identified as the cause of the problems. An external audit also found that the city delayed taking action to rectify the problems.
Aleksi Teivainen – HT
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Source: www.helsinkitimes.fi
