Benefits and salary
Personnel’s competence and well-being is very important for us. We offer meaningful, reliable jobs in a constantly evolving working environment.
Benefits
The Defence Forces provides its personnel with various benefits, such as a housing benefit and a possibility to use the Defence Forces’ recreational areas. We care for our personnel, providing flexible work time and a possibility to work from home. We also enable weekly exercising and offer a wide range of occupational health services.
We all work for a common goal. The results gained from the work community survey suggest that the meaningfulness of tasks, commitment to work, a nice working atmosphere and good leadership are rated especially high among the personnel. The Defence Forces has also been ranked high in various surveys aimed at professionals and students that seek to identify the most-sought-after employers in Finland.
Exercising: Our personnel have an opportunity to do sports during their working hours. Whenever their duties allow, personnel can use 2-3 working hours a week to exercise. The opportunity to maintain both physical and mental well-being has been widely welcomed by the personnel. We also provide our personnel with various possibilities to do sports and other activities in their freetime.
Further training: The Defence Forces encourages its personnel to enhance their knowledge and skills, investing resources into further training. The personnel can choose from a wide range of continuing training and education courses, the objective of which is to strengthen and maintain professional skills and to learn new ways to manage tasks, working methods and tools.
We perform so-called “task and succession planning” which allows for continuous enhancement of personal skills and job rotation within the Defence Forces. Job rotation within the government administration is also possible, thanks to which all personnel groups may seek a fixed-term post in another government organisation, outside the Defence Forces. This is another tool in systematic skills and knowledge enhancement.
Flexible work time and working from home: The Defence Forces personnel have flexible work time. Generally, remote work and dispersed work is possible in all of the administrative units of the Finnish Defence Forces when a person’s duties allow. If nature of tasks allows remote work, personnel may work from home 12 days a month.
Housing benefit: Our employees are entitled to a housing benefit. That is, the Defence Forces offers them an apartment for rent in the relevant travel-to-work area. The employee is entitled to a rent subsidy for a period of four years if they do not own an apartment in that particular travel-to-work area. This is very helpful in arranging practical matters especially in case of military careers, during which jobs and places of work change at regular intervals.
Recreational areas: The Defence Forces’ recreational areas are resorts that can be visited by all employees of the Defence Forces in their free time and during holidays. The resorts are located in different parts of Finland: In Kuusamo, Northern Finland, in Merikarvia, Western Finland, and in Taipalsaari, South-eastern Finland. The resorts are located in areas with a myriad of possibilities for pastime activities, and their peaceful surroundings are also safe for children and ideal for family holidays.
Salary
The current salary scales can be found here .
In the Defence Forces, the salary consists of two components, a task-specific and personal salary component. With this system, the Defence Forces wants to encourage its employees to carry out their duties to the best of their ability. The task-specific component is based on the competence requirements for carrying out the duties. The following salary scales are used to determine salaries for tasks in different competence categories:
- Management and expert tasks of officer specialists and civilians (ESJA)
- Civilian tasks (SIV)
- Tasks of officers, military chaplains and military conductors (JSA)
- NCO tasks (AU)
The competence category of the task is always mentioned in the Defence Forces’ job advertisements. With this piece of knowledge, you can have a look at the relevant salary scale. For example, "SIV 8" means competence category 8. In the ESJA salary scale, the final salary is determined on the basis of the person’s level of education and work experience. Therefore, job advertisements for ESJA posts give a salary range, for example ESJA 8-9.
A new employee’s personal salary component is 17% for the first six months. Employees and their superior have an annual career development discussion, in which the superior assesses the employee’s personal performance and achievement of goals. The maximum personal salary component is 37% of the task-specific salary component.
Extras
In certain tasks, extras may be paid, for example for flight or maritime duties or military exercises. Extras may be quite substantial.
For example:
A public official participating in a military exercise receives an extra pay of EUR 131.02 a day.
Extras paid for tasks in aircraft maintenance involving responsibility and risks, if specified in the job description, range from EUR 307.10–1,239.98 a month, depending on the employee’s years in service and their service commitment.
For service afloat, the extra pay is EUR 70.24–172.89 a day plus a tax-free daily allowance for each service day afloat. The daily allowance for service afloat is either a full-day or a half-day allowance. It is raised by EUR 68.07 if the vessel is not at the home port between 1600 and 0800 hours. A public official ordered to sentry duty at a military port receives the extra pay for service afloat, raised by EUR 99.66.
Examples of total salaries:
Personnel Coordinator (SIV 9): Starting salary is EUR 3,109.99 a month.
ICT Specialist, civilian (ESJA 11-12): Starting salary, depending on the person’s level of education and work experience, is EUR 4,433.07 - 4,708.02 a month. An employee participating in a week-long exercise receives an extra pay of EUR 131.02 a day for seven days, totalling EUR 917.14.
Systems Engineer, Officer Specialist (ESJA 8-9): Starting salary, depending on the person’s level of education and work experience, is EUR 3,622.36 - 3,911.97 a month. Their duties may include service afloat with extra pay, which may raise monthly earnings substantially.
NCO instructor (AU 5): Starting salary is EUR 2,745.37 a month. In addition, military duties include a certain number of military exercises, for which NCO instructors receive extra pay of EUR 131.02 a day plus, potentially, premium pay for working on Sundays or public holidays.