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Ever thought about living in two amazing places ? In Finland, many people split their time between bustling cities like Helsinki and the serene countryside. With over 0.5 million second homes, nearly 40% of Finns either own or visit these rural getaways.

The trend of occasionally residing in a rural second home is booming, partly due to the increased remote work opportunities after COVID crisis. After all, why stay in the city when you can work from your countryside cottage, enhancing your well-being with pristine nature?

A multilocal lifestyle offers a model for revitalizing left-behind rural areas, boosting local economies and supporting community life. But it also presents challenges. After a long period of population decline, the South Savo region, for example, now hosts up to 100,000 temporary residents. This increase in temporary population can strain rural infrastructure. WinWin4WorkLife therefore explores how remote work can make multilocal living a sustainable way to enjoy the best of both worlds.

What:

Apart from its unique focus on multilocal living, the Finnish study also dives into the broader economic, social and spatial impacts of remote work, just like in the other case studies.

  • Economic impacts on productivity and mental well-being
  • Social impacts on quality of time and quality of life
  • Spatial impacts on daily mobility, land-use, air pollution and noise
  • Case-study specific impacts of multilocal living on local communities

Where:

The wider socio-economic impacts of remote work are examined for the whole of Finland, but we zoom in on the Helsinki Metropolitan Area and South Savo region to examine its spatial impacts on daily mobility and land-use.

Who:

  • Are you a company located in Finland, employing at least 5 employees? Then participate in our employer survey. In case you have received an invitation from us, click ‘log in’ at the top of this page. If not and you want to participate, then click ‘I want to participate’ in the box below.
  • Are you an employee living in Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa, Kauniainen or the South Savo region? Then participate in our employee study.
  • Are you a stakeholder (expert, policy-maker, practitioner, …) interested in the future of remote work in Finland? Then sign up for our Stakeholder Panel.

Course of the study

  • Step 1: 1000 companies will kick things off with an employer survey about their remote work policies, workforce productivity and mental health concerns.
  • Step 2: Next up, 1000 employees will share their remote work experience in an employee survey. We’ll dive into its impact on work-life balance, productivity and mental health, and see if it might inspire employees to move residences or change jobs.
  • Step 3: The excitement continues as 400 employees will use the mobile-friendly MOTUS app to complete a time use diary. Make it to this stage, and you might win an exciting prize!
  • Step 4: Then, we will invite 30 employees for an in-depth interview to explore how remote work impacts household arrangements.
  • Step 5: Finally, insights from these employer and employee studies will fuel a series of local co-creation workshops. Here, stakeholders will discuss the future of remote work in Finland and the South-Savo region more specifically.

Interested to participate?

Click on ‘I want to participate’ to find out if you are eligible for the study. If you are already a participant, you can proceed to ‘log in’ at the top of this screen.

Regional contact for this study

Dr. Riku Reunamaki (University of Helsinki)