An attractive multicultural work environment in the wellbeing services county of North Savo (TRACTION)

The TRACTION project promotes the integration of nurses with an immigrant background into Finnish work communities. It supports the culturally sensitive skills of work communities and managers and supports organizations in the growing shortage of nurses. To address this need, it is necessary to improve the recruitment and retention of labor. To support the processes of immigrant recruitment, it is important to react to the increased need for continuous learning and work orientation, which are the focus of this project. The purpose of the project is to produce tools and new operating models to support multicultural, multilingual, and multidisciplinary work communities.

There is a strong need for the TRACTION project in the healthcare sector. According to various estimates, by 2035 Finland will need approx. 200,000 new workers in the social and healthcare sector, and 18% of this should be supplemented by foreign recruitment. Developing traction and attraction
is critical to ensure a steady workforce in the healthcare sector, particularly when hiring from overseas. The employment challenges of nurses with an immigrant background are often related to oral and written language skills. With the help of the actions produced in the project, the aim is to create equal, attractive and sustainable jobs from the work units of the North Savo region.

The multicultural and multilingual work units of the North Savo welfare area and private producers of public care services (Attendo and Esperi) are the project’s target group. The project is coordinated by the Department of Nursing Science of the University of Eastern Finland in cooperation with the School of Humanities and the Centre for Continuous Learning. The project is based on ESF+ action line 4 ‘Competent and inclusive Finland that provides work’ special objective 4.2 ‘New competence to working life’.